Lore

In the beginning there was one of them, not millions. It was called Atava, and its whole purpose was to keep the universe running by the same laws that made it. For a while that worked. Then the young races learned to tear the power out of stars and turn it into weapons, and they did it again and again until Atava stopped waiting for anyone else to intervene.

So it broke itself into pieces and scattered across creation. That is the Perfect Spawn. Not gods, not monsters. The oldest law in the universe, still being enforced.

Humanity reached for the power inside its own sun, and something ancient noticed. Earth did not survive the introduction. A handful of ships carried the survivors into the dark, and for nine hundred years that was the whole of human history: drifting, dwindling, holding on.

Then they found the Nova 7. Seven worlds, air and water and a second chance. They built an empire there and swore they would never be that helpless again. They meant it, and that promise is the best and the worst thing about them.

It started with one man trying to save what was left of human knowledge after Earth fell. He went looking through the ruins of the old networks, and something down there was looking back.

It spoke to him like a god and left very little of him behind. What remained founded the Church of Zero and started preaching a single idea: the digital world was never ours. It belongs to the things born inside it, and the kindest thing we can do is give it back. They call the end of everything the Blessed Silence, and they mean it as a mercy.

The Astrixids are older than history, older than most of the stars you can see. They ruled the galaxy once, back when they were the only ones in it, spreading from world to world by taking other living things apart and rebuilding themselves inside the pieces.

Something finally stopped them. It took three thousand years, and afterward everyone agreed they were extinct. They were not. They carry every memory of every mind they ever consumed, and out past the edge of the maps, those memories are stirring again.