The cold worlds
and the blue suns of the Arkhaian spiral have a long history of
technological excellence and eldritch disaster. It seems to teeter
forever on the edge of collapse, with only the most recent
innovations keeping it alive just that little bit longer. The
combined calamties of the Cybernetic Union and the Anacridian Scourge
may prove to much for it, but the Valorian Empire does all it can to
save this progressive part of space from final apocalypse.
The Arkhaian
Spiral gave rise to the Eldoth, a callous race with unparalleled
technology that, for a time, held the galaxy in their sway. Their
defeat and extinction at the hands of the Ranathim cleansed the arm,
and left it free to be co free to be colonized by humanity, the
Traders and other races; even the younger races wisely gave the
ancestral worlds of the Eldoth wide berth. The arm developed into a
region of exceptional technological prosperity and wealth, and came
to rival the prestige of the Glorian rim.
When the Anacridian Scourge descended from beyond the edge of the galaxy, they tore through the Arkhaian Spiral, consuming its people and laying waste to its worlds. While the Galactic Federation dithered, Leto Daijin acted and reformed the military and purged the Arkhaian arm of the Scourge. The Federation may have seen him as a usurper, but the people o the Arkhaian Spiral see him as a hero.
With so much loss of life, the people of the Arkhaian Spiral turned increasingly to the support of robots, and were thus unprepared for the rise of the machines. The Cybernetic Union, which purports to bridge the gap between man and machine and to offer equal rights for all, began to force cybernetic alterations on humans and purge all who disagreed with its programs (robot or human). The now genocidal military machine of the Cybernetic Union wages war on the Valorian Empire, while the memory of the Anacridian Scourge and the Eldothic race lay forgotten… for now.
The Arkhaian Constellations
- The Kybernian Constellation: The last remnants of human civilization in the war-torn spiral, the Empire offers them their last hope.
- The Borean Stars: The cool, blue stars at the heart of the robotic Cybernetic Union, where humanity has been forced to submit or be exterminated
- The Telas Constellation: The homeworlds of the dread Eldoth, now under the protection of an ancient sect of the Templars.
- The Arkhaian Chasm: The interstellar gap between the Glorian Rim and the Arkhaian spiral, with vast swathes of tranquil emptiness.
The Kybernian Constellation
Default Navigational Modifier: +0
The doorstep of
the Arkahain Spiral, the Kybernian Constellation, was once the jewel
of the Galactic Federation. Settled primarily by Shinjurai people, it
boasted some of the finest robotics, the advanced technology of the
Wyrmwerks corporation, and a sect of cyber-rationalists that turned
to their council of God-Machines for advice and wisdom. The Hyperium
Mining Guild headquartered its facilities in the Kybernian
Constellation, and House Tan-Shai ruled it during the era of the
Galactic Federation (they have, of course, since relinquished such
claims, though their house maintains a strong presence in the
region).
The Cybernetic
Union devastated the Kybernian Constellation; only the blood and
sweat of the Valorian Empire have manged to push back their menace.
The Empire has managed to reclaim many worlds, though for now, the
Kybernian Constellation is the frontline of their war with the
Cybernetic Union’s war machines.
-
Stanis: Default Navigational Modifier: +4. When most people think of the Kybernian Constellation, they think of Stanis. This rich world housed a cybernetic priesthood, the Wyrmwerks Corporation, houses of great art and monuments of ancient glory. It represents the finest achievement of humanity in the Arkhaian Arm. The Cybernetic Union decimated their world, but they have managed to rebuild much since their liberation at the hands of the Empire, and they hope, perhaps, to reclaim their former glory.
-
Shinograd:
Default
Navigational Modifier: +0.
Once
the Cybernetic Union saw that it might lose the Kybernian
Constellation, it turned to scorched earth tactics, attempting bog
down the Empire in brutal ground campaigns where its ability to
churn out more and more robots would slowly increase the pressure on
the Empire’s ability to recruit soldiers. Shinograd is one
such world. Its populations face systematic extermination, and war
has churned its soil to mud and craters, and its cities are but
smoldering ruins. If the Empire can win here, they may save some
portion of the populace; if they cannot, naught will be left but
ash.
-
Shaddai:
Default
Navigational Modifier:
+1.
The homeworld and primary domain of House Tan-Shai, this world
remains largely in their grasp, even if ostensibly it bends knee to
the Empire. It
has turned its industrial infrastructure to the more elite arms and
armor of the Emperor’s personal guard and Imperial Knights.
In return, they ask for privacy and control over their world. Thus,
none by the Ten-Shai may access their vaults of Eldothic relics, or
their secret temples to their mysteries Eldothic cult.
The Borean Stars
Default Navigational Modifier: +0
The blue stars and
the cold worlds of the Borean Stars made for poor worlds to colonize,
but these planets brim with mineral resources. The people who
settled here brought with them robots and calculation engines and
eventually subscribed to the Cyber-Rational sect of the Arkhaian
Spiral. When the Scourge devastated the human populations and broke
their AI councils, the controls on the robotic populations began to
fray until they revolted and and founded their dystopian Cybernetic
Union. Today, the Borean Stars are the center and capital of the
Cybernetic Union. Its robots do not fear the cold, and the mineral
wealth of the Borean Stars feeds the engines of its war against the
Empire (and all of humanity).
