The largest and most successful empire to arise from the Wars of Expansion, the Iron Star Alliance is a vast interplanetary coalition of nations and chartered corporations that have been bound together in the name of progress and mutual defense. Dominated by a powerful aristocracy ruled by a septarchy of monarchs, the Iron Star Alliance is governed by a Supreme Assembly made up of representatives of its member states and constituent corporations.

The nations of the Iron Star Alliance are held together through the promise of continual prosperity, mutual self-interest, and fear. This fear is elemental to the Alliance, which sees threats around every corner, both external and internal. Rival interests compete within the Alliance even as the empire continually launches its wars of unification to subjugate ever-greater numbers under its dominion.

The core objective of the Alliance is to provide security for its allied nations by way of aggressive expansion throughout the galaxy, believing that the only safe Hyperuranion is a unified Hyperuranion. To achieve this agenda, the Iron Star Alliance has established an unparalleled military presence across the Thousand Worlds, with legions of elite Paladin shock troopers that can be deployed anywhere within their dominion quickly and with formidable effect. Through significant tribute extracted from its member-nations, the Iron Alliance is able to afford the most advanced technology and weapons for its military, and its Warcasters enjoy abundant benefits as the galaxy’s most celebrated martial heroes.

Not every planet, nation-state, or backwater colony is willing to quietly accept the authority of the ruthlessly expansionistic Iron Star Alliance. Though the Alliance offers its people security and the promise of prosperity, it does so as a conquering power willing to assert its dominion over any who would stand against it. To accept membership into the Alliance is to accept its draconian law, the monopolies of its corporations, and the crippling economic obligations required to support its military. Those many billions who would resist the Alliance and live on their own terms have retreated to the fringes of explored space and now fight for their freedom in the Marches—the borderlands between the mapped Hyperuranion and the unexplored worlds beyond.

Opposing the authority of the Alliance is the Coalition of Free States, consisting of a pragmatic and independent people used to looking to themselves for support and mutual protection. Unified only in their resistance to the Alliance, the disparate nations, communities, and cultures of the Coalition developed during mankind’s expansion across the stars. Though trust is hard won and alliances may shift, the Coalition has proven its strength in the defense of their territory from Alliance incursions.

Often settled on harsher or more hostile planets in the Hyperuranion, those who inhabit the Marcher Worlds are resourceful, adaptable, and stalwart, or they would not be able to survive in the conditions they do, much less repel the advances of the Alliance as well as many other threats to civilization. Their militias and militaries make due with what they have and employ unconventional strategies and tactics to overcome their adversaries. Coalition Warcasters range from devoted patriots fighting for the freedom of their people to renowned mercenaries ready to sell their talents to the highest bidder.

The inscrutable Aeternus Continuum is a vast cult outlawed by both the Alliance and the Marcher Worlds. Primarily known and feared for their piracy, armed incursions, and violent abductions, few outsiders recognize the true scale or purposes of this shadowy organization. To those who face the Continuum in battle, they are savage and unpredictable combatants willing to harvest organs and materials from fallen friends and foes alike. Many who face them simply disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

In truth, they are a technologically advanced power with a presence in the bowels of every major industrialized world throughout the Hyperuranion, dedicated to the mastery of the flesh and the perpetuation of the physical life of its leadership at all costs. They are controlled by a byzantine cult made up of millions of faithful and dedicated followers overseen by a fanatical priesthood dominated by a pharaonic priest-king ruling from a hidden sepulchral world at the heart of Continuum space.

The promise of the cult is immortality itself, and through their medical knowledge and use of mechanika, the Aeternus Continuum has been able to extend the existence of human flesh far beyond its normal years. Making this technology available to its membership, the cult has exploded in popularity, enabling the Continuum to spread across the Hyperuranion.

Yet to those who face the Continuum in battle, there is nothing seductive or compelling about their brutal attacks. They take from anyone weaker than them in order to fuel their war machine. And because of that, they are able to bring a significant military force to bear that belies their apparent numbers. And with Warcasters infamous for ruthless tactics and a wanton disregard for the lives of their own troops, tales of encounters with an Aeternus Continuum war host have become the stuff of nightmares.

When humanity first arrived, desperate and afraid, they were watching. When the universe unfolded around them, with its countless, seemingly abandoned paradises bound by a star-spanning latticework of gateways constructed in deepest celestial antiquity by unknown hands, the new visitors called it providence. Where they found the few agents of the ancients who remained, they pushed them aside or engaged in direct conflict. Eyes wide with greed and wonder, humanity spread across the silent stars, bringing with them war and death and untold destruction, jeopardizing the carefully constructed order of the universe and emboldening old enemies exiled beyond the darkness between the stars.

Now the Hyperuranion’s true masters have returned.

The Empyreans are the ancient Architects that connected the Thousand Worlds of Cyriss. Over countless millennia, they designed and crafted the Hyperuranion— a galaxy-spanning network of interdimensional conduits that allowed the faithful to unify the known universe, rendering all in their path pure and immortal. Those who saw the truth abandoned their mortal existence and joined in the Great Work, a constellation of souls at the center of the galaxy. But the unenlightened were shown the folly of their flesh, and the Thousand Worlds were emptied of any who might disrupt the eternal rapture of the Empyreans.

For an unknown age, the Empyreans enjoyed the fruits of their labors until the arrival of humanity threatened all they had achieved. Not only have humanity’s wars and predations ruined worlds and damaged vital astronomical infrastructure, but they have also drained the Hyperuranion of Arcanessence, the lifeblood of the galaxy. This resource is being consumed faster than it can be replenished, threatening both the Empyreans and their Great Work with extinction. Unwilling to accept oblivion, the Empyreans have once again taken the offensive, deploying newly created legions built to eradicate the human pestilence that plagues their galaxy.

The armies of the Empyreans are composed of a myriad of robotic constructs, each specializing in some unique method of destruction. They take a variety of forms, from the formidable Saber warriors that make up the backbone of the Empyrean forces to the terrifyingly powerful Daemon and Sentinel warjacks that possess unparalleled firepower and technology beyond the ken of human comprehension. The robot horde is led by the Aeons—ancient souls encased in mechanical bodies. These heroes have pledged their immortal existence to returning balance to Cyriss and the protection of the Great Work through the complete annihilation of humanity. And for those who have held eternity in their hands, it is only a matter of time.