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CAP.: History is like gravity, were gravity willed.

 

“OLD MAN” ANGUS YOUNG ALLIGOOD (VO)

Nearly a century after mankind first colonized space, nothing had gone as hoped or envisioned. Limitless resources only led to limitless greed and strife.

Human colonies in outer space were little more than company housing where not even the air was free. Greed led to suffering, suffering to unrest, unrest to uprisings, and uprisings to misguided revolution, which ultimately brought human civilization to the brink of collapse.

Then came the Somari, a benevolent race of interstellar travelers who had all but destroyed their home world with war and were now in search of others. When they found mankind on the verge of disaster, they intervened to help them avoid a similar fate. For in humans, they saw the potential for cooperation and friendship.

They provided relief and stability and helped to restore order. Then, they went about bringing justice to those whom had instigated and manipulated the chaos from the shadows. The perpetrators on Earth were forbidden to ever leave, forced to live in shame and hiding. The rest were not so fortunate.

With respectable leadership in place and order restored, the Somari began to share limited amounts of their vastly superior technology. Chief among these were the forerunner formula and the element astrallium and the ability to harness its vast power to traverse the stars, though, while everything else the Somari had given was given freely, warp travel would come at a cost. So, mankind agreed to help them explore, to give them their choice of solar systems, and to do so without bringing any harm to other sapient races they might encounter.

Over a century has passed. Human beings have explored much of the galaxy, met new species of intelligent life, and now rule many worlds but still cannot rule themselves.

A civil war has dragged on for 78 long years.

Conflict between commoners and the so-called elites is ever present in the immense cities of every human world.

And the Somari seem content to focus on exploration and colonization with the help of the humans whom still honor their agreement, ignoring the war so long as it remains contained.

However, not all Somari are benevolent, nor are they the only powerful race to have called the Milky Way home.

It is in the midst of this war and turmoil that the eyes of many young veterans turn hopefully or desperately to outer space and the free world of Anapur, or to the distant worlds of the trade leagues, or to Oz and the Emerald Station and to the lawless space beyond.

Alas, these are no easy journeys.