Regions & Worlds
The Lumen Universe unfolds across nine distinct galaxies, each one a vast arena of civilizations, conflicts, and cosmic wonders. These are not the countless billions of galaxies that populate our observable universe—they are nine carefully structured domains, finite and knowable, yet impossibly vast. Within them, fifty-eight galactic sectors organize the known cosmos into navigable territories, while hundreds of regional clusters gather star systems into communities bound by proximity, shared history, and intertwined fates.
This is a cosmos where location matters. Where you are born determines what species you might encounter, what technologies dominate your civilization, and what ancient mysteries lie waiting in the stellar neighborhood. From the wind-swept research colonies of the Lumens to the shadow-veiled espionage networks of the Vyxians, from the aquatic stellar-energy stations of the Ethereans to the militarized fortress worlds of the Draken, every region tells a story written in the language of worlds.
The Architecture of Space
The universe operates according to a strict spatial hierarchy that governs everything from navigation to politics. At the highest level stand the nine galaxies—Milky Way, Andarion, Drago, Krythar, Lumoriae, Solarae, Tundrian, Vyxian, and Zorlac. Each possesses its own character, shaped by the civilizations that call it home and the phenomena that distinguish its stellar geography.
Beneath the galactic level, fifty-eight sectors partition these galaxies into regions of strategic and administrative significance. The Lumen Coalition of Unified Systems controls forty of these sectors at the height of its power, representing an unprecedented concentration of territorial authority. Yet sectors mean little without the communities they contain. Each sector encompasses seven regional clusters—four hundred and six clusters in total across all nine galaxies—and within these clusters, twenty to fifty star systems typically gather, bound by proximity into natural neighborhoods of space.
The numbers reveal a cosmos both immense and intimate. Between eight thousand and twenty thousand star systems populate the known universe, depending on how generously one counts marginal systems and disputed territories. Of all this space, only twenty percent stands claimed and actively occupied by galactic nations. Another thirty percent remains unclaimed—frontier systems awaiting settlers, death worlds too hostile for colonization, or simply regions too remote to justify the expense of development. The remaining half is empty space: the cosmic voids between systems, the stellar halos where nothing lives, the nebulae too diffuse to harvest.
This structure emerged not from natural law but from the deliberate architecture of the ancient Creators, whose influence shaped the fundamental organization of reality itself. The nine galaxies mirror the nine Creators who forged existence in the cosmos’s primordial age. Even after their withdrawal into the transcendent Nexial Veil, their fingerprints remain visible in the spatial organization that governs galactic civilization.
Worlds of Fire and Ice
Every species shapes the worlds it inhabits, and every world shapes the species that claim it. The Aetherians, born in the turbulent atmospheres of gas giants, build their cities as floating architectural symphonies within storm systems that would shred conventional structures. The Ethereans, masters of aquatic environments and stellar energy, establish their greatest installations on ocean worlds or in the chromospheres of cooperative stars, places where they can draw power directly from cosmic fusion.
The Lumens, inheritors of Earth and architects of the dominant interstellar civilization, demonstrate remarkable adaptability. Their bio-cities incorporate living materials that respond to environmental conditions, creating settlements that breathe with the rhythms of their planets. On Caelistorma, they have built a civilization in perpetual motion, structures that sing in harmony with winds that never cease. In the Caelux System, they mine asteroids using eco-friendly technologies that leave minimal scars, a philosophical commitment made manifest in industrial practice.
Some worlds serve as laboratories for cosmic understanding. The Bioluminescent Nebula System hosts research stations dedicated to studying the strange life that has evolved in the nebula’s dense molecular clouds—organisms that generate their own light through quantum processes not fully understood even by the Lumen Coalition’s finest xenobiologists. Other locations exist as diplomatic meeting grounds, carefully maintained neutral territories where civilizations with incompatible technologies or hostile histories can negotiate on theoretically equal footing.
Then there are the forbidden places. The Phantom Rift, a treacherous expanse of dark matter and exotic energy, defies safe navigation and harbors phenomena that violate conventional physics. Entire expeditions have vanished into its depths, leaving behind only fragmentary transmissions that raise more questions than they answer. Some regions experience temporal anomalies that make standard chronology meaningless, while others host dimensional thin spots where the boundaries between base reality and higher-plane overlays grow dangerously permeable.
