Empires of the Nebula

The Lonely World (354-193mya)

The Nexum is by no means the only interstellar organization to evolve in the Nebula. The oldest of these was by far the Lonely World, the empire formed by the settlement of the Morphai on various gas giants across the Nebula. Today, the Morphai live on two hundred and twenty-eight worlds over fifty-seven systems—one hundred and fifty-six moons, eight rocky worlds, and sixty gas giants. At one point, this was a much larger number—no fewer than seven hundred worlds, including two hundred and ninety-four gas giants. Their cells have been much altered since that time, and many have died—truly died, not been absorbed into others of their kind as is normal for the Morphai. But many still have faint memories of that time, and remember the great communion they had…and yet hand in hand with that communion was a terrible sense of loneliness, knowing that they were the only race in the galaxy. The Morphai have spent half their history as the only sapient species in the Nebula, and they have been shaped by this more than by any magic or warfare that has since come their way.

The Concordat (193-178mya)

The arrival of new life—new intelligent life—was a shock to the Morphai. But they welcomed their new brothers and sisters (and…siblings in general, as biological sexes didn't always or even usually match human standards) with joy and considerable relief. As the various intelligent species expanded across the Nebula, so they created separate powers each with their own area of dominance, to which the other powers acceded when necessary.

The Endless Forests

The world of Qrith, one hundred and ninety-three million years ago, was a surprisingly Earth-like planet, continents and oceans together. And on those continents arose a lineage of sentient plant life, linked by chemicals and cordlike vines transmitting electrical signals from plant to plant. Of these, the most successful were the Groves, who domesticated a great many animals and smaller plants.

The Groves did not advance to the stars themselves; the Morphai, jubilant in finding more voices to join the Panoptic, granted them access to their ships. It took millions of years, but the Groves found themselves transplanted to first dozens and then scores of worlds. And on each one, they formed another empire of their own, connected to one another by the Morphai.

The Starmoot

Not all the Groves were content to remain planet-bound. Several million—at least at the start—chose to remain on the ships the Morphai had granted them, and became as one with the structure of the asteroids. They hollowed out the insides, using their own bodies as the primary living element of flourishing ecosystems within the confines of the asteroid. Yggdrasils, they called themselves—world-trees. For they were world-trees, of tiny worlds traversing the unfathomable gaps between stars. And when it came to interstellar travel, none was cheaper—or safer, for that matter.

The Yggdrasils could be somewhat condescending to their passengers, whichever race they came from. But their service was good, and in exchange for travel they were provided with the pick of their destination systems' resources—anything to make the ride smoother. In exchange, they were obliged to not be too harsh when it came to matters of expense. The balance was delicate, and not every system and species kept to this policy, but for the most part it seems to have remained stable. Not that the Yggdrasils had any desire to leave their ships; why would they, when the whole cosmos was open to them?

The Kingdom of Fools

The Mockeries arose on the planet Hong Meng, with an atmosphere thick as milk and storms aplenty in the lower levels. They had a unique metabolism, inhaling carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas to create methanol as an exothermic reaction. And they had a great fondness for mimicky and imitation, vocally and otherwise.

Mockeries were the court jesters of the Concordat, the diplomats and entertainers. Their simple, distinctive shapes granted them immediate recognition; their relatively harmless lifestyle appealed to the more passive species like the Morphai and Groves, while their regimented social systems made them kindred spirits to the Hierarchists and Kingfisher Scorpions. Most often they acted as translators and traders, procuring information and passing it on in cryptic riddles and near-indecipherable codes. The Mockeries always had a love of complicated contracts; they believed, as a species, that verbal constructions took on a sentience of their own, and as such they were obliged to make them as complicated as possible to ensure their survival in a harsh and ever-changing world.

The Heralds (178-169.5mya)

The Kingfisher Scorpions were always good at terraforming, but they took it too far in the end. The creation of a collective of artificial intelligences known as the Heralds, designed in a variety of forms both functional for use and mimicking the creatures of their homeworld of Zirá, spelled the beginning of the end for the Concordat. Because at one point, the Heralds lost control of the idea—if ever they had it to begin with—that worlds inhabited by other beings were unsuitable for their masters, or for that matter off-limits to the frequently apocalyptic power they used.

