Fading Suns - Universe Book

Once upon a future time, we went to the stars.We rose up from our home planet and spread far and wide across the vast night, finding new homes on distant soil. We met other sentient beings, alien species whose worlds we colonized. Countless experiments in different societies, cultures, governments, and religions culminated in the Second Republic, the fabled technological utopia that science fiction taleshad imagined.Then the stars began to fade.In the dimming light, our endeavor died. The greatest of civilizations collapsed, leaving ignorance and fear on hundreds of worlds. Where once we had looked to the heavens with hope and longing, now we cast our gazes downward in penance for the collective sin that had caused the suns to darken.At the dawn of the sixth millennium, it seems that history is over. In the Dark Age ruins, we who had once mastered the secret physics of the universe now toil as serfs under the rule of vain nobles. Power-hungry priests seek dominion over our lives. Greedy merchant guilds, controlling the last of our technology, grow rich from bartering our needs and wants. And out among the darkening stars, enigmatic alien empires with agendas too paradoxical to fathom plot to inherit the remains.Into this slow demise, following a tumultuous war, an emperor has arisen. Under Emperor Alexius’ banner and years of peace, we have begun to hope again. Only a few of us will act on this hope. Fewer still will break the grip of custom and law and once more seize the stars — and renew our destiny.