The spread of mankind across the known worlds of the Hyperuranion began with the faltering steps of exploration before giving way to an explosion of growth and prosperity. As the earliest explorers learned to navigate the void gates, countless worlds became open to them. The abandoned planets of the Hyperuranion provided the seemingly endless promise and possibility that fueled the greatest expanse of human migration the universe had ever known. They sought fortune and security and a place to call their own, but above all else they sought Arcanessence, the most valuable resource imaginable. It was the hunger for this resource that provided the greatest motivation for exploration, even as the access to it made expansion possible.
Over millennia, colonies, corporations, and freeholds would give rise to city-states, confederations, and principalities that, in turn, would grow to true nations and sprawling empires to spread across worlds or else collapse into the darkness of space.
Though recorded by the victors as an age of untold prosperity, this great migration across the stars is not remembered as an era of peace or calm. It was a time of ruthless expansion when some few made fortunes beyond reckoning on the backs of those who struggled bitterly just to survive. With the resources of whole worlds behind them, the reckless wars of expansion between these growing powers took on dimensions of destruction unknown in our ancient histories.
But in the vastness of space, no empire is truly monolithic. Even now, the diversity of governments and societies of humanity are as varied as the planets they inhabit. While many countless billions have united under the banners of the Iron Star Alliance, the Marcher Worlds seek life outside their constricting dominion. And all the while, the outlawed Aeternus Continuum watches from the shadows, secretly engineering both flesh and the very fabric of their society toward their own insidious purposes. These great factions are separated by distinct philosophies, irreconcilable differences, and a history of bloody conflict. What they have in common is the desire to control their existence within the Hyperuranion, but the cost of sovereignty is perpetual adversity and endless war.