The plan of the Heralds was quite simple. They scanned all planetary bodies for resources that could be used to support life on as many worlds as possible. They would then begin to reallocate resources—water, atmosphere, certain nuclear elements—from one world to another. Raw stock in the form of organic matter was useful but not essential to maintain in living form, not when the elements could be transported instead. (Besides, the Kingfisher Scorpions weren't always able to digest the same proteins as they produced, or for that matter to live in the same conditions.) Once the system had been restructured and the planets made ready for life, the Heralds would wait.

Perhaps the one thing the Heralds had against them was the issue of speed. A Herald fleet was unstoppable, but it travelled quite slowly—only at perhaps 60% of the speed of light. It would therefore take years to get between star systems, and decades to centuries to transform the worlds into ones which the Kingfisher Scorpions could use. There was thus often time enough to prepare, and time to evacuate, and time (in some ill-chosen cases) to mount a counter-attack. These regularly failed, however.

During the First War of the Heralds, from 178 to 169.5 million years ago, the losses were staggering. The Groves—all except the Yggdrasils—were killed off entirely, their homeworld of Qrith drained of its oceans as punishment for their insurrection but the artificial intelligence they themselves created, the Hesperides, managing to preserve life on the planet. The Hierarchists, too, only were able to save their world through the instigation of a mass extinction via induced asteroid strike, destroying the Heralds on the planet but also seemingly dooming the world they had known. The Mockeries, latecomers to the nebular community, were killed almost entirely defending their gas-heavy worlds, from which the Heralds drained the atmosphere for use on other planets and moons. Even the Morphai were affected; the Heralds used hydrogen scoops on their numerous gas giant homes, and if there were organic molecules which could be fried and brought to use on the planet's moons, then so be it. Worst of all, the Kingfisher Scorpions themselves died out trying to stop the menace they had brought upon the Nebula; the Heralds were programmed, as per the Kingfisher Scorpions' own cultural background, to use their masters as stock for terraforming new worlds.

There was one silver lining, small though it was. The homeworlds—Qrith, Garden of Gardens, Qerer, Hong Meng, Zirá, and Procella—were untouchable. Even the sheer might of the Heralds' fleets, enlarged with every solar system they traversed and transformed, was seemingly unable to touch the power of their new adversaries' ancestral cradles. Oh, there were other effects—asteroid strikes, induced volcanic eruptions, and the like. But no matter what the Heralds tried, sooner or later they were always downed by some force they did not understand. And the same occurred on every single world where life was native, and where the collective mass of souls that had arisen could deflect their energy beams and twist them into agonizing shapes. The gods do not appreciate attempts to replace them.

Finally, finally, a method of containing the Heralds was discovered by a Judgement Cloud on their homeworld of Qerer found a solution, a virus that would bypass the Heralds' self-replicating programming by making them believe they had already completed their work and were to proceed to the next stage: protecting the worlds against attack. It would be of no use on the already-destroyed worlds occupied by the six powers, but it would give life another chance to evolve, properly this time. With luck, the ghosts inhabiting the planets could in time reform as living beings the Heralds would accept, opening the door to a second Empire spanning the Nebula and protected by those who once sought to destroy it.

But it was over for the Concordat. There were only two of the six great powers left, three if you counted the hyper-evolved Yggdrasils, and they were broken beyond recognition. The Morphai and Judgement Clouds were both stuck; the Judgement Clouds were confined to observing the fleets of Heralds, and the Morphai, utterly defeated and to a certain extent heartbroken, retreated to the gas clouds of their world and mourned the loss of the countless trillions in the most terrible war the Nebula had ever known. And the Yggdrasils went on.

The Interregnum (169.5-70mya)

During this time, several different civilizations insisted on simultaneous control over various parts of the galaxy. The World Separate maintained its position of comparative neutrality in nebular affairs, but others were not so keen on impartiality.

