An Introduction to a New Series
Alright, at this point, I have to give some credit to geneseespaws. He is helping me to realize that, perhaps, I do have the creative fortitude to write this story. This is the introductory and informational page to a series I've had in my head for years and years, but never had the balls to write for fear of ruining it. The world is built inside my head, and I only hope I can convey things properly in introduction here. This is all just to give an overview of the world my main characters live in. I don't believe in introducing the characters in an introduction page, as you will ge to know them as time goes on. I hope everyone likes what they see!
The current state of the universe:
Year: 4150 A.D. (Estimate. No modern Judeo-Christian calendars exist at this time)
Explored portions of the universe:
Milky Way--Besides distant and inconsequential areas, the Milky Way has been fully explored. Dead zones exist where creatures cannot survive. Other zones exist where rogue nations and criminal planetary systems will immediately destroy any unauthorized ship dropping out of subspace. Estimated time to travel across the galaxy: 3 months. Estimated time to convey messages across the galaxy: one hour. Only Eternals and their inductees now inhabit Earth. Many centers of power exist, loosely allied in confederate-style government. Terran side of Milky Way is mostly considered a safe zone, anything beyond that is No-Man's land, largely dominated by smaller factions and the aforementioned rogue and criminal groupings. No other intelligent species exists in the Milky Way besides those generated by the ancient human race.
Andromeda Galaxy--Unknown to the Milky Way inhabitants, a fully populated galaxy consisting exclusively of Eternals. While only two thousand years have passed for the inhabitants of the Milky Way since the time the original progenitors of Andromeda made their leap to the larger galaxy, the wormhole used was influenced by the gravity of a supermassive red giant. The resulting temporal flux created a time differential in which those of the Andromeda galaxy have existed for twenty thousand years.
Leo 1(Now known simply as Leo)--This galaxy remains completely unexplored, despite the fact modern vessels are capable of the long haul across open space. The few ships sent there were stopped halfway across by mysterious ships that do not use warp systems for propulsion, but rather seem capable of space-folding technology. This alien race refuses all contact save for capturing and catapulting ships back from whence they came. Their only known style ship is in the shape of a cross with tapering ends, making a diamond-like shape with a longer portion at the generally accepted "front" of the ships. The alien vessels are also on a supermassive scale, approximating at .79 TLunars (Terran Lunars) and creating gravity differentials due to their mass equating at around .12TG's (Terran Gravities).
The Races:
Eternals: Currently the only humans that still technically exist, Eternals are victims of the Red Plague that swept the interstellar community in about 2200 A.D. The Plague was actually a nanite virus that integrated itself into the human DNA and completely destroyed it at a molecular level. The virus was programmed to avoid detection and await an entire month before activation inside its host, leaving a large incubationary period for it to spread silently throughout the population before it made its initial strike. In the case of Eternals, the nanites malfunctioned, reverting to their original programming and integrating themselves into the body of the host for the host's benefit. The host then becomes immortal and gains extraordinary strength, intellect, and speed. This, however, comes at the cost of an intense metabolism rate and the complete loss of skin pigmentation, reddening of the iris and the hair, increases in sensitivity to pain, and a dual set of fangs extending from the top and bottom canines.
Half-breeds: A mixture of human and animal, half-breeds were created as a desperation move for scientists battling the Red Plague. With nearly half the human population dead and the rest already showing signs of the onset of the disease, this last-ditch effort was a super-accelerated retrovirus that infused the properties of mammalian DNA into human DNA. With various planets came various mammalian substitutes to write into the retrovirus for human infusion, and a various number of degrees occured. Some half-breeds have as little as enhanced reflexes, strength, and even tails and ears characteristic of mammals, while others are fully hybridized, essentially looking like anthropomorphic representations of their respective mammalian race. As intermingling occurs among the species, varying levels and degrees of genetic infusion have come into being, and there are some colonies that have even gotten within 98% of their original human DNA. Attempts to fully restore the human genome to its original make-up, however, are strongly discouraged by the Eternal Council amid fears of a resurfacing of the virus.
"Dirty" breeds: Truly half-breeds of the same line as the mammalian type, these "dirty" breeds are really just a social caste that has been formed over the years as a distinction between mammalian and non-mammalian types. The non-mammalian, or "Dirty," breeds are generally considered low creatures. They are stereotyped as stupid and incapable, and highly likely to be involved in criminal activities. These non-mammalian breeds came about as a necessity for some sort of animal to integrate during the Red Plague in which biotech engineers took whatever species they could get their hands on at that moment to save the lives of millions. Much of the more dangerous quadrants of the Milky Way are more populated by these breeds, many of whom fled the racist tyranny of the mammalian breeds closer to Earth's reach of influence.
Propulsion systems** :**
Propulsion is highly advanced at this point in time, albeit dependent on a complexly structured system. Simply put, there are three primary components necessary for faster-than-light travel: an antimatter reactor, a tachyon generator, and a warp drive. The antimatter reactor is necessary for its sheer capacity for output. On some of the largest modern military vessels, however, singularity reactors are being used. While much less stable, the cavernous size of these vessels necessitates a much greater power source. Tachyon generators allow solid matter to exceed light speed, creating an envelope of space that is completely still relative to the ship. Outside the tachyon field generated by this generator, space can move past with great speeds. There are limitations, however, as parts of the galaxy are too densly packed with reactive materials that would render the tachyon envelope useless, thuss completely disintigrating the ship into a supermassive burst of energy, its very atomic structure ripped apart by the speed it is going. The warp drive creates an artificial gravity well ahead of the ship at a static distance relative to the ship's position in space. The most powerful drives can create the equivalent gravity of supermassive black holes with the mass of 2billion Solars. Again, only the most advanced military vessels are thus far capable of such massive gravity differentials, cutting the three month voyage time across the Milky Way to less than a week.
Propulsion of the Leo galaxy aliens remains completely unknown. All reports tell of a sudden reading of a singularity from nothingness in space, then the ship appears and the singularity reading is gone. Physicists insist the kind of power necessary for fold-space travel is far beyond the scope of any kind of controls, but still have no way of explaining how the aliens are able to bore holes right through the fabric of space-time without ripping themselves apart.
Communciation
Messages are sent through simple tachyon transponders. Uninhibited by the necessity of having to envelop a ship, these tachyons can be blasted through space at far greater speeds with relatively little energy output, ensuring that every part of the galaxy is no more than an hour's communication out from any other part of the galaxy.