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The History of the Galaxy

The Current Year is 5752 AF... After the Founding of the First Republic.

The Second Galactic Republic has stood for 162 years after its formation in the fires of war; a war that encompassed the galaxy and almost consumed every living thing within it. Now, having overcome its infancy, the Republic faces its greatest threat since its formation... itself.

The First Republic...

In the ancient past the various species lived in isolation with little regard for each other. Wars were fought and hatreds formed that lasted centuries. Many species have vanished into the oblivion of extinction in that time, consumed by hatred, greed, or stupidity. Then, in a period of peace, alliances began to be formed and the species began to collect together and conceive of mutual reliance and defence. Three thousand years of war and xenophobia were hard to overcome, but in the end a Galactic Republic was founded to maintain peace and prosperity throughout the known universe — the same lofty goals of this current government. For 3,703 years the Republic ruled the galaxy in peace and justice — a golden age of art, culture, and creativity. Mysticism and spirituality were fused with science; the Ancients developed their knowledge and skill in these areas to near divine mastery. They became able to manipulate and transform reality through sheer will and mental focus. Their understanding of the eight primal forces of the universe allowed them to transmute their technology, their bodies, and their souls. The search for new and deeper spiritual and technical knowledge accelerated. The Ancients sought knowledge like an addiction using it to augment and transform themselves and to move ever closer to enlightenment.

The Coming of the Ke'Ras...

It was this freedom, creativity, and fanatical pursuit of knowledge that eventually destroyed the Republic. In their investigations into the nature of the universe, scholars and mystics of the time focused on researching obscure planes of existence and wildly alien dimensions. With their fusion of mystical and technological insight, a team of Ancients mentally accessed a series of nightmarish dimensions never before dreamt of. Yet they were not cautious, confident in their wisdom and strength, and their deepest explorations caught the attention of the Ke'Ras. The demonic essence flowed into the souls as they journeyed through the ether. They resisted and in that struggle many were able to sever the tenuous connections to their bodies and deny the Ke'Ras their goal of gaining access to this reality. In the battle between light and dark, however, it only took one victory. One of the corrupted souls failed to sever the link and the Ke'Ras used it to enter our universe through the body of Kalnos Yata. Yata went forth from the library of Halanotos to spread the vile infestation he bore: a plague of evil that spread unrecognized by those in power. The complacent political and spiritual leaders of the Republic sat in ease while all around them darkness spread. Rumours grew of horrors that stalked the void of space, but they were laughed at as tales and legends to scare the young. Then, nearly thirty years after the infestation of Yata, he came to the planet Alpha Zarat IV with a host of his followers.

The Infested, as they became known, were from all species, but they were horribly twisted and mutilated by the dark plague that they bore; a mocking semblance of life and an imitation of the creatures within them. The most corrupted was Yata and he no longer bore any resemblance to the Ix-atara, the species that he had once been part of. Instead, he was a Ke'Ras in full - a demon of the netherworlds brought full force into our own. The Infested descended onto the population of the planet and consumed them. All life was devoured — their life-force used to rip open the veil between the planes and allow more of the Ke'Ras through; no longer constrained by the need to possess a living body of this plane.

The infestations spread and soon the entire galaxy was embroiled in a war for survival. The war lasted for 419 years and it was the source of some of the greatest victories, defeats, atrocities, and wonders of legend. All life was drawn into that conflict and younger races that ascended to the stars were swept up into the politics and manoeuvres of war. One of these races was the Humans. Found by the Republic soon after their first explorations beyond their home solar system they were instantly, like all other races that were found, swept into the war effort. At last, the war ended in the burning fires of the Battle of Utamon where the great fleet of the Republic fought and defeated the Ke'Ras by using a ritual designed to banish the demons from this plane of existence. In that battle passed the Ke'Ras, but also all the ancient races, leaving only three who had witnessed the battles between gods and demons; the Humans, the Jur, and the Ajira. Even those that remained of the three species were few and the galaxy was given over to lesser beings, as the Three retreated from the universe to seek their own paths.

The Years after the Passing...

The Three that were left behind continued on and turned inward to attend to their own affairs. Communication between the species withered without the Republic to foster it and without the population to sustain interstellar trade. Knowledge was lost as memories dimmed and warped to suit the yearnings of pride and conceit. The galaxy passed into an age of decline and much that once was, was lost, and all memory of it vanished. New races arose, came to the stars, and found the Three, but instead of knowledge and kindness they met indifference.

After a thousand years, the governments which formed after the Republic had established trade networks, and inter-species relations were renewed. This forced the races to interact with each other more significantly than they had in centuries. Much had changed and memories had forgotten and distorted much of what had once been known. Instead of amicable cooperation, there was instead bitter xenophobia and individualistic greed. Wars and conflicts burned throughout the galaxy as each species, those that had been part of the old Republic and new ones that had risen to the stars after its fall, contended for resources and hegemony. For 1341 years after the defeat of the Ke'Ras, the galaxy was consumed by these petty wars.

The Return...

This period bred a Machiavellian attitude into many of the races, and pragmatic gain was more highly valued than justice or compassion. Arms races were common and the wars that followed were brutal. In this culture of fear the younger races started to venture into areas of knowledge that they were not yet ready to access. The Three were mostly indifferent, and the only warnings came from the few Ancients, members of the six races who have achieved sufficient enlightenment to throw off the shackles of aging and death, who still lived in the galaxy... they were ignored.

A tribe of Shorem discovered the library of Halanotos and the writings of Yata. In their arrogance they did not tell the other races, hoping that what they found was the key to unlock their destiny and allow them enlightenment. Combined with the inaction of the Ancients, this attitude almost brought the galaxy to ruin.

The Shorem deciphered the texts and used the knowledge within it. In the millennia and a half since their banishment the Ke'Ras had waited, just on the threshold beyond the edge of reality, and when these explorers opened the gates to that plane the demons struck. The Ke'Ras consumed those Shorem and spread quickly out into the universe, eager to resume their conquest. Many of the races were caught unaware, but not all. The most insular of the Ancients that still remained, The Council of Remembrance, had been waiting for this moment. They had planned and prepared, and the Ke'Ras found that the Ancients who still lived and remembered had lost little of their potency. While others fled and fell before the darkness the Ancients mobilized their peoples and struck out.

The younger species rallied to the Three, driven to cooperation by their memories of the ancient past, handed down in myth and legend for generations. The second galactic war was much briefer than the first, lasting only 127 years, but it was also inconclusive. The Ke'Ras were driven out of the planets and star systems to lurk in the darkness between stars — an ever constant threat that can re-emerge at any time to corrupt and devour life.

The Rise of the Second Republic...

When the power of the Ke'Ras was broken and the last remnants driven into the void of space, the species that survived gathered together in the core. There, on the planet Edala, they reformed the Republic as a measure to keep peace and unity in the galaxy, and to be ever watchful for the return of the Ke'Ras. Old regional governments were swept aside and the citizens of the new Republic came together in unity.

Still it is hard to forget two thousand years of isolation, and cooperation is more often talked about than practiced. Great political parties now vie for the control of the hearts and minds of the citizens appealing and playing to the sympathies, dreams, and hatreds of their constituents.

This is the galaxy in 5257 AF, where six great political parties hold the reins of power and contend with one another to gain ultimate ascendancy. This is the time of choice and of destiny. That which is decided now will resonate in history forever — for good or ill.