Escape Velocity: Peregrine
"...and a dream amongst the stars."
Humankind now travels amongst the stars. With great effort and pain, the Terran race raised itself from the surly bonds of earth and spread its wings, leaping towards the vastness of space. The scientists, tirelessly working and experimenting, finally found the secret of hyperspace travel.
So it was that the planets beyond Sol quickly became home to humans as well. In time, the Solarian Republic rose, and it consolidated its power by establishing a network of hypergates. For a hundred and twenty years the Republic stood as the only power in Known Space, with only a few independent systems outside its auspices.
In the Republic's hundred and twenty-first year, the Sundering began. Hyperspace travel proved...unreliable. A ship was lucky to arrive at its destination on time and unmolested. Worse, the hypergate network failed, and some were destroyed outright - by what means, it is still unknown.
A hundred and sixty-six years passed. The Republic fell. Hyperspace finally returned to normal, and those planets that retained their spaceflight could once again return to the stars. Those few that did not were less fortunate.
There are none to replace the Republic. New polities sprang up to replace it, centered around its sector capitals. The Henith Imperium is among the largest of these, all of sixty systems strong. Others are the Northern Star Alliance, the Imperium's greatest opponent, and other minor powers: the Protectorate, the Karathas Cluster, the Mystran Confederacy, and more.
Humanity's birthplace and two dozen other systems nearby it are held by the Terran Sector, and defended by that most feared of militaries, Terran Security - more familiarly, TerraSec. Other powers may be larger, or more populous, but none can match the Terran Sector's technology and prestige.
Portsmouth Orbital Shipyard has completed a unique, one-of-a-kind ship for a small crew. You are now on board this ship, named Peregrine. It will live or die by your actions.
The galaxy is vast, and there are yet many places undiscovered.
The universe awaits.
