Secrets of the Star Gryphs is a fanmade continuity set in the Spore universe! The main story centres around rookie Captain Fluffy of the Star Gryph empire & her adventures around the Qwineb galaxy, as she gradually learns to figure out what she wants to do now that she's achieved her dream of becoming a captain, what pursuing this path may entail for her as a person, as well as slowly uncovering the mysterious forgotten origins of her own species- all while trying to stop a rapidly-spreading plague that threatens to shake the entire galaxy to its core.

  Idk about super specific details! I'm just having fun worldbuilding & being silly lol. I'm not even going too hard on the emotional beats here like I do with my other OC story concepts! This is an adventure story first & foremost!

  I do know that at some point, Fluffy meets Captain Laurix & the Celerseo Fleet in one of her earlier adventures, which kickstarts Fluffy's character development on realising that situations have nuance & it's not all just black-&-white, plus teaching Fluffy more strategic thinking. At some point Laurix gives Fluffy some vague cryptic, though genuinely-trying-to-be-helpful advice on her identity crisis, "Alright, kid. Ask yourself this: Why are you a Captain? What drives you to do what you do? Once you figure that out, you'll know what you want."

  Later on at some point, with the rise of the Strysohris Plague; Fluffy goes on a galaxy-wide manhunt searching for the missing Omnipotent Valanteta Worldsaver to retrieve the Staff Of Life from them, which for plot & narrative reasons I'm pretending has infinite uses instead of just 42. Valant turns out to have privately retired as Valanteta Whisperchirp on a random planet somewhere & didn't want to be found because she was tired of being a hero.

  Something something meeting Valanteta & accidentally dragging her into a few adventures causes Fluffy to realise she has to take matters into her own hands; also realising the true reason why she's always wanted to be a captain: because she wants to lend a helping hand to creatures who need it, when no-one else will. Because Spode knows the universe can be cruel & unfair; but she doesn't have to be a part of that cruelty. Because she wants to be compassionate & kind & help change things for the better. Valanteta & Fluffy also work out their emotional issues on the side; Fluffy reminds Valant on why existence is still enjoyable & to continue having hope; while Valant teaches Fluffy to be a little more selfish, so she doesn't burn herself out the same way Valant once did. They also both manage to track the plague down to originating from the Eulpov Corporation during their adventures & Valant eventually agrees to let Fluffy take the Staff Of Life.

  Embarking on a more serious investigation into Eulpov, Fluffy eventually discovers that the Eulpov Corporation is being run entirely by an aggressive AI that wishes to wipe out all non-sapient wildlife, so the AI can continue expanding its servers for the company's mission of profit & efficiency. And also that it was created by a lost civilisation known as the Cathiola Empire, who went extinct exactly thousands of years before the Star Gryphs showed up on the galactic radar. The Cathiola, in an attempt to avoid their own apocalypse, tried to use a prototype technology akin to a monolith to accelerate Cathiola intelligence & find a way out of their impending extinction, but by then it was too late. Eventually this led to the Star Gryphs, originally kept as domestic pets but having been locked in stasis in the final days of the Cathiola, being affected by the proto-monolith instead. And that's how, one day, the Star Gryph Empire was spontaneously born. Thousands of intelligent individuals with no idea how they got so intelligent or why they even have a civilisation at all. By the time Fluffy discovers all this, hundreds of years later, the plague has caused almost one third of the entire galaxy to become uninhabitable for colonies, causing many to become refugees, fleeing their dying planets. Things are looking... incredibly bleak & hopeless. Some say it's the end of days.

  Then stuff happens & there's a final battle or something & yadda yadda a bunch of Fluffy's allies, including the Celerseo Fleet, teams up to push back against the Eulpov AI's forces, because yeah! Things can suck here, this galaxy is far from a utopia & there's a lot of bullcrap going on that needs to change; it isn't good that something like the Eulpov Corporation managed to rise to power & thrive completely unchecked due to the current system, but it's still a home where people live in & it's worth fighting for, in the end. Cynically waiting for a not-inevitable doom does nothing to help, but rallying friends & allies to do some good goes a long way. (...the environmental pollution & corporate greed + doomerism vs hopefulness allegory wasn't intentional at first, but oops here it is now.)