Editing Beyond the Gates of Antares (section)

=Setting=
[[File:Antares-icohex-grid.jpg|thumb|Current map of Antares. The grey areas are Spill zones, which might house unaligned factions|center]]
It is the year 1325 of the 7th age, over 25,000 years into the future and Earth is but a distant memory of a long gone past.

The Antares is a colossal machine, powered by a red giant star, and a companion dwarf star, Obureg, that has tunnels and gates to millions of different places around the universe, thus acting as a Nexus. Ships that can handle the 2,000° Celsius trip while on the Nexus can easily make FTL travel by jumping through these gates. Gates aren't static and they may collapse, essentially cutting access to parts of the universe, then rebuilding the gates and pointing them to different places. Such events mark the Ages of the Antares universe, and the game is set on the brink of a probable seventh collapse.

Although it's not specified or even hinted how Antares looks, considering that ships passing through have to fly within the star's photosphere (its "surface"), almost "sailing" through its plasma currents, it's likely that the nexus is a form of Dyson Sphere, with the gates on the star-facing side. Given it's hypothetical intelligence it may even be a Matrioshka Brain. There are also gates that lie so deep within the photosphere that they can only be accessed when the gravitational pull of Obureg makes the plasma flow more amenable, which is still a very  risky maneuver, because you are literally sinking deeper within a red giant star's atmosphere and gravitational pull. This also means that ships are forced to deal with a time dilation of 5.6 to 1: for every 1 hour the ship and its passengers experience, roughly 5 hours and 36 minutes passed "outside".

'''Obureg''' is as important to the maintenance of Antares as a whole as the Moon is to the Earth's oceanic currents. The dwarf companion star directs the plasma flow of the larger giant, and can also detect ship to ship combat happening within Antares, changing the plasma flow in order to destroy all those involved. How it does all that is a mystery, and leads people to believe that the whole thing might as well be some sort of sentient construct.

Finding these gates within star systems is hard, as they are basically invisible if looked at from the wrong angle, as they are "holes" into the null-space dimension that allows for the FTL transport. There is a passing mention of explorers finding alien civilizations capable of near-light speed travel that have completely failed to notice the gate within their reach. Even if they do discover a gate, it's not guaranteed they'll uncover the mechanisms to make it work. 

With any attempt to control access to gates from within Antares all but impossible, control of the systems residing on the other side is what creates tensions and disputes between the powers. There are a few rule extensions pertaining space combat, but it's unlikely it'll take off, as it doesn't seem to be that popular (''then again, can you point '''any''' single person even remotely aware of BtGA's existence?'').

==IMTel==

For the most part, panhuman societies are post-scarcity and everything runs on [[Metal_Gear|<s>nanomachines</s> nanospores, son]]. This means that where these things are present as part of the atmosphere, called nanosphere, human brains are effectively connected to the internet, and everyone els, at all times, through the '''Integrated Machine Intelligence''', or IMTel. This human-machine hivemind keeps track of all their physical and psychological needs. Although there's no "active" mind control from IMTel, the intelligence nudges ''(much like Facebook "nudges" people into using its shitty social media)'' people into developing specific skills, according to needs of the society and how the individual is expected to grow. [[Mass Effect|It's basically the green ending of Mass Effect 3]]. How much this undermines people's individualism and free will is up for debate.

Once the human body naturally expires, which can take over 200 years, thanks to all the technological advances, the mind can be uploaded and then downloaded into a new clone body. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, though, as the nanospores of different factions are largely incompatible with one another and are also susceptible to hacking and general electronics warfare. This is where the Freeborn houses come in: they work mostly getting stuff from one faction, sterilizing the nanospores' defense mechanisms, allowing them to work without the nanotech, then selling to other factions. Still, on the whole, being a panhuman and living within either the Senatex or Concord means you're very likely to have a [[Grimbright|long, fruitful and problem-free life]], although that is only possible thanks to invasive and possibly identity altering technology. The same cannot be said for the Algoryn, as they reject IMTel integration because that'd make them more vulnerable to those two powers.

