The chronicle of humanity's history among the heavens is a long and storied one stretching for over two millennia. It is not a simple tale or one of great virtue but one of bloodshed violence. From the early days of the great fighting by the earliest colonialist for land and resources to the bloody House Wars, humans have rarely been at peace in the great void. Each has suffered his own burdens and trials and had his fair share of triumph and tragedy in equal parts. Every man and woman fighting, struggling and grasping at there place in the stars. It is a grand composition made of many players and many parts all blending and fusing atop one another to create a grand arrangement a Starsong.

The earliest histories date back to when humanity was still bound to the cradle of blue and green that had birthed us long ago. The date was July 21^st 1969 when the ones known as Armstrong and Aldrin set foot upon the surface of Luna. It was during this great and historic exhibition that Armstrong and Aldrin found remnants of an old observation post left behind by a long dead race called the Kroth. Using the technology found within the Kroth observation post allowed for the people of Earth to discover the existence of what we now know of as refined Sifirium a rare element which when a supercharge current is run through it produces a dark energy fluctuation or bubble in space-time allowing for negative masses to be achieved for as long as you have Sifirium to fuel the reaction. (This feat allowing for Faster Than Light Travel along slight modifications of what we know as the Alcubierre metric without some of the more nasty effects of time dilation.) Advancing science forward in mere years what decades might have taken and soon fueled by the discovery of Sifirum and FTL humanity rushed ever onward into the stars with the first inner system ships launching during the 80s and the first outer system ships beginning their voyage by the year 2000.

It was during this time that planets of the Sol System unified under the rule of the SF, the Sol Federation to make sure that the interests of the mother system remained paramount over the new fledgling colonies that soon came under its dominion. The SF while established on the fundamentals of Democracy and liberty soon grew mad with its own power becoming corrupted by greed and inefficient and lumbering by the hands of a sprawling bureaucracy. As the SF grew more corrupt so did the discontent and hatred for the government and when the FTL technology was leaked by anarchist, the colonization process that had once been carefully controlled and monitored by the SF soon fell to chaos as those wanting to escape the tyranny and oppression of their homes fled en masse to foreign stars where they could make homes and kingdoms of there own. And so decades of warfare and unrest began between the SF and the colonists as every side fought in land grab that threatened to rip all of humanity apart.

These first waves of expansion and warfare established what would be known as the Home Sphere stretching three hundred light years across at the edge of its radius. The Home Sphere was for decades upon end a place of violence and death as the many planetary nations fought among one another for valuable resources primarily Sifirium deposits and land all while picking away the fading but still fighting remnants of the SF. The leaders of these nations formed ruling destiny and great houses to cement there rule for generations to come styling themselves after the aristocracy of their ancestral home.

It was during this time of chaos and destruction that people look towards different paths of salivation and stability; faith and gold.

The first of these came with the rise of the Celestial Faith, established by a priestess born on the slums of mars refereed to only as the Mother who claimed to be spoken to by in visions from a creator known as The One Beyond the Light. The Celestial Church by many is seen as a sort of reconciliation of the ideas of faith and of a broader world as exposed by the remnants of the Kroth with The One Beyond the Light being a sort of pancreator. The ideas of redemption and hope preached by the Mother as she spoke of the coming of the Vizarian, the supposed Prince of Light and Shadow who was to unify the entirety of existence for the coming of the The One Beyond the Light back into the mortal realm; these claims spoke to the underclasses who needed something and anything to cling onto to give them hope of at least peace in death if not in life. Eventually as more and more of the populace began to accept the faith and the members of the Church gained more and more political power and began to forge large armies of faithful, the lords less than willingly accepted the ideas of the Church as their own despite the fact that many still followed their own faiths in the shadows of their keeps.

The second of these powers to rise was the Merchant Guild. Once long ago they were the many monolithic corporations that held great influence upon the affairs of Earth and eventually the Sol Federation. But upon the Federation collapse and eventually disbandment these corporation were left without strong claims or backings of their own. So rather than try to fight among themselves or against the planetary lords that dreamed of stellar empires they instead martial their forces and bargaining power under one banner realizing that a great beast was much harder to slay than many restless hounds. By controlling the precious trade routes and the flow of goods and money they believed that they would be able to retain their political power and be able to have a voice in the years to come to make sure that their interests were followed.

