The collapse of the old Earth Empire marked the beginning of the Infinite War. For over a
millennia, mankind’s interstellar civilization tore itself apart and thousands of prosperous
worlds were reduced to barren husks; stripped of every resource to sustain a perpetually escalating
conflict. Bound by their own self-interest and weakened by rampant corruption,
Earth’s ambassadors and statesmen proved impotent and cowardly.
With the future of humanity at stake, the supreme military authority of the
old Empire stepped forward to secure for itself the reins of civilization. By the 33rd century,
the Empire was gone, and the United Earth Federation had arisen from the ruins in its place.
Though it purported to be a restoration of the Earth Empire’s democratic institutions,
the Federation, through various war measures and supposedly temporary restrictions,
was in actuality, a totalitarian police state.
Its seizure of power, similarly couched in populist rhetoric, was nothing more than a
military coup, erasing the last vestiges of Earth’s civilian government in an effort to
preserve it. The power of the state was dedicated wholly to winning the Infinite War through
the complete eradication of its two primary rivals, the Cybran Nation and Aeon Illuminate.
Though culturally as diverse and expressive as any other civilization in human history,
centuries of war had a marked impact on the Federation’s citizenry.
Religious and social differences remained, and even contributed to differences of opinion
on how Earth should secure victory, but encouraged by inescapable propaganda, came the near universal
belief that a military victory was necessary and no other solution might be entertained. Across
successive generations, the Federation molded its populace into resources and tools for the state,
demanding every citizen contribute to the war effort and reject personal desires.
Part of their success in this area was due to widespread genetic engineering
in which much of its citizenry was descended from cloned or genetically enhanced colonists.
It preserved and then expanded one of the Empire’s more successful programs in this field,
encouraging the propagation of traits that facilitated widespread order and control. The most
visible sign of the UEF’s genetic programs were the Symbionts, humans fused with an artificial
intelligence; which were indispensable as colonial administrators and bureaucrats.
Though the entire Federation was merely an instrument through which to win the Infinite War,
only a select few individuals would ever fight on the battlefield. The UEF
armed forces were based solely around Armored Command Units, or ACUs, through which an entire
military-industrial complex could be developed without the need for any prior infrastructure.
By reducing the natural resources and biomatter of a world to their base components, ACU’s could use
nanotechnology to craft vast fabrication centers, energy plants, and self-sustaining factories.
A single armored command unit was often enough to conquer an entire world;
an act repeated thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of times across the Infinite War.
The origins of the Infinite War and the United Earth Federation began in 2110, with the formation
of the Earth Empire. Advancements in artificial intelligence, nano-technology and biological
engineering had transformed human civilization, but it was Quantum Tunneling that first made
interstellar travel viable. Quantum Gates, once constructed, helped establish the first 16
colonies, later known as the Prime Worlds, which in turn began their own colonization programs.
The need to efficiently manage the ever-expanding bureaucracy of the Empire led to the first
symbionts, derived from the work of Dr. Gustaf Brackman. Wary of their superior cognitive
capabilities, Earth’s government insisted on a secret loyalty program. Realizing his creations
were being enslaved and exploited for their intellectual labor, Dr. Brackman and his closest
Symbionts fled the Empire in 2678, securing for themselves a new nation beyond Earth’s control.
The ability and desire of the Earth’s government to respond to this betrayal was heavily impacted
by escalating events elsewhere in the galaxy. In 2557, a promising world known as Seraphim II
had been colonized, only for contact to be lost a short time later. Overextended, it was only
in 2679 that communications were re-established between the Empire and the Seraphim colonists.
They claimed to have learned the teachings of a now extinct alien race, and now espoused a
new ideology known as “The Way”. Seraphim was quarantined, but The Way could not be contained.
When surrounding star systems proclaimed their allegiance to the newly founded Aeon Illuminate,
the Empire declared war in response.
Caught between the expanding influence of the Aeon and the internal unrest fermented by the Cybrans,
the Earth Empire fell into chaos and civil war. Its military apparatus was
stripped of the resources and political will necessary to counter either threat
and the Empire quickly lost vast swathes of territory; thousands of worlds. The Empire
dissolved and an emergency military government, the United Earth Federation took its place.
The Infinite War scoured the galaxy of its wealth and power as each civilization fought to inherit
the mantle and territories of the Empire. The victory of the Aeon Illuminate seemed imminent,
poised to overwhelm the thinly stretched Federation and vastly outnumber Cybrans.
Yet the war came to an abrupt and unexpected end in 3844 with the firing of “Black Sun”;
a UEF superweapon intended to destroy the homeworlds of both the Cybrans and Aeon. For
reasons still not entirely understood, the Black Sun instead created rifts between realities.
The Seraphim, the alien civilization that had first come to influence the Aeon Illuminate,
poured into the galaxy annihilating everything in their path.
For the first time in history, the United Earth Federation, the Cybran Nation and Aeon Illuminate
fought together for their mutual survival. The resources, power and skill of their civilizations,
that for so long had been set against one another, was redirected towards a common enemy.
A Quantum Arch, a stable gateway that would have brought endless Seraphim reinforcements
was destroyed and the galaxy entered into an uneasy peace.
Yet the coalition that successfully drove off the Seraphim has already begun to fracture.
Before the Federation and the Empire, before the first Quantum gates brought mankind to the stars,
it was once asked if war was an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war.
Such a question is not asked in the United Earth Federation, for the answer can be found on a
thousand dead worlds, where the rotting husks of war machines await the arrival of an ACU,
so they might be reconstituted and sent back into battle once more.