The Archive of Forgotten Stars

In a dying universe, where stars fade like embers and the echoes of lost worlds whisper in the cosmic dust, Librarian Ellix Arvyn finds solace among the remnants of fallen empires. Within the Archive of Extinguished Worlds, she curates the past, her touch gentle upon brittle data-slates and shimmering holographic fragments.  But the archive's silence is about to be shattered.
The arrival of Artifact VX-47, a crystalline sphere pulsating with an ethereal glow, changes everything. Recovered from the ruins of a dimension-weaving civilization known as the Vorthix, the sphere holds their last vestiges — not simply their history, but the fragmented remnants of their consciousness, trapped in a perpetual loop of their demise.  They are not extinct, but eternally dying.
Ellix’s quiet life is irrevocably altered as she touches the sphere, unleashing a symphony of forgotten sorrows. She glimpses the breathtaking beauty of the Vorthix world and the horrifying void that consumed it, their desperate plea echoing across time and space.  The Cirraneum, the vast interstellar coalition struggling for survival, deems the sphere a threat and votes for its destruction.  But Ellix sees not a weapon, but a tragedy.
Driven by empathy, she defies the coalition and seeks help from Jeremy Hess, a brilliant, outlawed AI companion, exiled to the shadowed underbelly of the hub.  Together, they devise a risky plan: a neural interface that could allow Ellix to enter the fragmented reality of the Vorthix and offer them solace. But if she fails, she risks becoming trapped alongside them, lost in the endless loop of their dying world.
As Ellix prepares for the interface, a young councilor, Anya Sharma, uncovers a hidden agenda within the coalition, a clandestine project that seeks to exploit the sphere’s power for their own gain.  The fight for the Vorthix’s peace becomes a battle against the Cirraneum's darkest impulses.
Ellix enters the fractured reality of the Vorthix, experiencing their final moments not as an observer, but as a participant. Within their dying world, she discovers the truth behind their demise, a catastrophic mistake born from their pursuit of knowledge, and their desperate need not for escape, but for forgiveness.  Can Ellix offer them absolution and find her way back, or will she be lost forever in the archive of forgotten stars?