last-fires

Last Fires of the Void

(Working title)

A Grim, Brutal, and Dark Universe in remnants of this galaxy. A galaxy full with spacefaring factions, fiefdoms, tribes, you name it. All with their own unique style, art, and weapons.

Everything is over the top. Everything is violent. Everything is brutal. And things usually get really dark really soon.

About

This repo has several purposes:

• Serve as a source of truth for future projects in this universe
• Provide an easy method for future contributors to work on this

Why

• A unique Universe that offers the freedom to make it as nasty as needed without violating any existing copyright.
• Offer a universe future products can be based on, growing it bit by bit.

Writing Guidelines

Setting

• It is sci-fi, not hard sci-fi, just brutal and dark over the top sci-fi
• There will always be fighting, everywhere, for whatever eason. Occasionally there will be a war. It doesn't matter what the casus belli is, but there is always a conflict that needs to be resolved.
• If there isn't fighting, there is always something going on that would violate a myriad of laws in the current day. Unsure how people react on certain stimuli? Kidnap an enemy village and feed them the gear. Got grief with your neighbours? Drop asteroids from space on top of their house. Not sure about certain somatic responses, or want to optimize human behaviour? Just debone someone.
• Don't know the difference between a cyborg or an android? Neither do we.
• Technology and enemies are as big and as small as they need to be. Need to have an entangled radio that fits in a watch? Go for it. Need a million elite soldiers of an enemy faction? Wipe them out.

Time

An unknown number of years have passed since the time of writing. Thanks to inaccurate time-keeping, relativistic time due to near FPS travel, new calendars with new worlds implemented by new relitions and cults reseting the years, and all sorts of reasons. And ultimately nobody really knows what year it is. It could be hundreds, it could be thousands of years. Far enough that whatever happened in the past on Terra does not matter, and forms no relevant point of reference what is going on in the galaxy of last fires.

No Real-Life politics

They aren't relevant to the universe. They can only harm the integrity and adoption of this project.

Politics will play a role in the motivations of characters, stories, and why people fight. That is absolutely fine. Parralels with IRL events, should be avoided. Avoid Unintentional defamation. No moral messaging or propaganda.

Only what happens in this universe counts and that can be insane enough.

Be internally consistent, and don't retcon

See above. Should speak for itself.

History (for now)

Within living memory of the next moon landings the human race became a spacefaring species. While clunky at first, with a huge mortality rate, corporate profits had to be kept so this improved dramatically. When local space travel within the solar system became affordable for the rich everything within the first astroid belt got explored. Before the Kuiper belt was reached near-FTL flight was invented, and shortly after FTL.

Once FTL hit the spacefairer scene the stars were the limited. While costly, it allowed nations, people to explore the stars and settle for a new world. This is where the fracturing of humanity began. While Terra remained friendly, the colonies were developing and organising on their own. And thanks to the distance from home, control was hard and soon these colonies became independent.

Time passed. Colonies started trading with eachother and with Terra. Technology and Science advanced (mostly ethically). Life improved on Terra, and all was well. Until an experiment on Terra (called The Event) fractured the planet and hurled millions of pieces people called home into space. Most of it got consumed by the sun. The rest got spread out of the solar system. It is estimated that the first chunks are about to leave our solar system.

Without the stabilizing influence of Terra factions started fighting each other, blaming each other for The Event.

As time progressed...

• Empires came and went
• Spiritual factions developed some would call magic to varying degrees
• Wars were fought over resources, love, or out of boredom
• Several times first contact with made with alien species. Some were cute, productive, pesky, or an existential threat.

Factions

Human Space

These are all the planets, colonies, ships, and stations occupied by humans. While they are all the same species, they are in no way under single management. There are only different factions, some play nice with each other, but most of them attack and ask questions later.

Non-Humans

These are not human. Some of them not be intelligent, or even alive.