The Geography of Power
Territory and power remain inseparable. The Lumen Coalition’s control of forty sectors represents more than administrative authority—it reflects the cumulative result of forty thousand years of expansion, negotiation, conquest, and consolidation. Their strongest presence manifests in the Milky Way, birthplace of both baseline humanity and the Lumen transformation, where Earth’s capital city Calloo serves as the symbolic and administrative heart of the most extensive interstellar civilization in recorded history.
Yet the Coalition does not stand alone. The Draken Empire maintains its grip on conquered territories through military might and an honor-bound warrior culture that views territorial expansion as both practical necessity and spiritual imperative. The Aetherian civilization, scientific and contemplative, exerts influence through research partnerships and knowledge-sharing agreements that make them indispensable to species across multiple galaxies. The Ethereans, though less territorially aggressive, control strategic positions near stellar energy sources that other civilizations require for certain advanced technologies.
Perhaps most significant are the territories that remain unclaimed—frontiers where the rules of established civilization hold no sway, where new powers can rise without seeking permission from ancient empires. These regions host minor civilizations carving out their own destinies, colonies of major species seeking independence from their home governments, research outposts studying phenomena too dangerous to investigate near populated space, and settlements of ideological dissidents who rejected the compromises required for survival in Coalition territory.
Living Chronicles in Stone and Star
Worlds remember. Some preserve their histories in conventional archives—databases and libraries, monuments and museums. Others encode memory in stranger forms. The Cataria System’s feline civilization maintains oral traditions spanning tens of thousands of years, supplemented by scent-markers that trigger inherited memories in descendants of the original storytellers. Certain Elder installations throughout the cosmos operate as living repositories, their very architecture designed to communicate across the millennia to species sophisticated enough to recognize the messages embedded in their construction.
The longer a region remains inhabited, the more layers of history accumulate in its geological and archaeological record. Ancient battlefields become pilgrimage sites. Abandoned colonies transform into mysterious ruins that fuel speculation about why their builders departed. Terraforming projects begun by civilizations long extinct continue their slow work, gradually shifting planetary environments toward conditions their vanished architects will never witness.
Earth itself stands as perhaps the most historically dense world in the known universe—birthplace of baseline humanity, stage for the Great Cataclysms that nearly ended human civilization, crucible of the Chrono-Biogenesis Project that created the Lumens, and capital of the interstellar empire that would reshape galactic politics. Its transformation from the seven continents of ancient times to the single supercontinent UniTerra represents a physical manifestation of deep time’s power to render even geography impermanent.
Navigating the Infinite
Movement defines civilization as much as settlement. The development of Starbridge technology revolutionized galactic society by creating stable artificial wormholes between distant systems, collapsing journey times from decades to days or hours. These massive structures required unprecedented cooperation between species and represented investments of resources so vast that their construction often reshaped regional economies.
Yet not all regions enjoy equal access to Starbridge networks. Some civilizations deliberately avoid connecting their core territories to the broader transit web, preferring isolation to the security risks that instant travel brings. Others lack the technological sophistication or economic resources to construct Starbridges, leaving them dependent on slower conventional FTL drives. Still others occupy regions where local spatial conditions make Starbridge construction impossibly dangerous or prohibitively expensive.
The result is a cosmos of uneven connectivity. Central Core regions of major galactic sectors exist mere hours apart for those with Starbridge access, while frontier systems in the Outer Fringe might require weeks of conventional travel to reach from the nearest connected hub. This geographic reality shapes everything from trade patterns to military strategy to cultural exchange. Species separated by impassable voids develop in isolation, while those connected by stable Starbridge routes gradually influence each other’s evolution regardless of the physical distances involved.
Further Exploration
The Nine Galaxies: Each galaxy possesses its own character shaped by dominant civilizations and unique phenomena. Discover how the Milky Way’s role as humanity’s birthplace influenced its development, why the Drago Galaxy became synonymous with militaristic expansion, and what secrets hide in the temporally unstable Tundrian Galaxy.
Stellar Phenomena and Hazards: From bioluminescent nebulae to dimensional rifts, from gravitational anomalies to regions where physics behaves unpredictably, the universe hosts wonders and dangers that challenge even the most advanced civilizations.
Major Settlements and Structures: Explore the bio-cities of the Lumens, the atmospheric metropolises of the Aetherians, the underwater installations of the Ethereans, and the megastructures that represent the pinnacle of collaborative engineering across species lines.
Frontier Territories: Beyond the borders of established civilization, independent colonies and minor species forge their own paths. These regions represent both opportunity and danger for those bold enough to venture into spaces where the protection of major powers does not extend.