AD’s Galaxy Traveler
A 21 st C e n t u r y 3D Sci-Fi RPG G a m e
Charted Space (The Back Story)
By the year 2447, humanity had spread its wings far beyond Earth, building colonies across hundreds of Solar Systems encompassing more than fifteen-thousand worlds, all connected like a complex spider web taking years to navigate even when traveling onboard the fastest spacecraft.
Being driven by the desire for discovery and knowledge, numerous types of governments developed, thrived, shaped trade and struggled to maintain peace amid the countless solar systems, even resorting to war when necessary.
Within this vast colossal realm of worlds, ten powerful empires emerged, their legacies stretching across centuries, seemingly endless. They stand as guardians of their domains, destined to rule for ages to come. Each Empire holds dominion over its celestial domains and manages its internal affairs autonomously, answerable solely to the statutes and mandates established by the Universal Court Assembly. Comprising of a sole representative from every empire, the Universal Court Assembly is chaired by an elected Chief Minister, their tenure subject to the whim of a simple majority vote of No Confidence.
This assembly serves as the arbitrator for inter-Empire conflicts, wielding authority to promulgate and enforce legislations aimed at fostering the welfare of the galactic populace. Its paramount duty extends to thwarting threats posed by coalition star systems or rebellious Empires. Empowered by its mandate, the Universal Court Assembly holds sway over the legality of an empire’s enacted laws, wielding the ability to impose levies to bolster its formidable military armada.
Amidst these celestial realms, the void between empire boundaries remains ungoverned, a frontier devoid of centralized rule.
Now, some historians argue that the first space-travel frenzy occurred when humans first landed on the Terran moon, but most claim that it happened when the majority of countries on Earth came together and created the first Jump drive.
This boom in propulsion and avionics technology came at the time humanity needed it the most— the biome of the mother planet was showing its gravest signs of wear yet, and the mass migration to the moon and the planet called Mars were ongoing too slowly.
Worldwide famines and plagues were turning into daily occurrences, as were natural disasters and revolts. Humanity had come to a deciding point in its history, where the balance between extinction and evolution mattered more than ever. They needed a way to get off of Earth, and fast. Humanity needed resources that their birth planet couldn’t offer anymore.
Humanity’s destiny came to rest on the shoulders of one woman, a true-born polymath. Aeneil was a scientist, a diplomat, an artist, a mother, and the most visionary inventor that ever came to life after DaVinci. She and her team were behind the creation of the first jump drive, as well as behind the logistics of its distribution. Aeneil was quick to take control of her work, not allowing any private party to capitalize on something that could save millions, if not billions, of lives. She oversaw the integration of the Jump drives on existing spacecraft, as well as the terraforming efforts of the planets to which her J-drives would be taking passengers.
In time, most big nations relinquished their power to Aeneil, trusting her to build a functioning society on Mars and the moons of Saturn.
Aeneil’s mind was kept alive much longer than her body. After setting up the colonies and making sure they were able to operate smoothly, Aeneil turned her focus to the next step: ultra-scale mining operations.
Another one of Aeneil’s talents was her ability to select the best engineers and technicians alive in her epoch. The task forces she set up to tackle certain challenges nearly always broke through the barriers of what science thought hitherto possible. From constructing incredible mining ships that were as big as the smaller moons of Jupiter, to making jump drives more and more efficient. Aeneil and her grunts kept uncovering secret after secret of the universe.
With time, Aeneil’s colonies began to drift ever further from their countries of origin. Unofficially, the colonies began recognizing themselves as “Aeneil’s Worlds,” going so far as to coin the term “Aeneil’s Republic.” After some politicians began pushing for independence, Aeneil—or at least, what remained of her body and conscience—was chosen as the new leader. The alterations, through cybernetics, that she had come to do to her body made it possible for her not to need to sleep; thus, from then on, Aeneil divided her time between regency and her inventions.
As centuries passed into millenniums the colonizing efforts of Aeneil’s Republic were kept at a brisking pace. However, its military vigilance started to pick up on strange data. Ripples between the stars, interference between distant star ports, and overall bizarre occurrences. Aeneil predicted what was happening years before the confirmation ever came—something was spying on humanity.
