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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.

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 MEKA Inc.
  • 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.
  • ===== 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: