DeepSpace: The Galaxies And What Lies Beyond

A commission for last_of_workers

In the distant future, the year 5980 AD, thousands of years from the present day, humanity has mastered interstellar space travel, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, cold nuclear fusion, and so much more, with even more to soon be mastered.

Humanity is actively exploring the galaxy they originated from, as well as the Andromeda galaxy, which was getting closer and closer as time passed, and the closer it got, the more planets and resources humanity could take from it.

It had become very necessary as humanity advanced and expanded, so they were also looking for ways to cause the collision of galaxies to happen faster. Humanity's main colony was built off the ruins of old Earth in the Sol star system.

It consists of a large planet created using Earth, named Terrarth, which is ten times larger. Around the planet are two massive rings made from the most advanced technology humanity has ever created, and in the space around the planet were a couple dozen smaller planets that orbited it.

Humanity, while more united now than ever, was still split into three main factions, each with their own zones. These are known as The Core of the Empire, Corporate Territories, and Noble Lands. The first faction, the core of the empire is the central part of the human empire.

It is also the cradle of humanity and the current capital of the galaxy. The people who live here are extremely rich. Thanks to that, they not only live long, luxurious lives filled with anything they can dream of, but they also have the most advanced technology.

The core of the empire also dictates its will to all humans, which isn't surprising thanks to the fleet in which they control. Not only is it the largest in numbers, but thanks to their technology, it’s the most advanced, and it’s filled with the most loyal operators.

If they wanted to, they could wipe the other two factions from the universe in a matter of days, but they don’t do so because the other factions have proven to be useful to them, so as long as the current affairs suit the core of the empire, they’ll allow them to remain.

The next faction is the noble lands, which occupy the planets that orbit Terrarth. This faction is broken up into nine smaller regions called houses. Each of them has their own name, but the core of the empire is absolute, and thus each house is officially named after a color.

The houses go as follows: the Orange House, the Black House, the Green House, the White House, the Blue House, the Purple House, the Golden House, the Silver House, and lastly, the Copper House.

Though there used to be many more houses in the previous millennium, for one reason or another, they’ve all sunken into oblivion and vanished from record. Like the Red House, which went bankrupt, and their people all starved.

The Yellow House, which collided with the platinum house, and the Bronze House, which was abandoned after being infested with giant brain-eating space bugs. A great many things can happen that cause a House to collapse.

The relationships between the Houses are complicated. On the surface they all appear friendly and compliant to the will of the core of the empire; however, when the eyes of their overseers aren't looking, things are very different.

Many have alliances that were made centuries ago and still hold up today, while others fight off all kinds of things, like trade wars, conspiracies, or even because their Houses have apostates that hate the core of the empire or bandits looking to steal from other houses.

Each of the houses also has its own capitals, but much smaller than that of the core of the empires. Though, the people who live in the capitals in Houses live nearly the same lifestyles as those in the core’s capital.

However, the further away from a House’s capital a person lives, the less and less advanced they are, with some places being technologically stunted, making it so they live like humans did in the 19th century.

Though this makes things unbalanced and some think it unfair, there isn't a whole lot that they can do about it. Each house also controls different star systems, some of which they claimed in the early days of Terrarth, some awarded by the core of the empire, and some stolen from other houses.

The smallest of the Houses, the Copper House, has under its control thirty-seven star systems, from the Milky Way galaxy to the Andromeda galaxy, and each house in order of power going up has more and more.

Of course, without the type of money the other factions have, they can’t do a whole lot other than mining resources from those places. The third and final faction, the Corporate Territory. This faction is by far the youngest of them all.

 Yet when considered as a whole, it's the richest and most technologically advanced. In reality, though, they’re not like the other factions. They’re merely a group of corporations that work out of the twin rings space station and random smaller space stations they’ve set up around the galaxies.

Thirty major companies and one hundred and fifty minor ones make up the corporate territory faction. Between them, they’re responsible for nearly everything people eat and wear, everything that’s manufactured, and even the advancements that the core of the empire benefits from first.

Corporations are reward star systems depending on how big and/or how beneficial they are by the core of the empire. So each of the major corporations has five massive star systems to do with as they please, while the lowest of the minor companies are given one or less.

Some of them merely get areas without a star that have a few asteroids or dark planets. That may not seem great, but in this day and age of advanced technology, adding a sun and creating planets is more than possible; it’s just expensive and needs workers, which are hard to come by.

That is where humanity finds itself in this era, but there is more beyond that, which the factions tread. That is what is called deep space. Deep space is further out than the factions have reached, though they have the power to do so if they wanted.

The thing is, they have no interest in traveling that far out; not only is it dangerous as there could be anything out there. The core of the empire has everything they need already, so they don’t care about deep space, nor do they have a need to explore it.

The Houses have too many things to deal with in their territories as it is and don’t really have the money to go further than the star systems in which they own. The corporations are the only ones who would love to explore deep space.

They believe there are plenty of resources out there and incredible things to discover, but they’re the only faction that doesn’t have the numbers needed in order to travel across unknown and dangerous space.

So the factions themselves may never truly make it out to deep space, which is quite sad, as small groups of humans and some people on their own have taken their ships and gone out past the stars they know, looking for crazy adventure and anything else they may find.

As more and more left the factions and went off on their own, a unique culture was born in deep space. Made up of random people from all three factions. Now a peaceful faction of their own way out beyond the stars, which the core of the empire controls.

These humans, whether it was to get away from their oppressors, looking for a chance to strike it rich, or simply looking for the thrills that await, somehow found themselves together in deep space and working together to make things work out there.

Some brought their own ships, and while most were only capable of basic autonomous tasks like transporting and mining, that allowed them to find materials needed in order to survive and make themselves stronger.

Though it was risky, as most of the ships were basic models or even run down, so too much damage, and they’d lose power and either land on the surface of a planet they were mining or get stuck floating adrift in space.

Though those types of things tend to happen from meteors crashing into them or random weather problems that hit or short-circuit the power supply, making the ship completely unrepairable unless brought to a repair station, which were in short supply in the underdeveloped deep space.

Those people could purchase high-quality ships or even have their own built, which would not only give them amazing ships that do all the work in a fraction of the time but also wouldn’t be destroyed easily.

But in the world they came from, everything costs money, and not everyone has that kind of money, so they work with what they’ve got. So they’re fine with making repairs with parts they create and even finding old ships that have broken down and repairing them.

Luckily the only real thing they would have needed from new ships was their high-tech weapons, but they find and attach whatever weapons they can find to their ships, which is only really ever used to shoot at asteroids.

Most of the species discovered in the areas around darkspace have been wiped out by humans or assimilated into one of the Houses as workers. So no one life is known to exist in deep space. So for the most part, things are pretty calm.

Those who do call deep space home also have this unwritten rule not to mess with one another. So space pirates were less common out here, as they tended to stay around Terrarth, where there was stuff for them to steal.

Though there can be the occasional battle over things, like who gets to mine where, or if someone decides to rob another, out here the captains have honor, and if one has clearly lost, they surrender and shut down their weapons.

The winners will stop attacking and take a portion of the loot from the loser but leave them with their ship and some loot in order for them to survive, and in the end, no one dies when a surrender is given, because of this system, even your worst enemies could turn into your saviors.

As anything can happen out in deep space, and not many travel through it, if something happens and you send out an SOS, it may be them who show up, and they’ll help you to safety; thus is the way of deep space.