What is Starium XCV?

Overview
The Empire ruled the Galaxy for two thousand years.

They established your colony just under twenty years ago.

The unexplained destruction of your system Quantum Gate has isolated your colony from everything you knew.

Just as hope of rescue starts to fade, the discovery of an alien vessel that had crashed landed on your planet thousands of years ago, changes everything. Your scientists believe that this space faring probe yields a technology that can lift your people back into space.

What happens next is up to you…

Starium XCV is a web based multi-player game that is being developed by Jim Landes, Dr. Tim Trainor and a team of talented artists and game designers.


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Detailed Back Story
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The Empire was glorious. Supported by the discovery of “Quantum Gates”, structures that artificially created wormholes between star systems that star ships could pass between, the Empire emerged from the ashes of the Pantheonic Era to claim dominion in the known Galaxy. For over two thousand years the empire grew, fought and bled to establish itself as the de facto interstellar empire in the known Galaxy.

Hundreds of primary worlds, dozens of species, a vast network of interstellar trade all supported the expansion into new star systems. True pioneers, colony ships were outfitted with drone construction ships and sent on one way journeys to unexplored and unknown star systems to plant the seeds of the Empire’s expansion.

The Mission was simple: Upon Arrival the colony ship would scan the star system for suitable planet, then would land and unpack the crew and colony founders, while the drone ships would begin construction on a Quantum Gate for the newly colonized star system.

The main colony ship would then serve as a science station and would clone and raise thousands of new citizens to create the first colonist wave of population. And with the newly constructed Quantum Gate, thousands of citizens would relocate from their crowded lives on the central planets to create new lives and livelihoods on the colonies.

The colonies became the new frontier where people could claim land, use the natural resources of the new world to create farms, mines, ranches and then ship their goods back to the core worlds and make a good living for themselves.

Every freighter arriving through the Quantum Gate would bring new people eager to make a living and explore the new worlds. Also each freighter would carry news from the core worlds and other colonies as well as manufactured goods, spare parts, luxuries and those goods that the colonies could not make for themselves. Every freighter would leave carrying various exotic goods, raw materials, animals and of course, personal correspondence, news, reports for those who lived in the core worlds.

For almost a hundred years, this worked very well with thousands of new star systems being colonized by the various races of the Empire.

Then things started to change. The trade ships began showing up less frequently, rumors of unknown star faring races showing up at the core worlds, rumors of war began to be whispered at first, then within months openly discussed with each trade ship arriving through the Quantum Gate.

Then without warning, like a light being turned out, the Quantum Gate ceased responding.

Initially there was panic and a shuttle was launched to discover the problem with the Quantum Gate and perhaps fix it. What was found was a broken heap of twisted metal and wreckage floating in space. What was once a bastion and symbol of Empire presence and technology now as a useless heap of scrap metal. It was not determined if the Quantum Gate malfunctioned, was destroyed by the Empire engineers or by something or someone else.

Initially panic ensued on your colony…birth was given to wild theories and ideas, talk of imminent invasion by unnamed alien races, power plays by local factions to take control of the colony. Anarchy reigned for weeks that stretched agonizingly into Months.

Slowly the months turned to years and still no word from anyone.

Surely they would have sent a vessel to investigate? If not, then why not? What happened? Are we alone? Are there others? What will we do next?

Then after twenty years of uncertainty and preparing for something to happen, it did.

Explorers on your new home discovered the remains of an alien ship that had crashed landed long ago.

Upon investigation what was found was indeed a starship. It was a probe, unmanned, and it was mostly intact. There was no indication or markings on the probe to determine where it had come from. Your military and scientists had it moved to a secure location and began analyzing it.

What they found changed everything.

The ship was an unmanned probe designed to scan a star system and every orbiting planet, and then send a message to an unknown location.

What had your scientists excited and your military cautious was that it was equipped with a technology that allows a star ship to “jump” from star system to star system as well as attain near speed of light travel. The other piece of interesting and somewhat alarming news is that the probe is over 5000 years old. This means that the probe was launched several thousand years before the Empire was founded.

In the months that followed your scientists became confident that they could adapt the technology and reproduce it. However, it would take a great deal of time to create the necessary infrastructure such as research facilities, industrial complexes, mining complexes, and a star port to assemble ships and launch them.

For once, your colony was of one mind and with this shared vision pulled together to build the necessary facilities and this evolved your once backwater colony into a space faring race.

What happens next is up to you…

Starium XCV. Not just a game, but a shared experience of galactic proportions

Looks good. I did find a few minor edits that I'll email to you.

I like it