[Untitled-as-yet Space Fantasy]

[Czernobog]

So, yeah, I've been brainstorming and talking to Dak about this for a couple of weeeks, and I've been meaning to post this for a while but never really found the time. So, here it begins. I really do mean to expand on this, make it a fully-realised 'verse and all.

Hopefully I'll have good luck.

The stage:

The Whorl, a massive spiral galaxy three times the size of our own. Filled with densely-packed star clusters in which the night sky is filled with golden light, immense nebulae where lightning-bolts the size of star systems dance furiously, Jovian-scale planets made of solid diamond, neutron stars which blast right through suns as artillery from long-ended wars, constellations pruned like bonsai trees by vanished empires, graveyards where dead starships collect after drifting through the currents of hyperspace, and other wonders and horrors.

Twelve million inhabited worlds exist - from neon-flooded, ceaselessly rain-drenched city-planets to fortresses with bunkers dug down to the deepest layers of the core, to stone-age worlds riven by tectonic disasters to gleaming city-networks built on the plasma-flows of stellar surfaces, the sheer variety is stunning beyond all description. Fully a quarter have devolved into savagery, and another quarter huddle fearfully, blind and isolated, in the dark, but still around six million are part of interstellar territories.

The setting:

It is approximately 2,000 years after the end of the Great War, more of a collection of individual devastating conflicts that would later be given the name by later historians, between the galaxy-ruling Supremacy and its artificial children, the individually sovereign Intellects, vast AIs, Matrioshka-cogitators the size of solar systems each, of which only twelve were made. Eventually both groups fell into paranoia - it is unclear who struck the first blow, but the fighting devastated both sides immensely. Eventually the Intellects withdrew their forces and vanished - but by this point a third of the Supremacy's population was dead, including most of its leaders.

The generals ruling began to jockey for power, and in the ensuing Dynastic Wars, lasting for 700 years of bloodshed, the Supremacy ultimately perished. Gone was unity, gone was the rule of the Eagle Crown and the peace given by order. The collapse was total in many places, and for 1,000 years darkness reigned.

The actors:

The Whorl is full of the Burlesque Empires - places controlling star systems in the double or triple digits - in fact, such states make up about 99.9% of the inhabited galaxy. They are individually unimportant, and tend to swiftly fall into line when a larger power makes its presence known.

The Regional Powers are minor states, but larger than those petty nations - they command influence over sizeable areas, and about 169 exist. An example of an averagte one would be the Dominion of the White Tower, a technocratic nation possessed of several Worldgates whose citizens' lot in life is determined by the planet-sized astrological engines of the Alabaster Configuration.

Then there are the Medium Powers, which hold tens to hundreds of thousands of planets and command influence over a sizeable area - 18 are currently in existence. An example of a high-end example would be the harshly regimented, autarkic and military-obsessed Meander Exarchate, which is feared mostly for its cache of dreadful superweapons, from the Blackstorm Cannons which consume star systems in black holes, to the Archangel Stations which can erase and rewrite minds on a planetary scale.

Finally, there are the Great Powers, possessed of five hundred thousand to a million worlds and surrounded by ablative masses of vassals and serf-states, in whose ranks there are only three - most prominently, and largest, the Ophelian Hegemon, a million worlds currently united by the iron will of the Supreme Basilissa. The second is its rival, the much smaller but more advanced Seven Clusters Alliance. And finally there is the neutral barter-world of Free Lyrais, lord of an invisible, ever-present empire of scavengers, corporations and void-clans, a key nexus of trade and port-town on a planetary scale, so wealthy that it could buy all the galaxy's mercenaries and still be in profit.

Alien races exist, but are marginalised in comparison to the immense and ever-growing populations of humanity. Also present are the Intellects, who, sick of the slaughter and devastation of the Great War, removed themselves and began hibernation in the dark spaces between stars. If they were to awake, the balance of power would shift immensely.

The props:

Magic exists.

There are two varieties of this paranormal capability. First there is the Low Circle, first to be developed in the legendary days of the Whorl, which uses metaphysical properties associated with certain objects and symbols. This is the most easily learned and commonly used, and is weaker in effect, requiring more workarounds and props compared to the other variety.

Then, there is the High Circle, a form which manipulates the very concepts underlying reality. Through this was developed the Omni-Keys to which no lock was a bar, the Panoptica through which the Supremacy's gaze could fall upon all things, the Alabaster Configuration which used the stellar geometries of the universe to calculate possible futures, and many other wonders.

Purely physical technology was also used in equal proportion to magic in the Supremacy, even if the greatest of what is now known in both fields is debased and corrupted by superstition. Examples of these wonders are the Worldgate System which broke space so that men could walk from one world to the next with a single step, the hyperspace canals which sped up interstellar travel so that journeys of weeks lasted mere hours, the matter-furnaces that transmuted lead to gold and made wondrous machines shimmer out of thin air, the dimension reactors which used zero-dimensional singularities as limitless power-sources, the lazarus-engines which gave life from death - these are but the first examples that spring to mind of the miracles of the Supremacy, the knowledge of their construction lost to those remaining in its shadow.

===

So yeah, there are probably a lot of places I can go from this. Hope I end up going somewhere.

[Heretic]

I would suggest maybe writing a story to help personalize your universe and get the small trivial details of life in. I know you do alot of that to show the events of the universe, but maybe this time focus on characters, their developments, dreams, strengths/weaknesses, etc. instead of a broad narrative of a dozen or so characters that come and go as the event needs them to.