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The Great Star Sphere

The Great Star Sphere is the only significant area of realspace which contains matter and energy. It is composed of concentric spherical collections of stars called spheres separated by large expanses of nothingness called Abyssal Gaps. Connecting them to their neighbors are highways of traversible stars stretched between them like chewing gum called Abyssal Bridges.

The Great Star Sphere is divided into exactly fifteen Major Spheres, each of which contain their own Minor Spheres which in turn hold distinct regions and landmarks.

Galactic Topology

Following is a list of all major spheres, sorted based on whether they are significantly colonized by some galactic power. Each sphere may have multiple names, the name listed will be the canonical name provided by the Abrixine Catalog Index.

There are eight spheres occupied by intelligent spacefaring civilizations:

The remaining spheres have no known intelligent spacefaring life:

Major Powers

Main Article: Factions

The galaxy is controlled by numerous civilizations, factions, alliences, and other groups of interest. Here is a brief list of the major galactic players, sorted by the general nature of their existence.

Alliances and Federations

Following is a list of political entities and alliances which exist primarily as governances over their people.

Sovereign Enterprise

The abundance provided by the galactic scale allowed for corporations, previously shackled by their planetary vessels, to expand into their own self-governing entities that other nations had to recognize and negotiate with in order to coexist. Sovereign Enterprise, also known as mega or gigacorporations, often (but not always) have territory overlapping with those of other powers, but also have their own laws and governmental systems which affect those in their employ.

Conglomerates and Omnicorps

Space Logistics

  • Kos-Mos Dynamics - An independent trans-stellar company producing cutting-edge spaceship frames and propulsion systems.
  • Aurora Shipyards - A renowned shipbuilding company focused on custom ship design and construction. They cater to wealthy clients looking for unique, high-performance vessels tailored to their specific needs.
  • HINT Trans-Stellar - A large corporation which produces a vast variety of consumer goods across the galaxy, and ships them using a mixture of their own ship designs as well as those of other corporations and governments.
  • Ibis Exports - The first and largest trans-galactic shipping company to haul both people and goods. Ibis also acts as a middle-man transporting and dividing food from the various independent agricultural worlds dotted throughout the various independent spheres.
  • KIGA Modular Industries - A GSC based corporation which produces modular exoframes in competition with Six Stars.
  • Zenith Intelligent Robotronics - Developers of advanced AI and robotic systems for a variety of applications, from industrial automation to personal assistants and security drones.

Computing and Networking

  • NEST Exascale Computing - NESTEC is a Whark Aviform Hegemony-based trans-stellar corporation which produces and sells much of the galaxy's hypercomputing infrastructure and subluminal communications and sensor tech. In the latter category they compete directly with NanoTrasen Incorporated.
  • Signature Systems, Limited - A holding company which has, over the course of centuries, acquired hundreds of smaller computing companies,
  • TETHER Softworks - A spaceship software company that produces the primary operating system that glues together all the disparate parts produced by manufacturers.
  • KIT Systems - One of the two major consumer operating system developers. KIT OS is flexible and fast, but only optimized for computer architectures produced by Signature Systems.
  • Saraspova New Softworks - The creators of Redshift OS and numerous other widely used software products.
  • Stella Iter - A tiny company that produces the nearly unanimously agreed best navigation and flight software for both planetary and interstellar operation.
  • Epoch Galactic Mesh Networks - A large enterprise which acts as a middle-man, providing mesh-based connectivity from the major providers' backbone networks to consumers not close enough to make use of them.
  • Galactic Networking - The generically named company is the oldest company of its kind, and still maintains the most reliable sub and super-luminal communications backbones in the galaxy, although in recent decades they have left customer connectivity to their business partners.
  • Candela Connectivity Corp - A much younger competitor to GN which exploded in popularity after an exclusive contract with NanoTrasen which preempted GN's use of bluespace technology to provide superluminal communications before any other competitor.
  • Ascalon - A long-range intragalactic communications group focusing both on broadcast and point-to-point infrastructure.

