It is OT-3970, and the Ashen Accord, the agreement wrought from the horrors and destruction of the Severance War, has held strong for decades. Armada and Cortex have tended their wounds and rebuilt their stockpiles of Tenebrium, the only fuel for faster-than-light travel. A peace to tally the dead, to count the losses, to prepare for the inevitable.

The few people still living in the Line Worlds, a no-man’s land dividing Armada and Cortex space, shiver as scattered skirmishes grow and merge into battles that threaten to reignite full-scale war. Armada forces shift their focus from scientist to soldier, as Cortex citadels emerge, layered in steel and stone.

In the Terminal Verge and the Nomadic Reaches, the far expanse of known space, the two great empires clash with Independent factions, with each other, and with other things in the dark.

Armada is growing ever more split between the meticulous Scholarborne scientists, and the fanatical Evermarch zealots. Should the past anchor the present, or be cast aside as dead weight? Tempers flare as they debate the best path forward for humanity.

Cortex, too, bears the weight of division. Those who hold to the doctrines of the Divinitas Mandate place unwavering faith in lesser AI. They worship the Prime All-Father and seek nothing less than his resurrection. In opposition stands the Echelon Concordat, who see AIs as artificial constructs, limited by their nature and, by necessity, subservient to humankind. This deeply-embedded disagreement strains the Chain that anchors Cortex society.

While the struggle for dominance and internal control keeps the two corporate giants interlocked in battle, their focus shifts too far away from what is lying beneath the stars. And from beneath those stars, others are rising.