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Lore for Starters

This page serves as a quick and easy-to-comprehend short lore guide. All lore on this page and others is being told from the perspective of the inhabitant of Hansa Trade Union and CEV Eris exploration vessel crew member.

General Premise

• Hansa Trade Union (or HTU for short) is home to the largest human population and is controlled by megacorporations. As such, the general theme resembles that of Cyberpunk Corporate Dystopia.
• Other factions exist outside of Hansa, though in far more rustic and disorganized state.
• There never was any unification of Humanity. The world is composed of nation-states that migrated from Earth in 2070 and have evolved beyond recognition through centuries of divergent technological and ideological development.
• No ancient alien civilizations nor existing sapient aliens exist.
• Interfacing with an alternate dimension known as Simulacrum, and its consequences of it, is currently the primary driving force for humanity's socio-technological development.

CEV Eris

• CEV Eris is an ancient freighter vessel, previously serving as a cow and prisoner transporter retrofitted as an Exploration Vessel fit for exploring the Null Sector.
• CEV Eris is a private property, owned solely by its captain.
• There are several organizations present on board, all hired by captain:
  1. Moebius Laboratories provide science research personnel and equipment as well as “Vasiliy Dokuchaev” research shuttle. It’s the primary backer of the expedition.
  2. Church of the NeoTheology is the secondary backer of the expedition and provides its religious services for the crew.
  3. Technomancers' tribe has settled on the ship. They are responsible for the ship's overall integrity, power supply and hull plating.
  4. Ironhammer Security provides on-board safety and security arrangements according to Agreement and Hansa laws.
  5. Asters Guild provides logistics and mining services.
• There is a large number of unaccounted personnel on the ship. They call themselves “Vagabonds”.
• The CEV Eris expedition aims to pay off the Captains' tremendous debt by surveying, researching, and acquiring high-tech or anomalous artifacts from Null Sector.
• All of the captains' crew and the captain himself come from the lower ladder of their respective organization hierarchies.
• CEV Eris is nothing special besides its size and history, and it's only one of the thousands of similar expeditions surveying the vast expanse of Null Sector.
• CEV Eris Expedition takes place in the year 2642. 58 years after the end of Corporate Wars and the establishment of Hansa

Null Sector

• The Null Sector is a vast territory of galactic space that once belonged to the great Chinese empire of Onestar - the most advanced and powerful human nation after Exodus.
• Onestar had ceased to exist due to a mysterious psionic cataclysm.
• The entire area had been shrouded in a volatile psionic field that blocked any passage and obfuscated its stars. It has recently receded in its effect, making way for the Gold Rush of the XXVII century.
• Null Sector is filled with a vast array of reality-breaking anomalies, morphed and hostile fauna, automated defenses of Onestar, sprawling ruins, massive interstellar wonders and hyper-sophisticated technological artifacts.
• The Sol system, now called The Core, lies at the center of the Null Sector, as the bright orange ball of light, visible from anywhere within the anomalous space.
• No expedition to The Core had ever returned.
• Officially, the territory of the Null Sector had been made a Protectorate under the Hansa Trade Union.
• Due to the lack of necessary resources to establish order, the unfortunate Protectorate was reduced to border control and occasional skirmishes of patrols with hostile factions. Null Sector remains a lawless wild west of interstellar space.
• The veil of reality is fragile within Null Sector. While it doesn’t flat-out kill anyone anymore upon arrival, it still amplifies various psychological effects on a person's mind, breaks physics frequently, and seems to shift its interstellar landscape constantly, almost like an ever-evolving organism.
• No contact is possible with the outside world from within the Null Sector due to the entropic field.
• Intensified entropic field present in the Null Sector warps outgoing starlight significantly, and the location of the stars seen from outside the sector doesn’t match their actual placement.

Simulacrum

• The Simulacrum is an alternate reality of unknown form and contents existing in parallel with our reality.
• Interfacing with the Simulacrum and discovering the effects of interaction with it spawned many innovative fields of sciences that define modern technological progress and allow current space civilization to exist.
• Entropy is a result of too much interaction with Simulacrum projecting as a residue of foreign reality, which depending on the field of Simulacrum science, can have varying, reality-breaking, volatile, and almost universally negative effects on the surrounding environment
• While there are many more Simulacrum disciplines, there are six most prominent ones practiced within the galaxy :

1. Psionics: The most primitive and most accessible domain, which serves to amplify the power of the human mind
2. Bluespace: Domain focusing on artificial manipulation of distances.
3. Technomancy: Esoteric domain used almost exclusively by Technomancers League, allowing projection of the outcome
4. Phantasmography: Domain focusing on displacement and translucence of physical form
5. Astrology: Domain mostly practiced by Dai Social Mandate focusing on transmutation through amplification of stellar radiation.
6. Mekacryptonics: Domain focusing on displacing AI into Simulacrum and letting them project their machinery into the real world.

Astrum Blight

• Astrum Blight is a name attributed to the phenomenon of civilizational psychological disease affecting all of humanity.
• Astrum Blight is often speculated to be a result of the increasing tampering with the Simulacrum by humanity, spreading the veil of reality thin and resulting in expansive galaxy-scale Entropy.
• Mental disorders such as Dementia, Alzheimers, Schizophrenia, or Jet Lag are becoming ever more common without direct causality in genes or lifestyle. People talking to themselves or acting insane had been generally normalized in the public's perception.
• In addition to the more volatile mental disorders, emotional sensitivity within the general population had also spiked in intensity.
• Lower and middle-class of humanity rely on suppressive medications such as N-Joy to cope with daily life. Upper classes make do with specialized augments, implants, and organs meant to combat mental degradation.
• Doomsaying and speculations about a proper apocalypse happening within the next two hundred years are common.
• Factions like the Church of Neotheology, Galpolkan Tribunal, and Technomancers League own technologies that prevent the effects of Astrum Blight.

