Colony Wars 5: Tales of the Galaxy

Imagine the Universe

Prologue

...Imagine the Universe...

Imagine that the universe is not just a mass of swirling gases, blazing stars and giant spheres of rock. Instead, look at each Galaxy as a massive living entity, with its own consciousness, its own perception of time and its own goals.

Each Galaxy has about one hundred billion stars contained within it, and of those stars, around a hundred thousand of them would have planets that could support life. Only a few hundred of those worlds will have life forms that develop higher intellect. These intelligent life forms are the Galaxies children.

Now, each Galaxy's ultimate goal is to see the life forms that inhabit it grow and become as strong and as wise as they can be. It wants to try to mould them into successful races and nurture them to full maturity; in the same way as any parent wants what is best for its children. The Galaxy is also a harsh taskmaster and wants to pit its children against one another to determine their strengths and their weaknesses and find out which of its creations are best.

Each Galaxy measures time in galactic steps, and each step relates to the progress of its children. The first few steps have been long and difficult, as the different races have learnt the necessary information to take them to the stars, but soon, as they meet each other the galactic steps will start to fly past as these races learn new skills and abilities.

The Galaxy has connected all the star systems that can support life with a great network of faster than light passages, to help its children expand across the Galaxy, meet other races and increase their knowledge and techniques.

The first step each race must take to start its journey is to find the means to travel amongst the stars. They must discover the transitional passages that form the veins of the galaxy and begin to colonise other planets, meet other races and discover the secrets of the Galaxy.

As the different races meet each other, they will get to know each other's wildly different cultures, traits and personalities. Each race will have to use their unique skills and abilities to survive. The goal for each race is the same, but to achieve it, a race can either fight for what they want, use diplomacy to negotiate for what they need, steal what they desire, make peace to gain scientific discoveries and supplies through unity or any combination of these methods.

In the end the Galaxy wants to be able to choose its favourite offspring and give it pride of place above all its other children. It wants to give it lordship and dominion across the Galaxy.

These are the stories of one such Galaxy and how the races that came to exist in it were created, how they grew and moved on from their native home worlds, how they discovered the other races of the Galaxy, how they interact with each other and how eventually one race wins the Colony Wars.