Earth is a living world, with the orbital presence a world of this age would have. A research base on the Moon. City lights on the night side. From orbit the planet matches the photographs: blue water, green land, white weather.
The wreckage in the system is a million years old. It is what the battle left when the Weapon was buried under the Moon. Nothing up here calls down about that, and nothing down there is listening for it.
People go to work, argue, and make dinner. They do not know a Weapon was buried over their heads. They also do not know that the Lord Captain standing between them and the rest of the galaxy was one of them, about three weeks ago.