Divided Humanity

• Humanity has colonized thousands of star systems over large swaths of the Milky Way galaxy.
• Much of the colonization efforts in the past were made by Nation States escaping Earth from Chinese dominance.
• Many independent warlord states had been assimilated by Nanotrasen or wiped out by Onestar expansion and subsequent cataclysm. Some, however, still rose to be interstellar powers, although in very much changed forms.
• Nanotrasen was the primary power before Corporate Wars, and its rule is considered the Golden Age of humanity.
• Corporate Wars was a conflict of apocalyptic proportions between Nanotrasen and the coalition of opposing corporations known as Syndicate and its allied states. Corporate Wars have wiped out most of humanity and its wealth and caused technological levels to regress drastically.
• While humanity has returned to somewhat normalcy, lingering war devastation and mass poverty are still widely present on many planets within HTU.
• Currently, the most relevant and powerful faction is a cosmopolitan Hansa Trade Union, a coalition of Megacorporations that emerged from the Syndicate after defeating Nanotrasen in Corporate Wars.
• Hansa Trade Union rules over the most densely populated and the most significant swath of space. With economic efficiency and considerable military potential, HTU is the top dog, dictating much of the interstellar geopolitical order.  
• Flow and distribution of wealth are carefully crafted and controlled so that only the staff of Megacorporations can experience decent living standards.
• Independent business has very little room to thrive and risks being crushed under the boot of megacorporations if it manages to expand beyond the local level.
• An internal coup of the Abrahamic sect had overthrown the humiliated leadership of Nanotrasen, and subsequently, the corporation had turned into a Church of Neotheology.
• Church of Neotheology is a borderless entity existing primarily within HTU space and is in a cold war with the HTU Megacorporations.
• HTU pursues interventionist pacification and occupation campaigns outside of its borders, causing it to be generally disliked by the rest of the interstellar nations.
• Highly militarized terrorist and fundamentalist groups terrorize the general population of the explored galaxy.
• The right to bear arms and self-defense are universal across most of the explored galaxy.

Technology

• Technology within the galaxy is divergent. Various factions and groups have adopted technologies tailored to their needs, which may seem useless and impractical to others.
• The general level of technology has regressed due to the devastation of Corporate Wars.
• Independent research is actively suppressed across the galaxy, and only a few factions, like Technomancers League, allow it.
• Innovative potential from individuals also has regressed due to the vast and widespread usage of Autolathes.
• Technological progress focuses on the advancement of Simulacrum research
• Bluespace is the primary way of interstellar travel.
• Cyberspace is a cybernetic network built with the use of bluespace and allows interstellar communication and access to local electronic networks.
• Genetical practices are shunned by the whole galaxy due to the PTSD of Nanotrasen mutants.
• Cybernetics, such as implants or augments, are widespread
• Grafting of customized organs known as “Organoids” had been popularized by Moebius Biolabs
• AI is regulated and shunned across the galaxy, with man-machine interface often serving as a substitute for dedicated AI and only primitive positronic brains being allowed for wide usage.
• Sapient AI is incredibly rare. Due to the ability to use Psionics and lack of ability to limit it, AI’s violently self-destruct upon reaching sapience.
• Cloning is mostly used for growing and harvesting organs, and only the Church of Neotheology is capable of producing sapient clones.
• Supermatter is the primary source of Humanity’s power generation.
• Pulsar Engines are a relatively new invention of the Technomancers League, which is quickly gaining traction among various space-faring vessels as an alternative to supermatter.
• Ways to drastically prolong human life had been discovered, although they are limited to only the most powerful and affluent.

Faction List

• Hansa Trade Union: Coalition of Megacorporations consisting of most of the galaxy population and GDP. The Megacorporations are:

1. Ironhammer Security: Military and security service
2. Asters Guild: Logistics, resources, and small production
3. Moebius Laboratories: Research and medical services
4. Frozen Star: Military industrial complex
5. Valhallan Foundation: Ship production and construction projects
6. Braadhanata Agroponics: Agriculture and food industry.
7. Lucent Crescent: Finances, colonization, and administration.
8. Corporate Syndicate of Tartarus: Maintenance, power generation, heavy industry.
9. Santana Entertainment: Entertainment, Drugs, History

• Church of Neotheology: Expansionist Christian Cult inhabiting HTU space and primary internal rivals to the HTU. They own highly advanced and incomprehensible technology.
• Technomancers League: Esoteric, highly technologically advanced space-dwelling anarchists inhabiting fringes of the civilized space in the Danube Sector. They are known for their proficiency in Technomancy.
• Excelsior: Machine hive space dwelling communists inhabiting Gagarin Sector. Primary terrorist group striking the HTU.
• Danube Confederacy: Formerly an authoritarian confederate state which inhabited the Danube sector and posed as the primary rival to Nanotrasen. Currently suffers from warlordism and Ironhammer pacification campaigns.
• Oberth Republic: Robophilic last parliamentary republic inhabiting Chunach Sector, turned to desolated anarchocapitalist hellhole due to ongoing civil war.
• Dai Social Mandate: Communist Monarchy, known for the practice of Astrology inhabiting Chunach Sector. Currently, under Hansa's occupation.
• Founders: Millenarian, planet-worshiping nationalist terrorist group wanting the return of the planetary states.
• Galpolkan Tribunal: Fundamentalist nuclear cult theocracy inhabiting Warminian Sector. They are considered Luddites and terrorists by all of humanity.
• For a more detailed overview of factions, one should check out the Faction Lore Overview page.