Arms Manufacturers and Medical

  • Surtur Industries - The leading GSC spacescale arms manufacturer, producing shipmounted weaponry for Six Stars and NanoTrasen vessels.
  • Galactic Defense Systems, Incorporated - Provides advanced weaponry and defense solutions for both private and governmental clients. Their products include ship-mounted weapons, planetary defense systems, and personal armaments.
  • Phaethon Systems - A two-faceted company which creates both deadly energy weaponry on all scales as well as delivery mechanisms for life-saving medical care.
  • Veridion Genetics - A long-term healthcare and medical company which produces remedies for long-term and chronic maladies.
  • Stellar Labs - Known for general medicine production, research, and distribution as well as for their numerous clinics across space, Stellar Labs is known for their well-integrated supply chains as much as the distinctive “STELLAR” logo shown on all their products.
  • Tristan-Lazik - A long-established medical conglomerate hailing from pre-FTL human space.

Exploration and Exploitation

  • Astron Mining Consortium - Operates extensive mining operations in asteroid belts and planetary rings. They are renowned for their efficient extraction techniques and rare material supplies.
  • Draven Rock Lifters - A massive mining contractor which facilitates jobs, protection, and other important logistical factors for otherwise independent miners. Mining contracts can last years at a time, and operations take place in deep space as often as in civilized regions.
  • Celestial Salvage and Recovery - Experts in salvaging derelict spacecraft and recovering valuable salvage from wreckage sites scattered across the cosmos.
  • Void and Atmospheric Cleanup Crews - VACC is self-advertised as a one-size fits all solution to salvage, disinfection, and general cleanup. They are famous for accepting any non-wartime job, albeit at sometimes exorbitant prices.
  • Peregrine Exoventures - Focuses on deep space exploration and the discovery of new systems. They are known for their high-risk, high-reward missions that push the boundaries of known space.
  • Eclipse Explorers' Guild - A massive employee-owned cooperative company dedicated to charting unexplored regions of space, with a focus on habitable and resource-rich planets.

Entertainment

  • Spectra Entertainment Group - A major player in the entertainment industry, offering holographic experiences, virtual reality adventures, and interstellar broadcasting of various media content.
  • Pulsar Media Corp - A major publishing conglomerate producing primarily games and high-budget movies. They own a network of entertainment hubs and VR arcades across the galaxy.
  • USENET - The galaxy's only trans-species, trans-governmental social media network. Their employees and operatives go to great lengths to ensure that connectivity is possible anywhere in civilized space, even in wartime.
  • Galactic Speed Syndicate - The premier organization hosting and managing high-stakes interstellar races, their most famous of which is their decennial Red Line race.

Jointures and Initiatives

Numerous entities of galactic import are neither government nor enterprise, these are categorized as “Jointures” by the Abrixine Catalog Index.

  • Abrixine Catalog Index - A group of explorers, cataloguers, and archivists which dedicate themselves to gathering, sorting, and saving all the information in the galaxy. They are generally known for their political neutrality and numerous non-aggression pacts.
  • NGSC - Originally a fast-response medical unit within the Galactic Sapients Coalition, they splintered off into their own aid and relief initiative with galaxy-spanning presence after a substantial investment from KIGA Modular Industries.
  • Pan-Galactic Ethics Committee - The PGEC is a neutral organization which accepts representatives from any ACI-recognized independent entity and acts as a sovereign panel to arbitrate the rules of war and inter-galactic disputes between major powers. While they are well-respected and many powers defer to their rules, they hold no actual power themselves.
  • Joint Human Uplift Initiative - An entity made from the combined forces of the GSC and GHC which seek to contain, protect, and if necessary uplift pre-spacefaring sapient species in uncontrolled space.
  • Magara Syndicate - One of only two trans-stellar criminal organizations recognized by the ACI, and the only one currently remaining.

Inhabitants

Main Article: Races

The Galaxy is inhabited by quintillions of individuals of many different species. These races make up the various powers at play in the galaxy, and include everything capable of higher thought including Sapient AI, Plantoids, and Humanoids.