Eventually under the auspices of the Merchants and the Church, the fighting slowly began to die down and Human Space know stretching far beyond the Home Sphere was once again unified in a new golden age as the Free Terran Alliance or as most refered to it as the Second Republic with the first being the old Sol Federation. Resting upon the backs of great statesmen who had seen too much warfare for five lifetimes they established a labyrinthine system of alliance and interdependence designed to prevent any major conflict from resurfacing. This work for a time as years passed into decades and decades into centuries and centuries into millennium. But as time marched ever forward the cost of life during those early wars of expansion were forgotten as the lords of old while still remaining great fortunes desired the power that they once held in their hands, the power to decide the fates of millions. And so conspiring with members of the Merchant Guild and high officials within the Church the lords planted the seeds of discord within the fabric of the Second Republic. These seeds sprouted as severe economic failure in part facilitated by the mechanization of the Merchant Guild left the Second Republic in a state of collapse as government systems collapsed leaving the millions of citizens under their rule in a state of anger. This anger became a revolt and a revolt became an rebellion that marched for the seat of the Republic on Earth.

Thus the Lords plan was set into motion as they sat idly by with their own private armies and forces as the rebel forces continually weakened and strained the armies of the Second Republic. The time for action came finally as Rebel forces seized Earth and declared the establishment of the Third Republic. The Third Republic stood for only two years before the Lords turned on the Third Republic whom they had pledged their support to and with support from the Church Militant were able to seize Earth once more in the name of "liberating the people from anarchy" but rather than reestablished the Second Republic the Lords instead refused to give up power and soon their own forces began to split upon house allegiances fire upon one another as they battled for supremacy. The Church was able to push them out of the Sol System with their own Army of the Faithful but fighting raged within the Home Sphere and the Outer Territories were the Lords began to conquer vast numbers of systems beneath their names.

This began the House Wars as the Lords once again fought one another for supremacy in a war that washed the stars red with blood. The House Wars were long and bloody but eventually they came to a brutal and violent end with the rise of Akylas Vermallo also known as Akylas the Pacifier. Akylas was born within the Sol System within the same holy city that the Mother of the Celestial Church was born in Mars. Born a child of the faith at a young age Akylas joined the Church Militant as a Sword Brother where he became renown for his skills in battle. Horrified by the bloodshed caused in the House Wars Akylas set forth to usher in a time of peace and prosperity which he did so by making the Army of the Faithful his own and slowly drawing in more Lords to his cause. Akylas army grew as he set out on a campaign of pacification crushing all those that did not boy to his rule and once again braining peace to Human Space. Akylas and his successors in House Vermallo would rule as Emperors of the Realm from the Home Sphere with their seat moved from the corrupt and dying world of Earth to the holy planet of Mars with Six Lords who joined his cause first and pledged their armies to him served as his representatives and regents in the outlaying systems as his Wardens..

The Vermallo Dynasty ruled the stars for generations upon end in a time of peace and warfare as the role of the dynastic dice provided strong rulers and those of weak fortitude. This lead up into the present under the rule of Emperor Daewon VII, the first strong Vermalloin leader to hold the Imperial Throne in nearly one hundred years. Beloved by the people for his pushes of reform but hated by the ancestors of the Lords that sweated allegiance to him due to his absolutist tendencies and habit of putting to death any and all those who oppose him while bombing their home planets to molten ash from orbit. And so it was to be that upon visit to the ancestral birthplace of Akylas, a small monastery on the far side of Mars far from the safety and protection of the Imperial Capital that Emperor Daewon VII and most of his family was killed by Assassins dressed in the garbs of the Church.

The ball has swung again as the War of the Six Houses began as each of the House Lords blames the others for the others for the assassination of the most loved Emperor. This is where our tale begins in a time of corrupt priests, scheming merchant princes and powerful lords all fighting to maintain their dominance and to secure the Imperial Title. All the while hordes of barbarian raiders from systems beyond the edge of Human Space whose coordinates were long thought to be lost in the wars of old appear on the edge of Imperial Space pillaging wars and desiring blood. It is a battle among the stars even as the common peasant is stuck upon the planet that they were born upon for their entire life as part of age old contracts that offered defense and protection in the name of a lifetime of servitude. Ashes to ashes and soon only dust will remain.