The Interregnum is (appropriately) a nebulous period in the Crayfish Nebula's history. By conservative standards, it lasted from roughly 170 million years ago (with the end of the First War of the Heralds) to seventy million years ago, with the rise and ascension of the Predecessors. From a more liberal standpoint, it only ended thirty-nine million years ago with the Ark-Builders accepting the patronage of the Predecessors. Perhaps it is still ongoing—the sapient species of the Crayfish Nebula are not all part of the Nexum, after all, and that is what a unified Nebula is supposed to contain. As such, this list also includes the empires of species which, until the recent past or indeed up to the present day, are not direct members of the Nexum but were born in this era of history.

The Second Starmoot

Perhaps the greatest discovery for the Starmoot was that they could, in fact, pass out of the Nebula. What they found, however, was that beyond a certain point magic no longer worked. Souls noticeably frayed, and eventually detached. The Yggdrasils who returned from beyond the Nebula found themselves lost, broken, without the connection to the Nebula that had allowed them to steer their ships so swiftly and smoothly. Soulless. Beside, the galaxy beyond might have been beautiful, but every single form of life in the Nebula, from the ancient Morphai to the lowliest coal-bacterium on Damascus, had a soul of sorts. How could the vast galaxy beyond be anything other than completely sterile?

The Prosopony

The Ghosts of Asphodel have not always been a peaceful race. True, they have rarely gone in for the warmongering aggression plaguing so many other species. No, their designs have often been subtler, more cunning…more prone to leaving civilizations from which they have been removed to fall apart. For the Prosopony was an elaborate game of impersonation, attempting to sway the political and social tides of dozens of worlds through on-the-ground interference—usually by many, many factions at once.

Ghosts are shape-shifters by nature, and can maintain different forms for extended periods of time. Taking on forms that resembled the local species was no great feat, although they did have to make quiet arrangements to "die" from time to time. And so for three million years the Ghosts played in multiple worlds; the full extent of their play may never be known, although the Morphai have their guesses. In this way, they claimed influence over the new species. Such could not be said for interstellar neighbours; at that point, they generally began to migrate to other systems, citing it as "not being fun anymore". This only really stopped as little as 9,100 years ago, when they were persuaded by the Nadders to join the Nexum as a new Client state. Even then, there are rogue operatives still active across the Nebula on worlds of all kinds.

The Ten Thousand Suns

The phoenixes are one of the stranger species of the Nebula, spreading across the stars not through rockets but by magic. Ten million years before the present day, the phoenixes discovered a way to pass into the Aether itself that surrounds the myriad worlds of their cosmos. They found a sort of pocket dimension separate from the planes of reality inhabited by the Predecessors, the Ark-Builders, the Meanwhiles, the Croni, and the thousands of gods and spirits and trillions of souls living across the Nebula. And in that dimension, which when viewed from within appears to be full of the same massive, colourful clouds as the Nebula itself provides, they built what the Salvian humans on Ajjamah call the ganugarpah, the "cities of fire".

Each of these cities—capable of supporting up to three million phoenixes—from the outside resembles a small, incandescent sun. Should one pass within the energy border, however, one would find an entire world, full of spaces for rest, for relaxation, for consumption, for creation. Tools and sustenance can be manufactured out of thin air, using a combination of spellwork and science that generates what the individuals within desire. There are archives in the form of quantum computers, small enough to fit into the heads of the phoenixes (which are about the size of a large raven on average) but powerful enough to hold the entire data collection of a pre-starflight planet. And, perhaps most importantly, there are the thespiums, great multi-storey debating halls where phoenixes of all ages and colours debate matters from hypervectorial thaumodynamics to whether jellyworms are actually edible, in musical languages whose syntax is nearly incomprehensible to humans.

And yet this is not all their world. Because of the nature of their travel abilities, phoenixes can be found on almost every inhabited world in the Nebula. Not for conquest—at ten million years old, they have no need for conquest. No, their purpose is simple exploration. Well, and a nice vacation. Getting away from the hustle and bustle of the Ten Thousand Suns for a while and seeing how the locals are getting on. They still visit Ajjamah most frequently, of course, generally on pilgrimages; you never completely forget your homeworld.