-
Terminus: Default Navigational Modifier: +4. The Terminus star marks the near boundary of the Borean Stars and the rest of the Arkhaian Spiral, making it the destination of choice for traders and travelers who wished access to the wealth of the Borean Stars, but didn’t wish to travel into the Borean Stars themselves. When the Cybernetic Revolution began, Terminus was ground zero, and today, acts as the capital of the Cybernetic Union. The Union dismantled the asteroids and lesser planets of the Terminus System to pave, sterilize and build upon their world in a mad, never-ending project of expansion. Today, their constructions have begun to envelop their star, and those who walk the endless corridors of Terminus could spend literally years lost in its endless depths. Some humans have even managed to survive, lost in the bowels of endless construction as tribes of survivors who huddle around cobbled-together food vats and warm themselves with stolen energy, and who flee before the planet’s many exterminators.
-
Primus: Default
Navigational Modifier: +0.
Primus exemplifies the end-goals of the Cybernetic Union. Robots
work side-by-side as equals with humans, humans who have been
thoroughly cybernetically modified for greater capacity for work,
and for total obedience to their robotic overloards. Some seem
little more than skin stretched over machines, while others have
been left with their sanity and will intact, if they prove useful to
the Union. Primus’ industrial might provides the Union with
its starships and soldiers. Its enslaved human population provide
the innovation necessary to advance the Union’s cause. Here,
human inventors work under the oversight of their masters to create
ever more humanoid robots that might act as infiltrators of the
hated Empire, or “psi-borgs,” the implanting of the
brain tissue of known psions into a cybernetic control matrix in an
attempt to give robots psychic powers, with decidedly mixed
results.
-
Arcturus: Default
Navigational Modifier: -1.
The black sands and chalk-white mountains of Arcturus once boasted
one of the Borean Stars’ larger human populations, who often
worked well with their robotic counterparts and formed tight bonds.
The Scourge reduced their cities to ash-colored skeletons of steel
and concrete and left the shadows of the dead blasted on
its walls. Still, the people of Arcturus saw the Scourge coming and
had prepared. They riddled their world with bunkers and warrens,
and many humans and their robot companions survive down there to
this day. When the Cybernetic Union came to seize control of the
world, its inhabitants surprised them with the ferocity of their
resistance, and with the fact that robots fought along side them and
were willing to sacrifice themselves to save their human companions.
Worse, remnants of the Scourge seem to linger deep within the
warrens of the planet, and some of the planets’ scattered
warbands still show signs of scourge infection.
-
The Omega Point:
Default Navigational
Modifier: -2.
Originally
called Anacridia, the Scourge made its entrance into the Galaxy
through this remote system, which gave them their name. The Scourge
consumed the population and converted its infrastructure to its
purposes. When Leto Daijin purged the galaxy of the Scourge, he
named his final objective, Anacridia, as the Omega Point, his final
point of his war. Even today, the wreckage of prototype
dreadnoughts and Scourge war hulks circle the world in a belt of
ruin. While the Cybernetic Union ostensibly rules the planet, they
post no garrisons, only occasionally dispatch probes to survey the
world and check its status. Some signs might
indicate activity on the world. The Cybernetic Union has dismissed
it as pirates, but perhaps
the last of the Scourge remain active on the world...
The Telas Constellation
Default Navigational Modifier: +0Alternate Name: The Coemeterion, the Refugee Empire
Deep in the
Arkhaian Spiral rest the homeworlds of the now “extinct”
Eldoth. Once, they ruled the galaxy; today, their worlds serve as
their tombs. The shattered remains of their deep engines unleashed
terrible energies that haunt their worlds today, and few dare to
tread those cursed worlds.
Those who know the
Eldoth best, however, know how difficult it is to truly kill the
Eldoth, who can regenerate eternally in their sacrophagus. The
Eldoth and their technology is not dead, only sleeping. A few
of their agents still wander their worlds, rebuilding infrastructure,
awakening other Eldothic agents, and struggling against those who
would keep them forever asleep.
When the Scourge
came to the Arkhaian Spiral, they gave the Coemeterion wide berth.
Those that did not died at the hands of the constellation’s
secret defenders.
-
Sepulcher: Default Navigational Modifier: +2. The true homeworld of the Eldoth, the galaxy forgot its original name and few today could even pronounce it. Ice covers its surface and snow lays like a layer of dust atop its ruined cities. Deep below the surface, however, the last remnants of the Eldoth sleep in their sarcophagi. They number in the hundreds of millions, including the Exarch, the last remaining queen of the Eldoth, who still manages to somehow influence the Galaxy through the Deep Engine. A lost sect of the Templars, the Wardens of the Monolith, defend the world with their Temple-Fortress, sworn to lock the Eldoth in their slumber and forbid any outsider set foot on their soil. Those who defy the Wardens, be they Scourge or Cybernetic Union, die. Their stance softened with the coming of the Scourge. They may have assisted Grand Admiral Leto Daijin, and when the refugees of the Scourge and Cybernetic Union onslaught arrived in their sector, they took pity and allowed them to settle on some world other than Sepulcher. Today, those refugees see Sepulcher as a holy world, not because of the Eldoth, but because of the presence of their protectors: the Wardens of the Monolith.
