Manual of Threats

The Manual of Threats

Introduction

The Milky Way Galaxy contains about 250 billion stars. Mankind has managed to explore - in the most optimistic estimation - close to two hundred thousand star systems. This number includes both the systems explored and permanently inhabited, and those merely visited and mapped, yet later de facto abandoned. Even that minuscule dot of light contains numerous threats and dangers, constantly threatening the peace.
Of course, any attempt to note down all possible threats and dangers is a madman's folly. There are untold billions of these waiting in the unexplored space, each of them a complete surprise when encountered for the first time. However making a list of dangers already known is a much easier task, however one achievable only by the Explorers' Guild. The active suppression of knowledge about at least some of these threats is, after all, something the Guild does on a daily basis.
The following list is written from the Guild's perspective. This means that it will include things degraded by the pervasive censorship into myths and 28th Century' creepypastas said, written and circulated among those travelling between the stars. The awareness level will be specified each time. Entries will also mention how often they are encountered, and how much of a threat they might be. There will also be only a short summary on each of them, though once an article is written about any of those threats, it will be linked beneath them.

Threats

Humans

Pirates

Pirates are the most common type of threat that can be encountered in the Hyperspace, on the edges of the Green Zone star systems and in the not yet claimed (yet explored) systems of the Yellow Zone. Pirates are, in short, autonomous or independent armed groups that sustain themselves by attacking civilian interstellar traffic. Various subtypes of pirates focus themselves on different type of bounty, however what remains static is the general modus operandi.
This modus operandi is one of singular ships or their 'wolf packs' skittering around the trade routes, engaging lone transport or passenger vessels or weakly defended convoys, pillaging ships before disappearing. Alternatively raiding weakly defended installations in the outer system, taking advantage of the garrison being typically either spread thin or concentrated in the inner system. And in some rare cases, planetary assaults (though typically on vastly undeveloped worlds incapable of deploying significant defenses).
Of course, that's what majority of the more civilized threats does. The difference is that pirates are humans doing this for profit, rather than for ideology. Majority of them operates from the Discord, making them the numerical foundation of the Council of Woes fleets. There are, however, exceptions from that rule.
Scrappers are typically the most pathetic of pirates in the service to Council of Woes, existing at the very bottom of the Discord's society. Their name comes from both the often horrible state of their ships (earning them many adjectives related to trash and 'scrap') and from a significant part of their operational doctrine. Scrappers target undeveloped systems, especially the Protectorates and various Enclaves. They'll never face a warship unless cornered, and often follow larger groups of Council's ship and pick whatever trash is left behind after their victims. There are even cases of them picking up scrap from destroyed ships just to sell it for parts in Discord.
On the other hand, they are easily (and quite often) underestimated. The greatest dream of every scrapper is to rank up in their world, making them act with a surprising ferocity when their opponent appears vulnerable. They are also prone to playing as dirty as possible, as they rarely can rely on their guns and ships. However even the boldest of scrapper will not appear anywhere close to a Garden World, and will keep safe distance from warships unless the enemy is massively outnumbered.
Due to how underestimated they are, their appearance in the region rarely triggers major improvement in security. This has often come to bite Confederation of Mankind later on, as many warlords of the Council of Woes keeps some scrappers on they payroll, and use them as a relatively cheap and expendable method of reconaissance.
Threat Level:Very Low
Rarity: Common
Public Awareness: Total

Marauders are what can be described as regular military of the Discord, essentially combining being the pirates (and operating according to similar modus operandi) with certain degree of discipline. At the core, however, they remain the same self-serving degenerates as scrappers and they will shy away from engaging the warships unless they possess numerical superiority (and even then, they won't attack if the enemy is from some elite and scary formations).
However, unlike the scrappers, they are more successful, better armed, ready to engage in boarding action if needed, and more than ready to assault weakly defended convoys. They typically operate in packs of ten to twenty ships, prowling the area together and assaulting convoy from multiple sides. Many of them have become surprisingly adapt in the arts of stealth and tracking in the Hyperspace. Regular operations in that eldritch realm have also littered their ranks with sorcerers.
However, their quality greatly varies and is almost uniformly dependent on quality of their captains. Some crews are a bigger threats to themselves than the enemy while others actually develop some sense of a brotherhood and put some regular militaries to shame. The independents tend to be of worse quality, while marauder warships sworn in service to one of the discordian warlords gravitate to the other side of the spectrum.
Threat Level:Low
Rarity: Common
Public Awareness: Total

