Fiction:Eupherion Galaxy

"Eupherion...a Zalax word meaning ‘origin’. The Zalax never used the word ‘home’ for this galaxy. They wanted to spread out, to join the other voices of the universe in one symphonic melody. The Zalax never achieved it. They built wonders, had a culture unsurpassed in history. Broke the mysteries of the Ancients, subdued the galaxy and healed it...but they met the same fate every, single, thing in the past had...one day, they faded away. They and all else who resided in the galaxy. And that’s how it’s been since recorded history. Eupherion is our origin, our home. We have lovely memories and hated experiences in Eupherion. We may seem happy, but we’re terrified...when will we vanish, too?"

- Unknown scholar

Eupherion, the Scarred Throne (also known to some as Vazar or Nid’haziran) is a large spiral galaxy located in the Aegis Cluster of the First Gigaquadrant. Eupherion has been isolated from the rest of the Gigaquadrant for billions of years, though it’s inhabitants often visited Aoshtai and the other galaxies in the Aegis Cluster. Eupherion was, close to a billion years ago, home to one of the cluster’s most affluent civilizations, the Valkar Shard. The Valkar, through their power over Essence and their grand technology has reshaped the Eupherion galaxy in their image, and even today many planets still bear the legacy of the Valkar touch. Ever since hen, the galaxy has fallen under the influence of many hundreds of precursor races - the most recent being the arthropod Zalax Forebearers, who dominated the galaxy up until 100,000 BC, though suddenly vanished at that particular date. Since then, the galaxy has been divided and civilizations have constantly risen and fallen, without a single galactic government to unify it under.

100,000 years have passed since the Zalax vanished, and the galaxy faces new threats. The Zalax constructs have begun to reawaken, the galaxy divided under war and political intrigue, and at the center of it all, an ancient threat seeks to resurface. Where the Zalax failed, the civilizations of Eupherion seek to succeed, and where they fell, the civilizations of Eupherion seek to excel.

History
The Eupherion Galaxy was formed several billion years ago alongside the other galaxies of the Gigaquadrant. For billions of years, Eupherion was devoid of sapient life, though it had begun to arise approximately 1.8 billion years before the modern age. The Valkar were not the first to arise in Eupherion, though their unique Essence-attuned biology and their decisive rise to power in the galaxy allowed them to develop their technology for hundreds of millions of years, rising as one of the Gigaquadrant’s few Ultraterrestrial races. The influence of the Valkar would only be felt in Eupherion and the rest of the Cluster, including Aoshtai and Tyvus though excluding the Aureolum Galaxy. The Valkar’s mastery over Essence and technology was, at the time, unrivaled and the Valkar were treated as living gods - indeed, a single Valkar held the power to telekinetically rip apart entire fleets and shape planetary biospheres. The Valkar built enormous wonders and uplifted thousands of races under their influence, and the legacy of their reign exists today - indeed, the galactic core itself remains sealed away from the galaxy, surrounded by the largest construct in the galaxy, a Valkar artifact. The Valkar eventually met their end following their hubris to expand their dominion from the universe to other universes, with a failed incursion into their first universe proving the be their downfall as they awoke ancient powers that sought to consume the Valkar and their galaxy.

At about 1 billion years before the modern age, the Valkar vanished, their population dropping to only a few thousand in a matter of years. Wherever the remainder went, nobody understands today - though it’s a universally accepted fact that the station at the supermassive black hole has something to do with the Valkar and their permanent disappearance. Since the disappearance of the Valkar, sapient life was all but extinguished, disappearing alongside the Valkar. As intelligent life began to evolve once more following the millions of years since the Valkar’s disappearance, mysterious mass extinctions began to occur across the galaxy on a somewhat regular basis, rendering Essence-sensitive life entirely extinct, and all records of whatever was happening being destroyed in the process. Precursors had risen and fallen in concordance with these mysterious mass extinctions, and it has had no end in sight since. The most recent precursors to arise were the ancient Zalax, a race whose technological marvels had eclipsed the galaxy’s most advanced races. The Zalax had dominion over the Inner Core, Outer Core, and the Kaliak Sector, and their empire was more than capable of taking over Eupherion. The Zalax had, despite their power, relegated themselves to being the self-proclaimed caretakers of the galaxy; with their influence, they uplifted thousands of races and repaired and even created entire planetary biospheres. The Zalax would eventually fall victim to the same mass extinctions that had affected the galaxy since the fall of the Valkar - about 100,000 years before the modern age, the Zalax and every space-faring race had permanently and suddenly vanished, through the constructions of the Zalax survived through the ages.

The following years of the galaxy would see the rise of several factions, from the imperialist and deeply entrenched House of Kla-Kulan, to the great and powerful Lacros Imperial Order. Crime syndicates have arisen and the galaxy exists in a form of conflict, lacking any galactic government or agreement that binds the galaxy unlike many other galaxies in the Gigaquadrant. The Zalax constructs left behind by the Forebearers have been sought after and even warred after by the civilizations of Eupherion. Knowledge of the Valkar in the modern day has faded to them having been nearly absolutely forgotten - with the remaining Valkar artifacts assumed to have been Zalax experiments. With all this conflict, the center of the galaxy, the Valkar construct, has begun to roar to life. Whether that means another mass extinction is about to begin isn’t certain, but the civilizations of Eupherion must be ready to deal with the future.