This is the third setting overview for the new setting that will accompany the Hammercalled Roleplaying Game, The Legacy of Eight. Its goal is to detail the timeline of the universe and some of the key shaping events.
After centuries of starfaring, the Terrans become over-extended. While the confederated Centaurans were too loosely associated to have hierarchies form between the worlds except on the basis of population and economic power, the centralized Terran power began to meet resistance from its colonies.
The breaking point was an economic levy intended to support Earth, whose resources were nearly exhausted as the various internal factions of Earth, remnants of the old nation-states, had turned to the colonies for assistance.
When the colonies refused, the Terran bureaucracy simply imposed heavy taxation and tariffs on any planet outside the Sol system. Far in excess of Earth's needs, the new demands were a show of force.
It ended in civil war. Hundreds of planets reached out to the Centaurans for protection, but the Centaurans only guaranteed protection against war crimes, not Terran military occupation and taxation.
The inhabitants of dozens of worlds simply packed up and left for their own space or Centauran space, with terraformed biospheres and vacant structures serving as silent signs of protest.
One of these groups of exiles encountered a MAL infestation on their destination world, but instead of eradicating it, they reprogrammed it. Turning it into an autonomous terraforming hive, they were able to subordinate the machines' errant programming to more productive conditions, and use it to overcome the costs and time constraints associated with terraforming.
The Seeders eventually pursued machine consciousness themselves, becoming the first human population to willingly transfer into altered forms of mechanical consciousness. As individual agents largely stripped of motives, they were governed by a unifying directive: to be fruitful and multiply. Unlike the strictly abhuman minds of the MAL, however, they pursued arts and sciences with the same passion that their predecessors had conquered worlds. They attracted many recruits with their utopian vision.
Another new faction that came about during this time was the Stellar League. While the Seeders came before faster-than-light travel, the Stellar League relied on it from its very foundation. Rejecting the accord between the Terrans and Centaurans, the Stellar League recruited promising people from both sides with promises of power.
Rather than relying on self-governance, it would fully centralize its worlds. Concordia, its capitol planet, would be the center of human life in the galaxy, and everyone else would be linked by the miracle of instantaneous communication and quick, risk-free travel.
However, the Stellar League was also extreme in its politics. It had legions of secret police that sought to root out spies from the other powers–a task that kept them very busy–and also had the strictest lifespan requirements. Those who outlived the restrictions were forced to upload into virtual consciousness or live as a more resource-efficient machine intelligence. Although not fundamentally different in goal than the Terran approach, this was perceived as a violation of human rights by both the Terrans and Centaurans.
The Stellar League also had one key advantage over its rival powers: a navy capable of going toe to toe with any power. While both the Terrans and Centaurans had navies, their battleships and carriers were generally out-dated. The Stellar League created lean cruisers capable of planetary bombardment, and were willing to use the threat of planetary annihilation against any opponent.
The Terrans planned decisive military action, and began to build their own fleet of planet-killers.
Terran rimworlds revolted. They were unwilling to commit to action against the Stellar League and risk their lives and homes to total war, but the increased taxes and resource extraction required for fleets of FTL-capable vessels was too much to bear even in the best circumstances.
The resulting civil war raged for decades, allowing the Stellar League to grow more strong and influential among independent systems. The Seeders got in a short-lived conflict with the Stellar League, ending with bitter losses on both sides and a formal peace agreement, but neither the Centaurans or Terrans were in a position to act: the Centaurans would want the overwhelming force of the Terrans on their side, and the Terrans were falling to pieces.
Although outside powers engaged in espionage and other political intrigue during the Terran civil war, nobody attempted to conquer Terran planets and risk unifying the Terrans against outside threats; the Centaurans and Stellar League were diametrically opposed to each other and refused to cooperate to bring the giant down, though a few far-flung plans were hatched by rogue diplomats.
When the dust cleared, the Terran federation had come through intact, but under a new banner. The Immortal Empire pledged loyalty to its subjects, with a ceremonial capitol and bureaucratic headquarters on Earth to pacify Terran hardliners but equal status to all member planets. An entrenched system of social ranks governed political duties and rights.
Soon, all eyes would turn to the Stellar League.