Overview
In the year 7830, the focus is no longer individual cities, states, or even planets. While individual planets often retain some measure of sovereignty, a council of merchants, called the Trade Federation, now makes loose but nearly universal laws. To complicate matters, this council is overseen by the Arch (pronounced “Ark”) which is a long-lived monarchy. While the Arch is officially the seat of power in the known universe, to act without the support of the council would be foolish, such is the uneasy balance of power. Also in the mix is the Church, a group whose power has waxed and waned over the past few hundred years. At present, their power is on the rise, mostly a result of a dispute over who is the rightful head of the Arch. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
These three groups strike an uneasy balance of powers, often with open tension and animosity between one another. Recently, however, these tense moments have erupted into open warfare. This, too, is nothing new, and is probably to be expected given that The Arch, The Fed, and The Church have coexisted for the past five centuries, marking the longest standing cooperative government in known history. The relative peace of the early years under the triumvirate began to crumble perhaps eighty years ago. A few skirmishes here and there were signs of things far worse to come. The past seven years have been quite terrible, with losses mounting in the heavens as well as on the land. Debris from warships floats in the wastes of space and many planets are overrun with too many bodies and have too few to dispose of the bodies.