Some unreliably narrated in-universe lore, to draw folks in:

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Once, there was a Republic

I am Enso Wylam, of Tombwatch. Don't let the name fool you - it's a nice enough city, all things considered. It's the view, you know? Up here on the mesa we can see the buried spires of the Tomb. They say it was where the Magi of old times made planetfall here, that once it was a city of wonder and majesty that towered to the upper atmo. Now it's a barrow under the red sands.

My ancestors came to this planet with genes optimized to survive until it looked like the homeworld - first planet colonized, first wave of colonists. Built for the harsh climes. 

But then a cataclysm came, a war that destroyed the old Republic. In the stories, it's said that aliens from beyond the edge of the solar system arrived in ships of spun glass and living bone, and fought the Magi with weapons that shattered one of the moons of the homeworld. It's said that the Magi made their own monsters to fight back, and they got out of control, so they had to fight a war on two fronts. By the time they found a weapon to beat the invaders it was too late.

And just as soon as they appeared, the Others were gone and the Magi all dead. Chaos followed; the shipping lanes collapsed and vital infrastructure in ruin.  Without the Magi, we were like children. To this day, we still don't know how their machines work, and we surely can't reproduce them. Everything we know about physics, they just... they ignored it. Bent it. We had to learn everything over again while renegade bioweapons terrorized the system and rogue military declared they were taking control in the absence of the Magus Council.

We had help, though, or so the stories say. No one has seen a Bandi in generations - the eyeless sentinels who protected my ancestors in silence, appearing from nowhere to fend off threats with gun and blade, before disappearing as if swallowed by the sands. No great story about why they stopped coming; they just... stopped. Kept us safe in the years after the fall and then were gone.

Still, we're lucky. There are former colonies out there that have forgotten civilisation, that really believe in gods and monsters. Others have been taken over by the Jukari, those cyborgs who worship their god-empress. We still have an ancient orbital defense array intact, so they haven't got us yet. But it seems like a matter of time before we're enslaved, too. Can't match their technology.

Some of the younger folk are talking about going to the Tomb. They think they can wake up the Bandi, to save us. 

Maybe they're right.
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