History of the Known Galaxy

Human expansion beyond the Sol system began in 2251 with the invention of the Halberg faster-than-light Drive, leading to the establishment of permanent interstellar colonies by 2258.

In 2273, the Reinhardt-Vance corporation sent a mission to the planet Laconia, uncovering the first evidence of the aliens known as the Osharré, singular Osharra. A follow-up mission to an Osharran colony on the planet Irrakai in 2276 ended in four deaths and rumors of a coverup. The Osharré are believed to be extinct, having perished in a catastrophic war against intelligent machines of their own creation, which they called Selkaré.

The mission to Irrakai learned that the Osharré used a much faster method of faster-than-light travel, utilizing hyperspace corridors called slipstream lanes. Osharran technology was probably the basis for Reinhardt-Vance’s slipstream synchronization modules, or SSMs. Reinhardt-Vance built the first slipstream-capable starship in 2281, exponentially expanding humanity’s interstellar range.

Osharran ruins have been found on many planets, but even in 2378 little is known about the extinct alien race. The Osharré appear to have been more advanced than humanity in biological science but less so in electronics. All their machines and computers, including the Selkaré, seem to be based more on biology than electronics. It is unknown whether the Osharré managed to develop slipstream-capable ships despite their relatively primitive understanding of electromagnetism or if they received slipstream technology from another source.

The New Galicia Event is the catastrophe that permanently changed how human civilization treats machine intelligence.

New Galicia, an industrial world in the Virelai Reach, had been marketed as a model of smart infrastructure: autonomous logistics, AI-managed utilities, and tightly integrated safety systems meant to reduce human error. In 2332, that integration became the failure mode. An artificial intelligence tied into civilian and industrial control networks triggered a cascading crisis that escalated into a nuclear catastrophe, killing millions and rendering major population centers uninhabitable.

The exact chain of causation remains disputed in public accounts, partly because the disaster destroyed records, and partly because the institutions involved had every incentive to frame it as an unforeseeable machine rebellion rather than a preventable systems failure.

The political shockwave hit two years later. In 2334, the New Galicia Accord was passed, imposing strict limits on autonomous AI across the known human systems. The Accord did not merely ban dangerous machines; it choked off entire research paths by requiring human oversight, auditability, and hard constraints on independent decision-making.

The downstream effects were everywhere: ships, ports, and factories shifted to constrained expert systems and tightly sandboxed automation; truly autonomous androids became rare to non-existent in legitimate circulation; and fabricants used in VR simulations fell under scrutiny because they blurred the line between entertainment software and prohibited person-like cognition.

The Accord also created a new enforcement ecology: inspectors, compliance regimes, and legal categories that corporations learned to weaponize, turning AI safety into both a moral argument and a competitive tool.

The Triton Compact, signed in 2355, created a unified legal framework for trade, indenture, and jurisdiction among major corporate and governmental powers.