==Panhumans and Aliens==

The term panhuman is used to identify any species, called morphs, that originated from ancient humans. These are the Algoryn, Boromites, Ferals, Gyohn, Hantale, Krasz, NuHu and Vyess. There are also misgenic rejects, which are the results of failed experiments into creating new morphs, such as by inserting and mixing animal genes with artificial genes and another morph's genes.

Actual intelligent alien species in the setting include the Askar (insectoid, usually under command of Vorl armies), Ghar (bioengineered to destroy humans), Hükk (weird, strong aliens) and Tsan Ra (weird, insectoid gorillas). The Vorl are a separate case, as they are an amalgamation of several things into one.

There is also the Virai (Viral AI), which aren't evil per se, but don't accept a "no, thank you" to their unasked question of "do you want to be assimilated?"

==Ages and Gate Collapses==

As previously mentioned, the whole structure of Antares is not stable and gates collapse. Thus far, 6 collapses have been recorded, each marking the end of its respective age. Every time a collapse happens, thousands of star systems become completely cut off from the rest of the Antarean Nexus and, depending on how much they relied on imports from other planets, they may revert to any previous technological level, including techno-barbarism

Although the gates eventually rebuild, they don't necessarily reappear in the same place within Antares, so rebuilding connections is not straightforward. Not only that, the time that a system stays out of reach from the Nexus is not straightforward or linear. Due to unknown shenanigans, the time that passes within connected systems and unconnected systems is not the same, relativity notwithstanding. This means that an unconnected system can spend 1,000 local years before it's connected again, but only 100 years would have passed within connected systems, or vice versa. Yeah, it's weird like that.

Of the collapses, onee can be directly attributed to the Vorl, who gave panhumans a run for their money before fucking Antarean shit up by doing chronoplasticity experiments - causing the 3rd collapse. Many years later, the panhumans caused the 6th collapse by destroying Vorl gates, which led to a domino effect.

==Where [[your dudes]] come in==
Space is big<sup><Citation needed></sup> and, while Antarean space is smaller than that, it's still very big. Just think about pretty much any sort of scifi adventure and they easily fit in within BtGA. Planet with valuable relics? Your dudes were sent in to retrieve them. Or your dudes are space pirates intent on stealing that stuff! An all-out assault on an enemy fortification in a strategically important moon? Of course! What might matter a bit more is how factions interact with each other and themselves.

In general, Senatex, Concord and Algoryn will fight each other on any chance encounter, whether on already occupied planets or in newly discovered ones. Infighting within the Algoryn Prosperate is a given, thanks to the different families vying for power. Meanwhile, the Concord and Senatex are less likely to infight, thanks to IMTel and post-scarcity giving little reason for internal struggles. Still, for those two, distance and time can end up dividing the IMTel again, making it recognize the old ally as a new enemy. To explain it with computer analogy, it's as if a Linux distro received an update but, for whatever reason, people living in a farther reach, never received it and had to develop their own, incompatible update.

Freeborn houses are much like the Great Houses of [[Battletech]], they'll enter any fight that they believe can increase their own power, whether against different powers, or against rival houses. Among Boromites, the situation is somewhat similar, as they lack any grand power behind them and don't care at all about conquering territory, being mostly nomad workers that don't like to mingle with other panhumans and might have one or two longstanding grudges to settle around.  

The Ghar and Virai will fight anyone getting in their way and fight themselves because fuck you, in the case of the Ghar, or to decide which AI is superior, in the case of the Virai. 

The Vorl are a very interesting case, as they will fight panhumans as if they were little more than pests, while also fighting their own forces for reasons that vary from wanting new DNA, getting high and drunk and deciding the nest next-door looks dumb (yes, really) and even to secure resources for breeding.

Within the map, there are various Spill zones. These are pretty much unaligned systems that could house any form of civilization or society that you decide exists there.