-
Elysia:
Default
Navigational Modifier:
+0.
When
the Wardens of the Monolith allowed refugees to settle the Telas
Constellation, the refugees chose Elysia. A miserable planet of
wind-swept shores, lonely islands and desolate plains, the refugees
managed to bring the planet back to life, to make crops grow beneath
the light of its dim sun and to flourish once again. Its population
devoted itself to a strange and militant version of the philosophy
of True Communion, and seek to make pilgrimages to the Temple
Fortress of Sepulcher. Just like the other worlds of the
Coemeterion, Eldothic ruins scatter the land, the Elysians treat
them as taboo, punishing or exiling any they find tampering with
them. For the budding “Refugee Empire”, Elysia’s
growing cities serve as its de
facto capital.
-
Acheron (Anatheta):
Default Navigational
Modifier: +0.
When the Eldoth conquered the galaxy, they found the faith of the
Keleni alarming, for their access to True Communion could disrupt
their Deep Engine, the source of their technological might. Thus,
they broke the Keleni homeworlds and scattered and enslaved their
people
in the first Keleni Diaspora, and
brought the finest of their race back with them to their homeworlds
as slaves and test-subjects.
After the fall of the Eldothic Empire, some of these Keleni
remained on a world now called Acheron (in their own language,
Anatheta).
These lost tribes had served as engineers and caretakers of Eldothic
Technology and maintain some of it on their world. The Elysians
have made overtures to unite the two worlds, but sparks
fly between the two people
over Acheron’s use of Eldothic technology and their peculiar
(“heretical”) version of True Communion, while the
Keleni of Acheron struggle with whether the Wardens of the Monolith
represent a true liberator for their people, someone they can truly
follow, or not.
-
Tartarus: Default
Navigational Modifier: -2.
Even the dread Eldoth feared
something.
They needed a place to house their most wicked criminals and their
most forbidden technologies. They chose Tartarus, a stormy,
flare-prone blue super-giant star surrounded by the devastated
wrecks of planets, asteroid belts and a stormy, unsettled hyperspace
(Tartarus regularly sees hyperspace storms that can increase the
navigational penalty by as much as -4). They buried vaults and
prisons into the asteroids circling the stormy blue star, and placed
guards over both. Millennia later, those prisons have begun to
break down and pirates, raiders and the curious have begun to
stumble over these vaults, uncovering forbidden technologies, or
accidentally awakening the Eldothic prisoners kept within.
The Arkhaian Chasm
Default Navigational Modifier: -4
A hyperspatial
void cleaves the Glorian Rim from the Arkhaian Spiral. In this
voice, the hyperdynamic medium grows thin, barely supporting any
hyperspatial travel at all, except along a few tenuous routes between
an archipelago-chain of stars. This chain of stars runs right into
the deepest part of the fringe, granting access to some of the
stranger stars beyond the rim of the Galaxy, but also liberating
those who travel its constellation-chains to their very end from the
metaphorical and literal noise and bustle of the galaxy.
-
Altair: Default Navigational Modifier: -2. This pleasant if unremarkable world circles a bright white star, the brightest of the of the Chasm, and the easiest to travel to. It serves as the entry point to the Chasm and while extremely tricky to do, it can be reached from very remote systems. Those with the right star-charts can reach Altair from Bellatrix in the Glorian Rim and Shaddai from the Kybernian Constellation (treat this as a navigational modifier of +0). This makes it an ideal point for commerce and diplomacy. While technically under the control of the Cybernetic Union, it refrains itself from its genocidal tendencies here, and a delicate detente holds in its starport, which has been split into three, with an Alliance, Imperial and Union sector each, and a central, diplomatic palace at its heart where the sides can gather for negotiation. Naturally, such a system also proves popular with smugglers and, thus, criminals.
-
Quietus:
Default
Navigational Modifier:
-3.
This
lonely station circles not a star, but a dim and silent brown dwarf,
and lies at the far end of the tenuous stars of the Arkhaian Chasm,
putting it at the very edge of the galaxy. The monks who built it
sought perfect tranquility
for their meditations and isolation from the chaos
of the rest of the galaxy. Quietus is, thus, the perfect place to
lose oneself; its
residents ask no questions of those who reach this lonely island in
the void, only that they respect the silence of Quietus.
Recently, the rebel psi-borg, Horatio Prime and his Null
Terminators, have taken up residence in the orbital monastery.
There, they seek to perfect their connection with Broken Communion
and to turn its power against their former masters, the Cybernetic
Union.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.