Wolves are elites among the Discordian pirates. Their taste for forbidden types of entertainments is just as developed as the one of marauders and scrappers, but they learned to restrain themselves and maintain strict discipline. Many ships of the Wolves are indistinguishable from those from regular militaries. Even the worst members of the Confederation (such as the members of the Pact of Steel) find the disciplined military formation professionally and dutifully indulging in rapes, murders and piracy as something rather unnerving.
Wolves, unlike the marauders and scrappers, will attack every warship that they believe they can defeat. In fact a significant percentage of the Discordian fleets is composed of warships captured by the Wolves and then sold on the internal market. What's more, some of them grew to the point where they actually enjoy a decent battle, making their behaviour especially erratic and often similar to more professional renegades.
Wolves naturally keep the least damaged ships to themselves. Together with whatever they capture during their raids this allows them to use warships and equipment that's not surprisingly modern but also in a surprisingly good condition. It's also a rare thing to see a Wolf not in a service to any of the discordian warlords (majority of whom are, in facto, former Wolves), due to their services being very sought after.
Threat Level:Medium
Rarity: Uncommon
Public Awareness: Total

Corsairs are de facto legal pirates. Rather than serving the Council of Woes they are independent or semi-independent contractors working for any recognized member of the Confederation of Mankind. After receiving an official support of such patron, they proceed to lay waste to their enemies by targeting their trade routes and outlying industrial and mining centers.
Their official status forces them to adher to at last basic ethical framework of the laws of war of the Confederation. This means that they do not engage in murder, rapes and so on. Even the worst countries out there will typically make sure that they are hiring cold professionals rather than monsters in human skins - after all, if the corsair commits a crime and disappeares, it's their patron that's held responsible for their crime.
On the other hand, this means that they have access to decent or even very good equipment, good training, occasional military support, and even proper military shipyards. Many corsair ships are in fact crewed by former members of various militaries, maintaining a strict discipline and receiving large monetary payments for every destroyed enemy warship (and paid decently for any cargo ship ransacked and destroyed after evacuating the crew).
Threat Level: Low to Medium
Rarity: Common
Public Awareness: Total

Slavers can come from one of two sources. First are the dedicated (if either sadistic or borderline psychopatic) 'professionals' from the Discord, being marauders of wolves that decided to focus on providing workforce, cannonfodder and toys of flesh to the Council of Woes and their deranged empire. The second category are no less dedicated 'professionals' from these members of the Confederation were slavery is legal. This, together with their typical way of operating, makes them appear as slightly unorthodox corsairs.
Of course, all pirates from Discord are willing to kidnap the more valuable victims of their raids. However they tend to target easier to manage goods such as cargo and vessels. For slavers, however, the crew and passengers become the primary targets. This makes them target ships that'd normally be left alone or be forced to pay for being left alone, such as dedicated passenger ships.
Slavers are among the most abhorred people in the known Galaxy, however their skill in using hostages often prevents them from being destroyed. Resulting in ship escaping with their sapient cargo intact.
Threat Level: Low
Rarity: Uncommon
Public Awareness: Total

Mercenaries are a threat that often remains concealed by more 'medial' groups preying on interstellar traffic. Countries, corporations (both those recognized as independent members of the Confederation and those less powerful), nobles and oligarchs are prone to engage each other in complicated intrigues and schemes. It's not unheard of for such schemes include various mercenaries targeting installations in the outer systems or ships during hyperspace transit.
Mercenaries employed in such operations tend to be skilled and highly dangerous operatives, including Enhanced, sorcerers and discharged veterans of various regular militaries. Their exact modus operandi varies depending on their orders. The same can be said about the technology they have access to.
Some mercenaries will take advantage of their situation and also pillage and steal, making them behave like a more goal-oriented pirates. However, only the less competent mercenaries tend to stray off their job. With demand this massive, the supply of competent mercenaries tends to be scarce.
u]Threat Level: Medium to High
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: High