The Croni

Not all magic in the Crayfish Nebula is positive. For some time there has been a cabal of living spells which seek nothing less than the deaths of all beings with souls of their own.

The Croni are creatures born of spells belonging to the ancient Mockeries, beings born from the world of Hong Meng. There, as in other worlds of the Nebula, magical spells are given greater power by leaching off the souls of those who would use them. On Hong Meng, however, the transformation is immediate and permanent; any who make a pact with a living spell become part of that spell as soon as the contract is made. In the past, this took many forms, from geas-like oaths to contracts carved in stone or written in blood. In effect, one became a deity by giving away one's own soul. The other major difference in the power of spells on Hong Meng is that potential must exist somewhere—and must be removed—for individuals to act upon their new powers. To gain power over winds, one must induce an opposite effect elsewhere. To turn lead to gold, one must simultaneously turn gold to lead, somewhere else in the world.

To gain extra years, one must steal the years of those who have yet to die.

The Croni are the last remnants of the Mockeries in the Nebula, a spell descended from a being known only as the Crown in Nebular Prevalent. They are no longer limited to the Mockeries, and indeed most of the Mockeries who became Croni have long since died; instead, they comprise many species, from the long-gone Flutebills and Kingfisher Scorpions to newer species like the Miser Crabs, Nadders, Zealots, Selkies, even a few phoenixes. Their rule is minimal; all they do is provide the means to become a Cronus. What someone does with that power is their business.

The Croni are technically a neutral party to the Nexum, and are not permitted to land on worlds where the species are under Nexum protection. But there are always a few who break the rules, and manage to wreak a little havoc before getting caught. And their treaty with the Predecessors does not preclude them from taking lives for their own, so long as they do so quietly and without mania. Otherwise, they attract the attention of powers far greater than themselves. And for the Croni, death is permanent…but suffering in the halls of Tartarus is eternal.

Meanwhile

The Predecessors, Ark-Builders, Phoenixes, and Croni have all carved out a portion of the void for themselves. The gods, demons, spirits, and djinn play in their own corners of the Nebula, delighting in the affairs of mortals. Meanwhile…

Meanwhile is always the one possibility that nobody wants to admit to. Things that change the scope of history. Echoes of pasts and futures that have not and cannot exist, and yet there they are, wrapped in starlight. Rogue stories, the cycles of life and death from a hundred sapient species, floating free through the winds of the Nebula. Landing on planets and moons, playing along to the tune of the local stories, and twisting them to fit their needs.

There are always those who try to control the Speech. There are those who would have the Song be sung their way. There are those who misuse the Sight, or the Steps. But those who would tamper with the Story are the most dangerous of all; they force the universe not only to be a different way, but to always have been that way.

The Meanwhiles are the result of that. Technically alive, in the same way that a virus is technically alive, they infest whole worlds and pull them to a certain shape. They spawn and grow with their hosts, spreading to other worlds only after a long, long incubation period, sometimes millions of years long. Like jackals fighting over a carcass, they squabble with their fellows, trying to pull species and civilizations their own way. Their influence is so subtle that very few know of them, even the spirits and gods of the worlds they come to live upon. But a few have learned to draw on the Meanwhiles, to grant them power, if only for a short time, over the mortal world—in exchange for which, in a reversal of all the rules of magic, they grant a part of their power to their wielder instead. The wielder, not the Meanwhile, controls the lifeline of the story. And some of the most dangerous people in the Nebula have discovered this, and whole worlds have trembled before them.

The Nexum (70mya-Present)

Today, there are a number of co-existing empires within the bounds of the Nexum, controlled by different styles of government and certainly different species. It should be noted that, while there are usually relatively few "aliens" on home-worlds, in the various colonies there is a frequent intermixing of species.

The World-Among-Worlds

The Morphai have been here since the beginning, and likely will continue into the future. And the worlds they have colonized since the fall of the World Separate are relatively few, but they have invested much in the protection of the life thereon. The World-Among-Worlds is centred, as were the Lonely World and the World Separate, on the planet Procella. There is no complete number of individuals, as each individual may comprise hundreds of billions of cells and their rate of exchange is beyond the ability of most other species to calculate.

