In 2125, Earth was facing massive ecological collapse. 95% of all species that still lived at the start of the 21st century became extinct over a century of cascading disasters. Earth's poles became a temperate refuge from the inhospitable heat of the rest of the world, concentrating Earth's population into increasingly tight habitable zones and precipitating shocking outbursts of violence and war. After five years of devolving conflict and the threat of nuclear war to finalize humanity's fate, the Eclipse Union happened upon Earth.

Descending upon the planet, a vast alien organization began an effort to reverse the climate damage that it had undergone, but it was a task that would take centuries with their technology at the time. Though motivated mostly by an interest in the unique biololgical resources that Earth might contain, they nevertheless offered to save humanity from their cradle and elevate them to become a 'member species' of their Union. With no other choice, most humans boarded Union vessels, leaving scattered wastelanders who preferred the comfort of the known.

350 years later, Humanity had matured into one of five member species that made up the Eclipse Union, the sole faction known to occupy the small lenticular galaxy Anthe. The Union was a social democracy that trended more and more towards pure socialism throughout its reign, but in the hundreds of years since Humanity joined them, they had been steadily corrupted by increasing wealth disparity worsened by deepening mistrust in the Union. A myriad of disasters befell the Union throughout this time, weakening its cohesion and opening it up to influence.

With those who had power naturally seeking to consolidate it, and struggling to cope from a recent outbreak of a spaceborne pathogen, a new corporate age was born... and with it, two corporations: The Arghast-Vuln Conglomerate, and Paragon Systems Incorporated.

Arghast-Vuln was, as of recent events, owned by 'young' protégé Asher Vuln and allegedly wizened businessman Jacob Arghast. Asher took over his position after his father and Arghast's partner, Misha Vuln, died of cancer at the age of 124 after running the corporation for over a century.

Arghast was in his sixties, and Asher Vuln in his late twenties. Misha Vuln had always been the silent partner to the well-known Arghast, who became notorious as a businessman with such ruthless acumen that he and his mother Elaine Penn Arghast were often credited with solidifying corporate control over the Union. Jacob, for his part, strengthened lobbying efforts and maneuvered corporate patsies into major positions within the Union, allowing his company to become a near-monopoly in the final days of the Union. Through brutal mergers and relentless marketing, Arghast-Vuln pushed practically every other competitor out of the market, save for their equally massive and equally vicious competitors, Paragon Systems.

Arghast-Vuln produced and sold the most civilian-issue spaceships of any corporation, as well as the majority of warp drives, energy shield devices, and countless other products intended mostly for the civilian market. Although Arghast-Vuln and Paragon Systems publicly performed an intense marketing rivalry that portrayed them as fierce competitors, the two colluded more often than not to engage in insider trading and price fixing, and hid from accusations of monopolism through this veneer of supposed competition.

Paragon Systems Incorporated, for their part, was not truly a competitor to Vuln. Though the two overlapped in their target markets at times, Paragon mostly focused on defense contracts and military-grade equipment, whereas Arghast-Vuln had mostly cornered the civilian market. PSI was a far different and less public-facing corporation; it was controlled not by visible business partners but by a shadowy board whose members were virtually unknown to the public. Its insignias lurked on the undersides of practically every military-grade vessel, and Paragon manufactured countless weapons, vehicles, tools, and AI systems for the military.

Both corporations behaved increasingly unethically as the 'Corporate Age' progressed, with Arghast-Vuln engaging in extreme anti-competition measures and pushing into experimental markets far ahead of anyone else such that no one could compete, and Paragon engaging in unethical labor practices that would make even the most heartless businessman double-take.

Paragon was exposed in a massive bust close for creating what were effectively illegal labor camps through delicately designed contracts that were intended to exploit legal loopholes that Paragon's politicians had opened up for them. Paragon would have prospective workers sign waivers and contracts that would open them up to being held on distant worlds for years at a time, working under extreme conditions in Paragon labor camps. Paragon preferred to run these corporate cities on distant worlds, disconnected from the Omniscience network that managed the rest of the Union's colonies, rather than risk surveillance of their corporation through artificial-intelligence systems, so these camps often supported their most secretive projects. Many of today's survivors originate in these labor camps.

Together, these two corporations would spell the end of the Eclipse Union, and possibly the galaxy and beyond.

First, Paragon approached the Eclipse Union with a genius idea. The extreme bureaucracy involved in maintaining nearly an entire galaxy worth of territory had begun to bind the Union in ever thicker layers of red tape. Paragon proposed a simple solution: An artificial intelligence, capable of managing everything. Everything.

Public transportation, utilities, cities, colony building, and even the military--this immensely powerful A.I. would handle all of it. Even better, it would gather and centralize truly unfathomable amounts of data that could be used to make calculated policy decisions. Already designed and rigorously tested, the Eclipse Union barely thought twice before accepting the proposal, desperate for a solution to the problems that were slowly unwinding them. This device, known now as the Colony, Armaments and Information