Well, because of the initial support I've received for this, I've fleshed out my ideas considerably on this. First off, thanks to Jules, Lequis MX, Regulus, Divals the Conqueror and Slav for your help, you've all earned a ship in the very least!
Anyway, on to the lowdown. i know the title probably has been taken by another plug. Suggestions for a permanent name are welcome:
The universe is much as it is in EVO. Same systems, same planets. But everything else has changed...
Confederation:
At the dawn of starflight for Humanity, we knew nothing of aliens. as far as we knew, we were alone in the universe. Our ships reached tentatively for the stars, and slowly we began to colonize the hospitable worlds around us.
Then They came... The Phage.
We didn't have many weapons of war... what we did have was primitive at best, and ineffective against the technorganic warships of the Phage. they swept down on our colonies, consuming... they harvested organic material as we would mine metals. There was no reasoning with them, no defeating them, no running from them... no way of surviving.
In the final days the last few colonies banded with Earth in a Confederation, hrowing all their knowledge and resources into our defense. newly-built warships and starfighters armed with new weapons stood at our last line against the invaders.
They lasted all of five minutes.
Earth itself lay bare to the Phage, a world full of life for them to harvest.
And then they stopped. No sudden reversals... no apparent change olf heart... they just stopped. Their ships disappeared, their harvesters vanished from the worlds they were ravaging... it was like they had never been. Except for the dead.
Humanity recovered... we brushed ourselves off, and after a time, we reached for the star again. But we were wary now. This time when our hands quested into the unknown, they were gauntleted in steel. Where unarmed colony ships once explored, now warships cruised. We were never again going to be at the mercy of an alien menace. For more than a century we carefully probed space for a sign of our old enemies, and found nothing. I suppose that might be why we fell so easily into conflict with the Hinwar...
Hinwar
We were a peaceful race before the Vonians came... before the conquerors. we were enslaved by them, forced to work in their mines, their shipyards... for nearly a century we toiled for them. But we were not fools. We watched, we learned, and we shared what we knew. As we worked for them, we learned how their ships worked, the principals behind their technology. It took time, but we learned.
In time we rose up against them, and took back our world, and a few of their mining colonies. For decades after our war raged, as we sought our vengeance against them. And in time, our warriors stood on their homeworld, atop the bodies of dead Vonians, and at last we declared their race extinct.
We turned then to rebuilding. War had ravaged our worlds, and the worlds we had taken from them. we spent our time improving on what we had learned, remaking ourselves into a true interstellar civilization. We found other worlds, worlds the Vonians had oppressed, and eventually destroyed, and we counted ourselves lucky that we had risen up when we did. Others we met were like the Vonians, and we clashed with them, gaining strength with each victory. The Gadzair, the Bra'Kell, the Miranu... all we met and tested.
Then we met Humanity.
No one knows who fired the first shot, but after the first battle our people cried out for vengeance. Here was another conqueror, another Vonian Empire. so we girded ourselves, built great weapons of war, and we struck.
The humans struck back. They were devestatingly prepared for us, as if they had been waiting for our assault all along. We battled back and forth for a time, two great titans grappling with each other, neither possesing the advantage. Until today, our strength spent, we do little but snipe at each other.
And now, there are rumblings in the Galactic East...
Miranu
The Galaxy has always been a place of conflict. Before the Humans or the Hinwar first reached for the stars, we were alreadly plying their waters, as were other races. The greatest of these races though, were the Gadzair.
A warrior race, they had split themselves into three factions, or Strands, known as the Azdgari, the Zidagar and the Igazdra. For centuries they fought a carefully choregraphed war without end, containing their bloodlust by turning it on each other.
Then came The Phage.
The Humans experience with them was limited, their conflict nothing more than a footnote to the horrors that occurred. The Phage spread like a virus across the galaxy, destroying whole worlds. If it were not for the Gadzair, Mira itself would have been destroyed.
When the true strength of the Phage was known, the Gadzair turned their attentions from each other to this new threat. They fought side by side with the same ferocity they had once fought each other, and for a time it seemed they would hold back the menace. But the Phage simply continued to come... endless and inexhaustible. In time, even the Gadzair's great strength began to fail.
The Azdgari were the first to fall, first in the Phage's path. Then the Igazdra. Then the Zidagar. Soon the Phage spread to ravage Miranu and Human worlds. Even the Vonians felt their terrible might, which only hastened their downfall to their own slaves.
The last of the Gazdair rallied, and somehow, some way they stopped the Phage. Unfortunately, the secret of that victory died with them.
today the universe is a darker, more dangerous place. We Miranu have taken it upon ourselves to try and bring some order to the chaos, but with Human and Hinwar, Laertian and Bra'Kell, all at each other's throats, it is not an easy task.
And now, we fear, the ancient menace stirs once more...
Laertians
We came to this nearly a century ago, refugees from a great horror that had bled our galaxy dry. When we arrived, we found that here, too, the horror had visited. But somehow, some way, it had been turned back.
We settled on abandoned worlds, scarred but habitable, and began to make our new homes. We began to research how this galaxy had survived the ravages of the Phage, when we were attacked.
They called themselves Bra'Kell... a warrior race that had been a client race of the Gadzair. Now that the Gadzair were no more, they considered themselves their heirs. And it seems we occupied territory that had once belonged to the Gadzair.
We were tired of running. We were tired of being afraid. We were tired of being homeless. So we fought. And we will continue to fight until the Bra'Kell accept us, and our right to exist in this place.
Bra'Kell
We are the children of the Gadzair. Our people were found by them, nurtured and taught. Given the secrets of starflight and taught the ways of the warrior. When the Gadzair fought the Phage, we fought at their side. When their race breathed its last, we bore witness. We are the heirs to their legacy. they were the protectors of this galaxy, and so we must become.
But the Laertians now occupy and defile the worlds of the Gadzair. They tear down the ruins that should stand as an eternal monument to the Gadzair, and build their cities. They are invaders from outside our galaxy, and have no place here.
If we are to be protectors, then we MUST drive these invaders out. No compromises. No quarter.
Phage
Consume. Evolve. Adapt. Expand. Survive.
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Players will be expecting them to be extremely dangerous.