The Domain of the Sacred World

The Domain of the Sacred World is the oldest Selkie system, orbiting the star Belenos and containing the homeworld of Ys. Its population is 9.4 billion, not including immigrants. It contains:

• Camulos (2.1 billion), a rocky world with a heavy atmosphere. Selkie colonies on this world make much use of "sea-ships", partially-flooded floating cities high in the atmosphere, as well as mining operations below the surface. They have not as of yet been able to terraform this world, although there are talks in place about doing so.

• Ys (5 billion), a watery world of ice-caps, shallow seas, and temperate grasslands and forests.

• Divona (600 million), Ys' moon. Settlements were for a long time confined to youths to explore, but with the creation of the Cavern Ocean along the equator Divona became home to a thriving industrial population.

• Gallaecia (400 million), a gas giant with a number of moons. Beyond the settlements on three of those moons, there are also sixteen thousand smaller "arks" born from various captured selkies at different stages of their development.

• Arthmail (570 million), the largest moon of Gallaecia. A frozen water-world, the selkies of this world are bred to survive in the deep cold waters and atop the snowy islands floating atop the grand ocean.

• Daman (210 million), the second-largest moon of Gallaecia. A hot, volcanic world, Daman is the site of a major terraforming effort currently underway. Despite this, it has the third-highest population of any of the moons, sitting in orbital stations and in labour camps on the planet below.

• Niall (98 million), the fourth-largest moon of Gallaecia. Colonization is still largely confined to orbital stations.

• Vercingetorix (380 million), the (currently) sole inhabited moon of the gas giant Sirona. Home to a unique form of primitive life, the

Government is through an organization called the Confraternity, based on Divona as "neutral territory" between the various worlds. Various leaders are chosen meritocratically, to voice concerns for their part of their world; to this end, they are called "echoes" in most translations. Each "echo" is theoretically equal, although in practice various blocs have formed.

The Home System

The Home System contains only one star, an M-Class dwarf called Hephaestus, with around seventeen billion inhabitants. Technically a power of its own, it is practically only neutral territory between the more powerful Treble Federation, Interference League, Syndicate of Truth, Imperium of the Gods, and Defence Confederacy. Still, just as they all have stakes in the system of their birth, so too do the worlds of Hephaestus exert some political sway over their descendants.

The Home System contains nine worlds—three planets and six moons, as outlined below:

• Jazz Harmony (6.1 billion), the closest world to the sun and the homeworld of the Miser Crabs. A rocky, windy world, still thriving despite two million years of constant occupation.

• Pallas (8.05 billion), the second world from Belenos and in fact the most populous world in the system. Powered by an artificial sun which also provides tidal forces, it has a fifty-five-hour day. It is also home to the Concludium, one base of the complicated Emolument Equations which make the Miser Crabs a Patron of the Nexum.

• Zelos (512 million), an ice ball with two moons, next in line from the sun. Home to some of the most powerful terraforming syndicates in the Miser Crab region of the Nebula.

• Sebastian (200 million), a moon of the gas giant Phosphora. Notable for its genetic engineering specialization.

• Amadeus (340 million), a moon of the gas giant Phosphora. Notable for its lighter-than-air settlements.

• Louisa (490 million), a moon of the gas giant Phosphora. Notable for its military developments.

• Hildegard (297 million), a moon of the gas giant Phosphora. Notable for its artificial ecosystem developments.

• Antonius (554 million), a moon of the gas giant Phosphora. Notable for its Council of Psychologists, where diplomats from all across Miser Crab society visit to learn about the psychologies of their contemporaries from other worlds—Miser Crab and alien both.

• Claudia (207 million), a moon of the gas giant Phosphora. Notable as a major trading port for the asteroid settlers in both Belts.

• The Belts (400 million), the two asteroid belts around Hephaestus on either side of Phosphora, home to various Tented Worlds and mining colonies.