Her suspicions were proven true when asteroids within a distant belt—the one that would later come to be known as “Ursula’s Belt”—were found to be hollow, containing relics of a past civilization, long extinct. Their constructions were strange and bore the marks of weapons of war. Something had desolated an ancient star-faring civilization, and something was watching humanity. The implication was a simple one—something could be out to get them.
Aeneil’s teams explored the alien outpost, uncovering many scientific breakthroughs that could have been centuries, if not millenniums away. In the heart of the outpost was, however, something that would forever change the nature of Aeneil’s Republic—a room in which were the first stages of the construction of a weapon. With the help of a team of linguistic experts, computer historians, and engineers, they were able to revive some of the records of the previous race, as well as translate them.
It was, indeed, a weapon, capable of razing entire solar systems to the ground by initiating harsh and cascading quantum fluctuations, causing the universe to rip itself apart. The weapons that had caused the outpost’s destruction were not nearly as advanced, though. Whatever had attacked this outpost was not as advanced as the ancient civilization.
As Aeneil studied the weapon and its implications, whatever was spying on humanity began transmitting messages. When this happened, Aeneil turned her focus on keeping this information hidden from the general public until they knew more. She disliked keeping information from the people living under her, but she was aware this was for their protection.
Despite their best efforts, Aeneil’s teams failed to find any proof of alien life, except for more relics from the dead civilization. Eventually, a team found one of the transmitters, only to discover that it belonged to the very same ancient aliens. With access to it, they managed to clear out the encrypted message.
The message was short but simple:
“Forget about the weapon, and abandon it. War is not the way forward,”
The creation of such a dangerous weapon sparked wars among their people, leading to their governmental structures’ collapse, which, in time, led to their entire species to dwindle into extinction.
Aeneil, then, made a fateful decision. She wouldn’t perpetuate the cycle of violence and would do all that was possible to make sure Aeneil’s Republic would keep on the path for peace.
After ordering the abandoned alien outpost where the fluctuation weapon was found to be
destroyed, Aeneil created the Order of Lazarus. The order’s goal was simple: to attain naturally created immortality through selective breeding. Immortality can be artificially attainable by cybernetics but that would only lead to someone controlling the technology. If humanity bred immortals from then on, then the human species wouldn’t fall prey to war, for the plain reason that humans would consider their longevity before waging violence. Thus, the Order of Lazarus began attempting to breed a regent that would rule for ever.
At the current time, that hasn’t yet been accomplished.
Aeneil then took the decision to kill everyone who knew of the weapon and herself—their knowledge was far too dangerous. She had done what she could for her people, and her brain wasn’t what it had once been. She had lived far longer than any other human, and so, it was time to pass on the crown.
Of course, what followed her demise worked against her own wishes. Her successors used the toils of Aeneil to expand the Republic’s territory, often through violent means, until Aeneil’s Republic was renamed Aeneilian Empire, and Aeneil herself began to be remembered as a war deity instead of the peaceful scientist and inventor she really was.
Somewhere, vestiges of the fluctuation weapon floated. And somewhere, the Order of Lazarus is trying to breed the next Lazarus, the next Aeneil, the regent of the next Aeneilian Empire.
The fall of the Aeneilian Empire, centuries after Aeneil’s death, ended up creating two of the
most ruthless powers in the galaxy—the Larski Kingdom and the Nantanese Empire.
Aeneil’s Republic, throughout its lifetime, lost some states after they negotiated independence. Two of those states became part of the five founding members of the Federation of Orlam, which led to the empire, in which the Brother’s Corporation was created. The Aeneilian Empire was also the breeding ground of the Privateer League, as well as the place of origin of many gangs and mafias that would later come together to form the Far Reach Syndicate, eons later. Even the Lytzissic Empire, the GPNL Institute, and Ursula’s Belt Faction were branches of the all- encompassing Aeneilian ancestry.
Just like the Romans millennia before, the Aeneilian Empire faded into the pages of history, the motives of its founders lost in interpretations and myths.
Charted Space (The Back Story)
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