ASCENSION SPACE (V.2)

Our solar system in a distant future is a greatly changed place. Humanity has spread from Earth to the outer edges of the system, transforming worlds and building new homes in the cold void. Once insurmountable obstacles have been overcome and humanity as a species has split into numerous new strains to survive beyond the planet of our birth.

It should be a Golden Age.

Alas, human nature is unchanged. The system, once unified under a powerful government, is now fractured and divided between warring fiefdoms. Innumerable habitats are lost to pirate fleets, rogue militaries and genetic abominations. And worse, an alien reality known as the Aetheric Sea has slowly but surely infected our universe, allowing strange entities ingress and bringing corruption to all it touches.

Isolated from the rest of the galaxy, the great Warp Gate that once connected it to the wider human space long inactive, the Sol System is teeters upon the brink of utter annihilation. Superpowers begin to amass their forces for war on a scale hitherto never imagined and dark forces conspire in the shadows to sow discord and chaos, pushing all toward an apocalyptic end game.

Ascension Space is the setting for the Ascension War, a dark space fantasy. It is our solar system in a distant epoch where humanity has transformed a great many worlds and moons and built countless space habitats.

In this setting the solar system is a fractured tapestry of rival nations vying for dominion over territory and resources amidst the ruins of a bygone civilisation; the Ascendants. A highly advanced human civilisation the Ascendants once bound the solar system together yet their empire fell apart which lead to centuries of war and chaos. Now their successors have arisen to dominance and human once more indulges in self-destruction.

This is not a hard-science setting. Whilst there is no Faster than Light travel the vast distances within the system itself can be traversed by a month at most (with some methods considerably faster). There was a Warp Gate that connected the Sol System to Alpha Centarui yet it became inactive when the Ascendants fell. Cloning, body swapping, human-animal hybrids, cyborgs, uplifted animals and extensive genetic engineering are all present, the latter leading to a bewildering array of quite "alien" human species. There is also psychic abilities and, for want of a better word, magic due to the creeping corruption of the Aetheric Sea.