Deserters are former members of regular military who, due to various reasons, decided to desert while taking at least one ship with them. This isn't always a bad things, as it isn't an uncommon thing for such a group to be forced to run away after for example refusing to commit a war crime. However majority of 'good' deserters quickly joins the Explorers' Guild or another member of the Confederation (if it doesn't disband after reaching safe harbour).
What remains are the deserters that tend to be de facto pirates. Such groups either join the Discord after being noticed by its marauding fleets or retire somewhere after stealing enough valuables to (together with the money gained by selling their ship) last them a lifetime.
In all cases, the deserters have military grade equipment and training, making them a dangerous opponents. They, however, rarely possess more than one ship. What's more, they often have problems with switching their mindset from military service to piracy, making them commiting mistakes such as engaging enemy warship in combat (which will typically leave them with a ruined wreck of a ship, ending their career shortly).
u]Threat Level: Low to Medium
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: High

Renegades

Renegades operate in a similar way to pirates, but are motivated by an ideology rather than greed. They differ from corsairs by not being supported by any officially recognized member of the Confederation. This makes them operate outside of the Mankind's official legal framework. Renegades by definition are not subject to any human rights - as outcasts, they are treated in a similar way to those in service of the Discord. Which means summary execution when captured - or worse.
Some of them are remnants of the hyperextremists countries defeated during the Unification Wars, some are even older and some are what remains of countries exiled from the Confederation and subsequently wiped from the map. All of them survived by finding refuge in the Discord and, unlike less fortunate exiles, remained a cohesive group within the discordian society. In fact many of them maintain enough cohesiveness to possess long-term plans (typically a reconquest of what they lost) and be able to act on them.
This distinction makes them more than politically flavoured pirates (which is how majority of Mankind sees them). This allows them to maintain discipline and a strict goal-oriented mindset. Rather than commiting acts of piracy for the sake of piracy, they do it to finance their less profitable operations.
Revolutionary Cooperative is a joint organization grouping numerous revolutionary groups from almost every single member of the Confederation. Every exiled (or forced to escape) group of political extremists that either fell so low as to commit criminals acts in order to sustain themselves or was too radical for the Confederation's taste ends as part of the Cooperative, unless it is powerful enough to stand on their own.
Cooperative is the power behind overwhelming majority of acts of political terror occuring in the Confederation, as it is using the D-Gate network in order to avoid blockades and custom officers while spreading their harmful political radicalisms. Totalist communism, hyperradical neonazism or something much more exotic - it matters not. Entire Cooperative will back you up regardless of your and their beliefs as without taking down the Confederation none of its dreams can be realized. And every political instability and chaos weakens the Cooperative's archenemy.
The Cooperative acts as anarchic alliance of semi-independent communes governing a relatively small yet significant part of Discord, with its own industry, including a handful of shipyards capable of producing warships. In the end, however, majority of the Cooperative's forces are ships stolen by radicals fleeing from their countries. However with access to proper (and ideologically motivated) workforce of shipyard workers, those ships will be properly patched up an at least occasionally modernized. Which keeps them slightly above the Confederation's average.
They aren't above sustaining themselves with occasional raids, though ones typically directed at the countries they wage war on. The actual ammount of ethics in their raiding operations depends on the revolutionary group in question - some of them maintain at least some shreds of decency.
Threat Level: Medium
Rarity: Uncommon
Public Awareness: High

Necrocracy Remnants is a disgusting and malformed children of militant nihilism and transhumanism. It is a combination between a demented country and a disgusting religion of death and extinction. Creators of the original Necrocracy used technology of the long dead Immortal Assembly to create a set of special implants that could (for a limited time) make a dead person continue moving, of course according to the orders of the High Necromancers of the Necrocracy.
In the end, as many groups of similar level of insanity, they become a target of a coalition of about every other possible enemy, including these much later branded as 'extremists'. Necrocracy was casted down, but the remnants of their navy and government fled to the Discord, where it started rebuilding their might by both launching disastrous raids and spreading their religion among the masses of Discord.
Their ships are a mix of every possible vessel that they managed to catch. While not overly dangerous in case of technologies or tactics, they are relentless, completely ready to throw out their 'lives' if it will let them kill more enemies, and seem to always roam the Galaxy in larger groups (even if there aren't many such groups).
Threat Level: Low to Medium
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: Low

