I live in the Forge. The Forge is rather different to the galaxy where humanity evolved. We fled because spirits, angels our ancestors thought at first, arrived. But like so many things, it was too good to be true. Our ancestors at first welcomed these angels among them and once they knew everything there was to know they ravaged our worlds, tore down our defences and those of us who were lucky enough fled. Here we hid, survived. Maybe even started to thrive.
Ironically, the fallen angels provided a way for us to get away. Not all of humanity welcomed them and some had investigated their arrival. They discovered gateways that allowed them and although they didn’t understand the technology completely they reverse engineered the controllers sufficiently that they opened a gateway to the Forge and our ancestors fled, destroying the coordinates so we couldn’t be followed.
We have started to thrive here in the Forge. Things are still tough. Most of us are loosely organised into one of five clans, AWJ, Honshu, Li, Okon and Senna. The clans claim territory and there is both trade and skirmishes between them. Others eke out a living between the clans, maintaining neutrality. I’m proud to be part of Clan AWJ.
Everyone, even me, carries an iron blade. Some are small, daggers, kukris and the like. Others are gigantic, claymores and zwiehanders. Regardless of their size, we all acknowledge the commitment of a vow sworn on our blades. Being without a blade is to be without honour. Personally, I carry three, just in case.
Travelling through the gate changed us. We don’t understand how, but a sizeable part of the population wield powers that we call psychic and you might call magic. I can make others not notice me, if I’m lucky I can make them not notice more than just me. There are others who can accurately see into the future, create and control fire and more. There are stories that psychics can be corrupted by their gifts, consumed by flames, disappearing into the shadows, falling into madness as the futures they see consume their minds. But no one actually knows someone that has happened to.
Each of the clan territories has its own laws and while these are largely the same - we all recognise iron vows, frown on murder, rape, theft and the like, have equality before the law and so on - there are subtle difference. AWJ is strongly supportive of psychics while Senna regulates the use of psychic abilities strongly and Li tries to hunt them down and imprison them. Bounty hunters exist and cross clan boundaries with a certain amount of impunity but laws not upheld, like the Li imprisonment of psychics will not allow bounty hunters to roam in all territories - a bounty hunter trying to execute such a bounty in AWJ territory will be arrested for kidnapping if they get caught.
Although I don’t really pay much attention, unless it’s important for a job, we have many faiths. There are different patterns of gods and goddesses, and religious philosophies, between the clans - Okon and Li predominantly have very different worship practices for example - plus a few practises that are found across all of the Forge. Some, like me, basically ignore it. Some mutter the odd prayer, others are truly devout.
In the central areas of clan space, and along the main routes between them there are is a network of data hubs called the Weave that allows for near instantaneous communication between ships and outposts. There are stories these hubs are often the targets for sabotage and infiltration but who believes things like that? The further you get from the centre, the less likely to be connected to the Weave you are, and couriers replace them, although all the clans are expanding the outposts connected to the weave as fast as they can.
We have orders of sworn healers, and they train the next generation of healers. If you live somewhere connected to the Weave and you’re a clan member you can get almost miraculous levels of care. In more remote areas the level of care falls off - novice healers, riggers and emergency aid is the best many can do. If you’re in another clan’s territory it really depends on why, where and how relations between your clans are right now.
When we fled, our AI couldn’t make the transition through the gates we used. We’re told that we bought the cores, but they all died. Survival meant we didn’t look at redeveloping it first, we used the seers that had emerged instead. But Li and Senna aren’t keen on psychics and have looked at developing AI again, seers can’t be everywhere. There is nascent AI technology but it’s even rarer than seers. It is both coveted and wielded by those in power and there are stories, and some documented cases, of those in power using it as a weapon.
It seems like war is a constant. That’s not really true, someone in my line of work deals in precision in information. True, full-scale, war between any of the clans is actually quite rare. There have been two wars involving all the clans in the last 250 years and five more wars involving two or three clans in the same period. The two all-out wars lasted seven and twelve years respectively, the smaller wars lasted three to five years each. A total of 38 years in 250 is 15.2%. But if you count skirmishes, local flares along parts of borders, where adjacent sectors belonging to different clans fight, that adds another 187 years, so 225 out of 250 in total. Most sectors have not seen even 50 years of war, but it’s almost always lurking somewhere in the Forge. Although each of the clans maintains a standing military - typically space marines in small vessels that can attack in formation or each of which can land a squad to take a hostile outpost. Most of the military might floating around, and some might argue maintaining the near constant state of war, are the mercenary guilds. They’re relatively small individually, few are bigger than company sized, with eight or nine ships carrying a squad each, most are smaller - one or two squads - but en masse there are still a lot of them scattered across the Forge.
Life in the Forge is often hostile and dangerous. This is part of the reason for the sheer numbers of mercenary guild members. There are hundreds of deserted outposts and abandoned ships where forgespawn have eaten the settlers or crew. Mmm, tasty.
Some say the forgespawn are what drove the Ascendancy out, or killed them all. The Ascendancy is our name for those that came before. They were clearly advanced, spread throughout the Forge before us, and vaults remain. We explore them when we can but they seem only loosely tethered to our reality.
Most citizens never leave the areas served by the Weave. In those zones a lot of them never leave their home outpost. But those of us who travel to the more interesting bit of the Forge have all seen the horrors. Things from beyond, from later, from the afterlife, from other dimensions and so on.
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