The Galaxy
A universe at the brink.
Under the iron rule of The Balance. Stalked by the unknowable Zerakoor. Yet alight with the first sparks of revolution.
The State of Things
A galaxy in a dark age.
They have spread across the galaxy like a plague, their numbers growing every day, under the command of their mysterious and enigmatic leader Berevoss. They enforce their will with genocide and torment, exterminating the entire populations of any world that refuse to comply.
Somehow, using some force that none truly know or understand, known only as Zerakoor, they rid entire worlds of their ability to produce or host life itself.
This galaxy is a strange one. Advanced in many ways, and incredibly simple in others. They have ships that can traverse a solar system in a matter of minutes, yet they do not have any communication device more advanced than a two-way radio. The science and technology of brilliant minds is hoarded by the Balance for themselves. As such these people live among a virtual dark age.
Over the course of the story, a revolution begins to form. One of scattered, determined folk from many worlds and lives, all who have lost greatly.
Location · 01
The Grave Nebula
The hideout of Calibast, the pirate king, kept secret in the heart of a miraculous phenomenon of the stars. As our hero is held captive, he watches hundreds of pirate starships plunge headfirst into the all-engulfing dust-cloud.
I now bore witness to a fantastic and beautiful nebula, vibrant dust clouds of a thousand incredible colours… A great purple wave illuminated by a distant scarlet star, cresting over it all, swallowing it deep into its centre.
Location · 02
The Crater on Caverous
The heart of the Balance's mining operation, where thousands of refugees and supposed 'criminals' work day and night mining Revernic ore, the most powerful fuel source in the galaxy. A slave camp, hidden from all maps and star charts.
Tired, beaten creatures moved in and out, pushing hovering carts filled with the yellow-green glow of revernic ore.
Location · 03
The Citadel
The secret home and base of operations of the Balance. A city built upon an ever-moving, ever-elusive asteroid. To all others, its very existence is impossible.
Drifting over the horizon was an unbelievable sight… It was incomprehensible, it was impossible, it was a miracle, it was the Citadel.
Location · 04
Reloma
A world stripped of life by Zerakoor. The home planet of Keldeek Vara, decimated when his revolution failed. He returns now, obsessed with restoring it to life with his miracle Rebirth Reactor.
It was amazing, I was standing in a snapshot of a lost world, a return from extinction.
Location · 05
Nolavor / The Professor's Island
A quiet refuge on a world far from the Balance's reach. The matriarchal home of the Professor and her niece Sakeena, where Andrew first encounters genuine kindness in this strange new universe.
At the bottom of a winding staircase, she stood magnificent, the sun glittering off of her sparkling ivory hair.
Location · 06
Berevoss' Throne Room
A mighty hall that sits in the heart of the Citadel. A mocking and impossible tribute to 14th century European architecture, somehow recreated here to satisfy Berevoss' indecipherable temperaments. The site of our hero's final confrontation.
I looked up to see twenty feet before me stood Berevoss, an absolute behemoth of expressionless metal, shining like a diamond in the sun.
And us, drifting amongst it all.