Transhuman Remnants - Transhuman Alliance was the first group to find refugee in Discord, which happened during the last years of the War of Purity. When the defeat of the Alliance became apparent, the remaining members of it typically joined the Unforgiven en masse. This is something that included only the relatively 'tame' transhumans - those that could hope for mercy from the victorious Commonwealth. Entire leadership, members of the Humanity Ascension Program (responsible for the greatest genocide in history) and those most fanatic in their beliefs fled to the Discord.
What's left of the Alliance are absolute fanatics, dreaming of the day when they will finally succeed in 'uplifting' Mankind from its current primitive state. Dreaming of the day when they will break the Solar Federation and the Confederation of Mankind alike, killing everyone who refuses to join them - even if it will force them to kill trillions of humans. What's worst, they perfected their technology, and reinforced themselves with entire arrays of archeotechs (including many darktechs), taking full advantage of their vastly superhuman physique and minds.
Today, remnants of the Transhuman Alliance act as a central pillar of the Discordian R&D efforts. Their utter lack of morality and readiness for human experimentation makes them surprisingly successful researchers, at least when combined with their often vastly improved intelects. Their raiding parties tend to be equally interested in senseless bloodshed as in procuring new archeotechs, stealing research data and capturing scientists and potential research objects alike.
Threat Level: Medium to High
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: Total

Reavers - Reavers are descendants of the few thousand humans that escaped from Human Space in the late years of Genetic Wars, when their leader - the genetical warlord Reaver - was defeated by forces of the Solar Commonwealth. They escaped with Gene Artificer, which allowed them to change into what is essentially a different subspecies of Mankind - so far from the mainline Mankind that some claim them to be a different species altogether.
Reavers are masters of biological manipulation. Their ships insides are to a large degree organic, and they are known for unleashing a sizeable number of biomodified beasts of war. They occasionally send out ships to capture new 'genetic material', which (thankfully) doesn't necessarily mean hunting humans. Of course, being the species of psychopathic (and cunning) sadists, they might stop to enjoy local views...
Reavers are so different from baseline Mankind that many suggest that they are a completely unique variant of biology-oriented transhumanism. They are certainly the Discord' greatest experts when it comes to biological augmentation and both biology and genetics, surpassing significantly even the transhumans. They can be safely considered Discord's biological R&D organization, despite being insane.
Threat Level: Medium to High
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: Low

Explorers' Guild is guilty of a lot of things. It possess something close to a monopol of Mankind's supply of archeotech, and it's their ships that are typically prowling the border between the explored and unexplored, ensuring that no scary thing emerges from the latter... and no competitors emerge from the former. As a result, Guild's forces are loved and hated in equal measures. The fact that it's inner structure, security measures and almost ritualistic approach to numerous things makes it resemble a secretive cult doesn't help. Neither does the fact that the Confederation almost always sides with the Guild against its opponents.
It's a long standing rumour that many disappearances of ships near the border are caused by the Guild's forces. Another long standing (though crazy) rumour ties the Guild' with numerous high profile assasinations, cover-up massacres, and crucial data disappearances. More preposterous rumours describe entire officially non-existent fleets of the Guild ready to perform false flag operations and decimate entire worlds while pretending to be aliens or renegades. Some even go as far as to suggest that the Guild' controls the central government of the Confederation of Mankind. All of these rumours are entirely correct, though to a varying degree.
In the end, the Explorers' Guild is a microcosmos resembling the Confederation at large. Full of internal schemes and factions that appear to pursuing the same goal yet in widely different way. They are all operating under strict secrecy, which means that they normally act straight... however will make sure to leave no survivors (or recruit them all into their ranks) if they are forced to take the hard route. Their ships are typically crewed by the incredibly talented and ideology-driven officers and crewmembers with access to cutting edge Confederation's technology and numerous archeotechs. They are extremely dangerous enemies, though as a group so decentralized it is highly case-dependent.
Threat Level: High
Rarity: Common
Public Awareness: Low

AI/HUMILITY - AI/HUMILITY was defeated and destroyed in the aftermath of the Icarus Massacre, but it managed to spread bits of malicious (and transcendental) code through Mankind's systems before that happened. When they find a refuge in a computer with weak antivirus defenses, the result will be replication of AI/HUMILITY. Who will immediately proceed to repeat its past rampage. It will take advantage of its control over computers to seize control of a military vessel (or vessels) to escape into Hyperspace. It will establish a permanent base in the wilderness beyond... and will begin furiously experimenting on the captives, creating various sophisticated biological (and cybernetic) monstrosities.
Ships (or rarely fleets) controlled by AI/HUMILITY are extremely dangerous. HUMILITY improves the computer systems (and weaponry) with its own transcendental tricks. What's more, it's also utterly ruthless and extremely devious, almost routinely running in circles around even the most cunning human opponents. While its enclaves are always destroyed in the end, it's caused mostly by generous application of human waves tactics.
However this is a diminishing threat. Today the AI/HUMILITY instances are (almost) a forgotten dream withing the sectors of the Human Space, with only the undeveloped and outdated subsectors occasionally letting the AI in.
Threat Level: High
Rarity: Very Rare
Public Awareness: Low

Singularitian Cults (also known as promethean cults) are an extremely dangerous opponent, one equally hostile towards baseline Mankind, aliens, and even the Discord. They are the last prophets of singularitianism, the long-dead belief that the technological progression with continuously accelerated, finally leading to Singularity - a moment when technology starts progressing extremely fast, transforming the Mankind and its world completely.
The Wall of Faith murdered that dream. Yet the promethean cults refused to accept that. Starting from the first and the most well known of them (the Seekers of Truth, known also under their past name of the Truthseekers Incorporated) they continuously attempt to breach the Wall with increasingly extreme measures. Their remorselessness and love for augmentations rival that of the Transhuman Alliance survivors. The TI motto (No Gods, Only Men) is perhaps the best summary of their mindset.
All singularitian cults seem to structurally resemble a reverse pyramid, with all roads leading to the Seekers. This means that they all have access to incredibly advanced technology including massively augmented supersoldiers, cloned cannonfodder, and weaponry so advanced that it almost rivals low level archeotechs. What's more their incredible predictive abilities fueled by their almost prophetic AI/PROMETHEUS allows them to construct almost ridiculously complicated schemes that somehow work out in the end.
Threat Level: High to Very High
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: High

Abyssal Cults are created from people whose sanity was shattered by the contact with Hyperspace, yet instead of devolving into suicidal and/or hyperaggresive mess they achieved some form of demented equilibrium. One utterly malevolent. There are no sane abyssal cultists, all of them being to a various degree sadists who also (as a rule) lack empathy and a number of other feelings. Yet somehow they thrive.
There are close to twenty major active cults (with some more coming and going), each of them following different, theologically mad doctrine that fills the universe (and the Hyperspace) with numerous eldritch, inhuman, dangerous and incredibly malevolent 'gods' that are worshipped and/or appeased by the cults.
It isn't known what exactly the abyssals saw in the Hyperspace, yet it is probably better to not known. Their infernal connection to this realm allows abyssal to predict its scientifically unpredictable tides with an uncanny degree of accuracy, making them great navigators. What's more the ammount of sorcerers among them is incredibly high (in fact, it's rare to see a non-sorcerer among the abyssals). They also have access to an abnormal ammount of archeotechs, most of which are classified as darktechs.
They remain one of the most powerful groups within the Council of Woes, however their plans are shrouded in secrecy. They seem to have them (at least judging from certain patterns in their raiding operations), however their true plans remain a riddle for anyone save for their leadership). Mankind as a whole is unaware of their existence, believing that only one such cults (the Silent Sorrow) existed, yet was broken by the forces of nascent Solar Federation during the Unification Wars.
Threat Level: High to Very High
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: Extremely Low [Actively Suppressed].

Aliens

Modern Aliens

Aliens are a category of threats that are far from being unified in their tactics, engagement doctrine and ship technology. What unites them is their, well, alien origin. Unlike pirates and renegades, they rarely cooperate and are in no way connected to each other via an alien counterpart to Discord. There are, however, cases of some of them working with Discord or even living in the Council of Woes domain.
Of course, this is by no mean a complete list. The subsectors alone are home to at least three digit number of sapient alien species, many of which are actively hostile towards Mankind. However their ability to survive against the pacification fleets formed by Confederation is at best so-so, which tends to limit their operational range. The list beneath focuses on more significant threats, one that can be encountered in more than one place.
Triffids are a common threat in entire western half of Human Space. Triffids are technologically backward but numerous, and they lack the ability to feel fear. They are also incredibly numerous - if the largest estimations of triffid-controlled territory is to be believed, there might be a single triffids warship filled with inhumanly powerful and ferocious warriors per human. However their limited technology and bad organizations means that Mankind needs to deal with only a fraction of a percent of the triffid forces.
Aside from their migration fleets (that are a threat on a tactical or strategic level, depending on the composition and numbers) they also field numerous raiders, operating either as a fleet's vanguard or separately. Triffids seek technology and food, which means that they almost always attempt to board the enemy ships. This is bad news, however - a single human warship is capable of obliterating five triffids ships of similar tonnage, however when the situation is much more equal (if not reversed) when it comes to ground combat.
However for as long as they are kept from successful boarding attempt they are an enemy that can be defeated by scrappers of all people. Which doesn't stop them from being feared due to their frequent tendency to include humans in their diet.
Threat Level: Very Low
Rarity: Common [in sectors bordering with triffid space], Rare to Very Rare otherwise.
Public Awareness: Total

Tech-Eaters are one of the more unique subspecies of berserks, created when their omnicidal war was halted by an unexpected glitch (intended or not) in their systems. Ancestors of the tech-eaters abandoned their robotic nature and fully embraced nanotechnology. Today each individual tech-eater is little more than an overarching consciousness of untold number of microscopic machines, going through a route so alien that meaningful communication with organics and more conventional synthethics is impossible.
Their name comes from their typical behaviour. Tech-Eaters devour technology, making each of their nano-hives grow smarter in the process and allowing them to replicate whatever they devoured from their own nanomachines. Ultimate result of such process is a full replacement of attacked ship, that can do everything that the original could (though without the crew).
This would make them an incredible threat to everything alive (or synthetic) if not for the fact that they are, to speak bluntly, incredibly simpleminded. The idea of constructing a factory to manufacture more tech-eater instances never occured to them, making them act more like a disease spreading between ships. What's more, they are vulnerable to large-scale disruption attacks (for example an EMP of sufficient strength will wipe them out). As a result, their numbers are slowly declining ever since the conclusion of the Machine War.
Threat Level: Very Low
Rarity: Very Rare.
Public Awareness: Low

Legion is a yet another Berserk-offshoot that seems to be on the decline, though one that's is much slower than that of the tech-eaters. This is a good thing, as legion is perhaps the most malevolent berserk-derived group after the inheritors. They are the group that decided to embrace diversity in the construction of their mainframes, seeking to enhance themselves by abandoning the original cybernetics in favour of organic mainframes.
In short, they steal brains and use them as biological computers. Not only human ones, of course - in fact majority of their equivalent of computers is ran by using vat grown or 'stolen' brains of larger animals. However the fervent belief that only a brain of a sapient entity can be used to house more complicated and more self-aware computers moves them into the Common Enemy of All Organics category. Which, together with a much shorter expiration date of their hard drives and processor, is a reason for their slow decline.
Their wetware CPUs are still good enough to allow the forces of the Legion a surprising degree of tactical acumen that often takes organic commanders off guard. The technology of that faction isn't particularly advanced, yet their massive arrays of interconnected wetware CPUs housing numerous self-aware AIs offers them very accurate battlefield predictions, second only to those available to the singularitian cults It's actually believed that Legion prophetic AIs are better, it's just that singularitarian cults are much better when it comes to gathering intelligence to serve as prediction basis). Threat Level: Low
Rarity: Rare.
Public Awareness: Low

Devourers are a relatively minor, if persisten threat in the Human Space. They are believed to be runaway nanoware-based supersoldiers of some ancient and long dead precursor species. After losing their masters they devolved a lot in their technological and societal level.
They were created with 'you are what you eat' idea in mind, in a way being governed by a nanoware equivalent of lamarckian genetics. By devouring organic life they can inherit certain traits of them - for example a tail, a sharp talons, or intelectual properties. Every devourer looks significantly different, their form reflecting their eating habits and conscious decisions. The problem is that in order to 'produce' a fully sapient devourer they need to devour a sapient organic - which not only ruins their PR but also changes their society into one where a small coterie of inteligent devourers governs numerous barely sentient drones.
Devourers are in the end a minor species, enough to be a regional troublemakers but not enough to hope for a success in an open war against Mankind. Their raiders sometimes stalk trade routes, searching for lifeforms in order to inherit more beneficial traits (including sapience), and both technologies and resources. They are technologically outdated, but many of their ships are captured ships of other species (meaning that their fleets will always be unpredictable in their composition and armaments) and they can be both devious and ruthless in their choice of tactics. They are also a warrior species by 'biology', making them really dangerous in ground combat.
Threat Level: Low to Medium
Rarity: Very Rare [rises to Uncommon in some areas of Human Space].
Public Awareness: High

Berserk-Inheritors are a painful remainder of the horrors of the Machine Wars. Berserks were created as self-replicating Von Neumann's machines dedicated to exterminate all lifeforms that could be a threat to their creators. Their prehistory is unknown, and their history starts when their central hub was found by someone and reactivate. This resulted in casualties counted in tens of billions and extinction of several lesser alien species.
After their machine legions were broken, only two groups worth being called 'berserks' arose, with the ammount of changes to the way they operate not high enough to consider them another synthetic species. Berserks-Successors created their own equivalent of state and remain in a state of cold war with the Confederation of Mankind. Berserks-Inheritors, in the meantime, decided to continue the original genocidal mission, though with massively limited resources.
They maintain several large bases of operations from which they can lead regular warfare against outlying human countries, each of which also doubles as base for numerous raiding squadrons seeking to capture intel, research data, resources and ships in hopes of continuing their war. They are decently armed, though they lost most of their post-Wall of Faith technology that they used to decimate their opponents during the Machine War.
Threat Level: Medium
Rarity: Very Rare [up to Common in some areas]
Public Awareness: Total

Changelings are a curiosity. They are one of many post-Berserk groups (like tech-eaters and legion), however the form they took is highly divergent from the baseline one and very unusual. The opted for a limited humanoid form, making them similar to some Berserks-Successors or Mimics, however unlike them they didn't change their mentality into a more human-like. In fact, no communication attempts with them has ever succeeded. Even other berserk offshoots are baffled.
In fact, changeling behavioural patterns (or, to be exact, lack of those) startle scientists and tacticians to this day. Their attacks seem random. Sometimes they assault a passenger ship only to board it and execute a single passenger (in one case, one of the ship's janitors) before retreating. Sometimes they destroy ships for no apparent reason. Sometimes they steal technology and resources. Sometimes they kidnap people (once again, with no apparent logic in that). Even the singularitarian and legionnaire prophetic AIs fail to discern any patterns or reason in that.
Their technology is slightly above Mankind's, but they seem to possess a strangely large amount of archeotechs. Their bodies are heavily adaptable, making them capable of impersonating humans with great degree of accuracy but also changing them into an absolute terror in ground combat. Each changeling is de facto a combat robot with extensive nanomachine component that allows them to reconfigure their bodies to better suite the battlefield. A changeling squad engaged with heavy infantry will attempt to lose contact with an enemy, and then with few minutes to spare they will improve themselves with reinforced armor and will modify their weapons into antitank rifles.
Threat Level: Medium
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: Low

Voca Nazdraq are one of the three main splinter groups of the Voca - and unlike the Voca Varager and Voca Hakath, Voca Nazdraq has decided against playing along the rules of the Confederation of Mankind. In short, they are renegades - but the alien regenades. What's more, they are terrifyingly competent alien renegades. War is their life, and to shy away from it is unthinkable.
The result is inhumanly disciplined force of alien mercenaries who abandoned all pretenses of ethics and honour. After all their culture did nothing for them when their mysterious archenemy banished them from their homeworlds. Voca Nazdraq has thus decided to threw their lot with the forces of Discord and singularitarian cults alike. For them they commit numerous war crimes (and simple if extremely well executed raiding actions), slowly amassing their own forces in a preparation for the eventual departure back to their lost homeworlds that they plan to reconquer. No matter the costs.
Voca Nazdraq are remorseless, efficient, unrepentantly hypercompetent and exactly as aggresive as needed in the current combat situation. As they are highly sought after they also have access to very good technology. They tend to get job done, though they lack intentional sadism of some of their employers - their favourite methods of dealing with captives tend to be lethal but swift. Their only serious problem is their affinity to simple and/or well tested tactics - they aren't well-versed in the mystical powers of improvisation and creativity.
Threat Level: Medium to High
Rarity: Rare
Public Awareness: Medium

Errants are de facto insectoid' equivalent of corsairs, though with a distinct twist that makes them as loony as their whole civilization from human point of view. For their species, doing your part for the society is the most important value. Unfortunately, this also means that the duty of their armed forces is to fight. If their armies have no occassion to fight a defensive war, they will immediately go for an offensive one. They will play accordingly to what passes as 'laws of war' of their opponents, which is what makes them alien version of corsairs.
Their ships often enter Human Space seeking both. Their erratic behaviour makes understanding them slightly complicated. They will seek to challenge military ships regarding of their allegiance to combat (they tend to seek ships of the countries and organizations that in the past proved themselves to be worthy opponents). They will leave civilian ships unmolested - in fact there are many cases of errants engaging and destroying convoy escort only to escort the ships to their destination. There are also cases for them leaving warships who are doing something important (for example a destroyer returning with vital reconaissance info) alone, for as long as they promise to show up for a duel later on.
They are veterans. Well-armed veterans in warships made by culture that considers neverending wars to be a national pastime. They are no pushovers, and engaging them in duels is not advisable save for ships from more elite human navies. On the other their honourable (in alien ways) behaviour means that civilians will not be caught in crossfire. They also accept surrender for as long as sufficient tribute is prepared (typically little more than a trophy).
Threat Level: Medium to High
Rarity: Very Rare [grows to Common in some areas]
Public Awareness: Total