  • Humans - The ruling species of the GHC as well as the founding species of the GSC, born near the center of Major Sphere Amanillion. Humans are generally known for their lateral thinking abilities as well as their wide but middling range of acceptable living environments.
  • Bhirni - A race of furred Saurornithoides with large, dextrous claws and medium length tails. They are expert swimmers and demonstrate an instinctual knowledge of fluid dynamics.
  • Nixiti - Centaur-like humanoids which possess an upper body reminiscent of a baboon and the lower half of a rabbit. They rarely grow past four feet tall fully upright, and are known to be some of the galaxy's best pilots due to their natural reflexes.
  • Pothon - Huge chemoautotrophic scavengers with a vaguely human body plan. Their hands are twice the size of a normal humans' and they possess four fingers on each, and they have no head, instead posessing a large, plant-like growth which they trim as one may maintenance hair or a beard.
  • Pihitil - Small beaked creatures with bright, warm-toned feathers and six limbs that function as both graspers and ambulatory appendages.
  • Zhyn - Eight foot tall panther-like quadrupeds with dark, UV-resistant fur and eyes capable of aiming in different directions at once. Their tails are tipped with dark green feathered plumage which splays out wide, and they have split prehensile tongues. It is said their singing voices are among the most beautiful to all the galaxy's ears.
  • Renau - A large race of densely feathered Saurornithoides with forepaws and hind claws. Their forepaws are linked to their bodies with semi-vestigial wings and are capable of gliding short distances. Males grow up to twelve feet tall and females typically reach eight feet in height.
  • Askraad - Bipedal lizard-like humanoids with large clawed limbs and prolate spheroid heads. They are capable of visually perceiving EM radiation from visible light to well into SHF frequencies, and rely on cybernetic implants they receive from birth in order to hear and communicate with sound.
  • Hii - A race of huge bipedal polar-bear/saber-tooth hybrid-like creatures with four arms. Their upper set of arms are strong and durable with three fingers each, and their lower set of arms, which they typically fold into their fur and out of sight, are dextrous graspers with eight fingers each.
  • Iuspex - Five-foot tall canines with soft, slug-like cerata that grow like a mane out of their backs. Instead of tongues they have long, multi-branched proboscis that fork more as they mature - adults may have dozens of forks in theirs. They will rapidly grow sick and die without regular cleanings from the Ruspex.
  • Ruspex - Large, hollow carnivorous plantoids with thick fire-resistant bark. Their multiple oral orifices exhibit tremendous biting force and possess short tongues covered in long prehensile ciliae. Normally energetic, they grow lethargic and mentally dull when they go to long without the company of an Iuspex.
  • Rinnegata - Sometimes also called Rinn, the Rinnegata are colossal stone-skinned draconic beings capable of surviving the void of space. They are omnivorous in the traditional sense, but can also consume raw hydrogen and a few heavier elements for sustenance. Rinnegata are born roughly eighty meters long and forty meters tall, but rapidly grow to up to several kilometers in length with a proportionally matched height.
  • Nusti - A race of avianoid bipeds similar to owls, with long flexible beaks they use to pierce and drain fruit of its juices. They have wings for arms, with long prehensile feathers which act as graspers and also provide fine control of flight.
  • Garaka - Large bipeds with thick, leathery skin and numerous sensory protrusions forming multiple necks and invdividual “heads”.
  • Whark Species - Not one species but a collection of hundreds of others, there are too many species in the Whark Aviform Hegemony to list in a simple summary.
  • Human Lineage Artificial Intelligence - Fully sapient artificial intelligence, with consciousness models more or less compatible with the mental-emotional model shared by most galactic sapients.
  • NESTEC Lineage Artificial Intelligence - Fully sapient artificial intelligence descended from NESTEC's early AI creations which were not modeled after any existing sapient's consciousness structure. As a result, these AI tend to consider emotions and attachment as choices to be made rather than facts of life.

Nomenclature and Culture

The galaxy described in this database goes by many names - “The Great Star Sphere” name originates from the Greater Human Cooperative and its splinter factions, but was accepted as the canonical name of the galaxy by the Abrixine Catalog Index.

Other names for it include and originate from, respectively: