2384 - The Perpetual War

"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever."
 - Part III, Chapter III, Nineteen Eighty-Four

A galaxy in the near-distant future: locked in eternal war, and from the perspective of its inhabitants; seemingly since the beginning of time, and till time's end.

The Solar Union, known as the Soluni to its population, is to the galactic east. Its population is divided into three social strata: the biologically immortal, mechanical Inner Party consisting of 3 percent of the population, the insanely naive Outer Party which consisting of 14 percent of the population, who, after centuries of linguistic restructuring and continual developmental stunting, are no more capable of critical thought than a chimpanzee or a gorilla, and because of this, are incapable of voicing (let alone imagining) opposition to the state. Memory implantation results in the capacity for the Outer Party to download skillsets required for their profession directly without the need for a complex system of education and social spending. Lastly, there is the remaining 83 percent; the Proles, who live almost exactly as their ancestors did in 1900, with real emotions, joys, sorrow, delight, and love. Ignored by the arrogant and godlike Inner Party as animals, the most advanced Prole communities possess an informal solidarity economy which can, at best, smelt iron and forge rudimentary firearms. The Solar Union, and more specifically the Inner Party, despite its emotional portrayal of itself as under attack from all sides by enemies, actually thrives. Countless fleets and vast weapons powerful enough to destroy star systems are continuously built, and subsequently, "tragically," destroyed, in pyrrhic victory for the Union, only to be avenged by yet another total victory against the great enemy; the New Men, and the countless alien civilizations that surround them. The Solar Union actually more often bribes newly-discovered alien civilizations with advanced technology and resources in the millions of megatons in exchange for frequent raids against the Union's worlds; creating another enemy to defend against, a greater sense of foreboding, and uniting the Outer Party and Proles evermore against the terror.

The League of the New Man, known as the Horde to the rest of the galaxy, sits to the galactic north. Its ideology of Neo-Humanism requires that no cybernetic implants or genetic "mutilation" be utilized in the improvement of the Race. Instead that the strongest, most attractive, intelligent, and "selfless" of the galaxy have their gametes pooled en masse into vast artificial gestation centers; where the perfect generation is born every 25 years, an improvement over the last. Those of the batch considered subpar are neutered. The implementation of this eugenicist policy of only allowing those deemed most "attractive, intelligent, and selfless" to have their genetic material carried on over the course of over ten generations has resulted in a segment of the human population which is of uncanny physiological "perfection," immense homogony, and of extremely low diversity -- right down to the genetic level. Filthy xenos are only tolerated within the League's society of perfect harmony, perfect equality, and perfect beauty if they stay out of sight and out of mind within savage preserves while non-New Man populated human worlds conquered by the League are scoured of all people by invasion forces and recolonized by the League with perfect Humanity; this tactic of attacking urban centers in waves, and ordering their infantry to scour each structure for Human beings has resulted in the League of the New Man being known as "the Horde" among non-League nations. After the battle is done, the DNA of the millions, sometimes billions of bodies is scoured for the highest quality genome, which is then cycled through in the creation of the new generation of the New Man to promulgate genetic diversity. Leaguers who have a genetic relative that is not League in nature (i.e. not related to the League's wider homogenic population) is classified as an "Ur-Man"; one whose very genes are seen as being in a primal state.

Lastly, the Mind Hive, known simply as "it" to its inhabitants, to the galactic west. It has strayed away from the Solar Union's and the League of the New Man's great game of ally/enemy/ally/enemy to suppress their populations; the implementation of the Mind Hive's ancient ideology of "Obliteration of the Self" has resulted in a population and culture being firmly established with no concept of an individual. Only the mind. Unlike the Solar Union, who acknowledge the existence of the individual, the Mind Hive recognizes no individual self. The people and the state are one in the same. That being said, the Mind Hive is surprisingly the most tolerant and accepting state in the galaxy. Species, ethnicity, and sex are not concepts which are perceived by the Mind. Only the barest resource of minded life itself made to better the Mind. The Mind destroys individuality and unique personality through hormonal tampering, brainwashing, and cognitive conditioning, making all who come within the Mind's embrace make nearly the exact same decisions as any others within the Hive. The ultimate goal of the Mind is to link all intelligent minds in the galaxy together within an interstellar network; merging all thoughts and memories into one organism. The Mind Hive, unlike other states, does not torture. It does not destroy. It does not even execute prisoners. It embraces and makes all a part of a greater whole through the reform and destruction of individuals. Because of this, the Mind Hive, going by ethnography and species, is the most physically diverse, and most spread-out state in the galaxy. Actual figures are unknown, as it is extremely rare for other Humans to enter Hive space and come back.

All three's population are no longer Human. All three superstates' population have been changed to a degree of near physiological insanity. All three's population submit themselves to the state's definition of reality in different respects.



Located in the nucleus of the galaxy, the Sagittarius A* Sphere sits...

For the past 17,000 years, 5,000 light-years of space surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy has been sectioned off by some kind of distortive energy field; any object or fleet attempting to enter through this sphere is merely washed away to the opposite side in a fraction of travel time, like space-time has been curved into a shell. Unknown to the myriad of civilizations native to the Milky Way Galaxy, this sphere of gravitationally perturbed space-time, which causes FTL and gravity drives to falter, is actually the byproduct of a monumental effort at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy by its ancient union of native civilizations. Long since observed by Humanity and other advanced civilizations of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy is inhabited, and has been for quite a long time. However, recently, its local civilizations were pacified by an extragalactic force, originating from some other distant part of the universe. This force, best translated as the Ave Machina, builds "gravity bridges" from galaxy to galaxy around their supermassive black holes, and uses integrant civilizations from previously conquered galaxies to conquer new ones, making the cryptic founding society (if there is one) of the Ave Machina effectively unknown to all new civilizations under its control. Because of this, all integrant civilizations of the Ave Machina have a near-mystical perception of the Ave Machina and its bio-technological forms. Fully-integrated civilizations of the Ave Machina are part machine, part organism; they seek to create universal peace and harmony by merging flesh with machine, and they've decided to add the civilizations of the Milky Way Galaxy to this great work of cosmic solidarity.

Within the Sagittarius A* sphere, a hole in space-time is being widened. A bridge is being formed between Andromeda and the Milky Way. When it is complete, an incalculably large expedition force is ever amassing to pour through; instantaneously dropped in the center of the galaxy, where it will expand outward in all directions.

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A WIP map of Nineteen Eighty-Four's universe, four centuries onward.

Base map can be found here: