[b][i]"And here, all alone in the million billion miles of midnight, is one solitary moving speck. 
A fragile parcel filled with sleeping people and their dreams."[/i][/b]
― Philip Reeve

[center] Humanity from the dawn of time was fascinated these unfathomable lights in the sky. 
The insatiable curiosity to reach the unknown just beyond our grasp drove us on journies of trillions of miles.
Humans, among myriad other dreamers of uncounted origins touched the face of their universe, and took it for their own.

Now blink - the lights are all gone. The night sky is an empty void of darker than black.[/center]

[img=http://i.imgur.com/6HaFaaW.png]

[url=http://www.space.com/27682-rogue-stars-between-galaxies.html]Half of all stars are rogues between galaxies[/url], and are so thinly spread that only an incredibly faint glow to the most powerful telescopes gives away their presence. How many sentient species have come to flourish unnoticed in the vest emptiness of hundreds of millions of light years between galaxies? Far beyond the fringes of these cradles of sentient life, your race has evolved and flourished - yet utterly ignorant that anything exists past a few hunks of rock orbiting a ball of hydrogen outside their front door. Alas, not for much longer.

Where are the galaxies? Light from billions of stars packed tightly together must assuredly bridge even such gaps of millions of light years. 

Yet why is the sky a flawless black?

[img=http://i.imgur.com/2QrpiP8.png]
[hider=Kardashev scale]The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize. The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III.[/hider]
[hider=Dyson Spheres] [img=http://i.imgur.com/kAUubVc.png]

A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a celestial object and hence captures most or all of its power output.[/hider]

Across the universe, Type III civilizations had come to harvest the radiation emitted by every galaxy within Dyson Spheres.

Our story takes place in one such enclosed galaxy and its close vicinity of about 50 million light years - let us call it "Milky Way" for easy reference. The civilization that had harnessed their galaxy like a work horse (they happened to have been humanoid), had vanished. Many signs of struggle and violence lie scattered among the countless stars: charred planets, incredible fields of wreckage. Perhaps a few still functioning automated remnant crafts and battle stations careen silently for eternity waiting for commands that are never to come. Ostensibly no sentient life remains of any developmental stage. Are these marks of the final internal struggle of the resident species that had annihilated themselves, or are these merely remains of a long ago primitive past for even these inhabitants who were forged through war and agony and had ascended to wisdom.

Over many millions of years of disrepair, the shell of the megastructure encompassing the galaxy began to be fail, and then to be violently torn by cataclysmic strains which it had for so long endured faithfully. Suddenly, the night sky is no longer dark, and a baffling point of light emerges for races beyond the periphery that had been long hidden. That would be fascinating - and perhaps spark technological revolution and the eventual development of spacefolding technology that could bridge this gap. 

Fortunately, that is not necessary.

[img=http://i.imgur.com/cLOlb5y.png]

Something a mere hundred miles across is very easy to miss among even a single solar system's loose debris - especially if no one is even looking for it. Perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago this star system was part of the Milky Way and this node was connected within a network of gates allowing instantaneous travel. The Dyson Sphere prevented any energy from escaping, which seems to have included the tracer signals between these gates - until now. In time, your race may figure out how to key destinations through these gates. For now though, each gate in player controlled solar systems open a default path to the nexus station deep within the galactic core consisting of hundreds of such gates.

Wrest the galaxy from its wild abandon and reshape it on your image, 
uncover the secrets of the ancients and their forgotten relics, 
and perhaps find the truth behind their disappearance.
But beware, knowledge itself can stir up long forgotten evils that are better left untouched in this vest universe.

---

[u][b][i]Technology[/i][/b][/u]
I am still in the process of smoothing out a system wherein players can create any technology they can imagine and choose their completely unique direction of development, while still keeping everyone on the same page so nobody is left behind. As it stands, it will involve a "purchase" mechanic from an accumulating pool of science points that I manage completely on my end. Ridiculous technologies will require ridiculous amounts of research (I'm looking at you, pocket universe in which entire planets are manufactured) - but if you were to uncover a bunch of loosely rational prerequisites beforehand it would come within reach, as one would expect of science. I am open to suggestions, but I am trying keep things super-simple for you. As well as mixing any discovered technologies to come up with awesome hybrid systems to do things nobody else thought of.

** Initially, you will have a lot in your science pool to start customizing your tech right off the bat. I will likely have a loose tree of sorts to pick from with basic techs.

[u][b][i]Religion[/i][/b][/u]
What I have in mind are some very functional and interesting uses for religion that can compete and piss off the science/fleet focused infidels. Faith would accumulate in much the same way that science does - and again, done entirely on my end. The most powerful uses would be purchasing [u][b][i]very[/i][/b][/u] expensive "destiny" counters that can shift even the most hopeless situation in your favor once, or using that faith instead to purchase "miracles" that are essentially a significant mystery present that could be anything from a random technology to an advanced semi-sentient remnant cruiser joining your forces to revealing locations of many relics across the galaxy. Particularly religion focused races could find themselves with boons such as pretty awesome unique special effects from worshiping relics they uncover - or whatever else I can think of or you suggest! Overall, it would be a quirky with a bunch of luck and divine intervention involved - yet powerful tool for a race to have in its arsenal and viable to go all-out into.

----

So guys, what do you think? I'm still debating over how to handle combat, but as with all the other things any balancing things would be on my end - but rest assured that warmongerers pumping out ships will not be left in the dust. I will play as the (mostly) inactive remenant autamatons, and will occasionally surface special events in the galaxy that may be either dangerous, or boons for you to possibly fight over if you so choose - and a loose sequence of events as players uncover history of the ancients over time. Other than that, it is all up to you and your fellow players to guide the game!

[hider=Race App]
(15 unused cultural affinity points)
Warmongerers / Military Production: X
Scientists / Research Income: X
Theologians / Faith Income: X

[b]Race Name:[/b]
[b]Name of Faction:[/b]
[b]Government Structure:[/b]
[b]Race Biology:[/b] Appearance, what do they breathe / drink / eat etc.
[b]Cultural History:[/b] Should loosely reflect your cultural affinity stats, write out a story on how it got the way it is.
[b]Social Structure:[/b] How is your race's society organized?
[b] Reaction to Aliens:[/b] Do they run in fear, send representatives, or fire at will? **Is a reflexive tendency, not always

[b]Having never seen a starry sky, write a first hand account of your race's explorer's reaction to seeing the densely packed vastness near the galactic core upon passing through the gate:[/b]
[/hider]