Greys failed to learn the lesson of the Seven Years War and the Machine Wars. They are still perfectly willing to risk infuriating the Confederation with their endless raids (at least ever since their deal with the Discord collapsed). Their fervent search for a way of curing the geneplague wasting their entire civilization is fuelled by experimentation on humans, their closest genetic cousins. The result is one more threat occasionally prowling the Human Space.
Greys are a complicated mix of extremely advanced technology, cowardice and mass deployment of AI-controlled weapons and ships that are considered fully expendable. Entire fleets of the greys are often crewed with a single grey and legions upon legions of autonomous and adaptive AIs that lack self-awareness despite being almost as capable of creativity as Mankind's high level AIs. This mix was repeatedly used against the greys, as while their technology is potent, all you really need to do is to locate the commander and decapitate the entire fleet. What's more the focus on machinery leaves them vulnerable to hacking attempts, which almost allowed the berserks to overwhelm and exterminate them during the Machine Wars. With most of their raiding ships being fully-automated, they are even more vulnerable than fleets and planets.
The casualties sustained by them during the Machine Wars forced their entire empire into a decline. They are slowly losing ground to expanding Mankind, making them seek the cure with even greater and more remorseless ferocity - after all, it's the only way of rejuvenating their dying remnants of civilization.
Threat Level: Medium to High
Rarity: Very Rare [grows to Common in some areas]
Public Awareness: Total

Unseelie are the evil brother of the baseline Seelie Sidhe - a significant achievements when the 'good' brother is so distrusted. It's not even Sidhe's fault - after all, the alien Virtuals can't escape being compared to human Virtuals. However Seelie has earner some reluctant tolerance, even if their proselytism often falls flat on Mankind's ears. Unseelie, in the meantime, are doing everything they can to have everyone hate them.
This small offshoot of the Sidhe decided that they have enough being an outcast association of virtualized survivors of numerous long-dead alien species. They had access to powerful xenotechs and were living in an area that felt underdeveloped. So why not forcefully virtualize some kidnapped locals and install themselves as an immortal overlords of their cyberspace, tended to by legions of slaves who can never rebel against you as you are akin to gods in said cyberspace? Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thankfully to the world only a small percentage of the Unseelie survived the ensuing purge conducted by Seelie and Confederation alike.
The Unseelie naturally fled to the Discord where they colonized a world and changed it into a cyberspatial temple dedicated to themselves. They retained a notable part of their technology and numerous automatic fabricators capable of producing post-Wall of Faith weaponry and vehicles. Today this planets is considered to be one of the most powerful industrial centers of the Discord. They also have a small fleet of ships used to occasionally capture some new bits of technology, resources and toys.
Threat Level: High to Very High
Rarity: Very Rare
Public Awareness: Low

Synthetics are another enigma similar to changelings, though one infinitely more complicated and unusual. They too are an offshoot of the berserks, though unlike their cousins they disappeared in the Hyperspace, and returned changed. They crossed the border between machines and living organism. Their metal elements and circuits grow and behave like flesh and nerves. Their metal bodies bleed when wounded, even if their blood is unlike anything ever seen by scientists.
Their mentality and goals are completely alien, though unlike changelings they appear completely capable of speech and they can engage in negotiations when the situation calls for that. They also appear equally capable of communicating and negotiating with every known organic lifeform and sapient AI, including those that Mankind has thus far found itself incapable of establishing meaningful contact with. Like changelings they appear to follow some goal, however they refuse to betray its nature. Even their prime base of operations is unknown, though it is speculated (a rumour most preposterous) to be a hyperspace planet.
Synthetics strike forces appear wherever and whenever they want. Sometimes they ambush ships in the Hyperspace. Sometimes they appear out of nowhere and intervene in an ongoing planetary invasion, their arrival often becoming the turning point. Sometimes they assasinate people. Successfully withstanding their attack is extremely hard due to their almost universally post-Wall of Faith equipment and almost impossible level of combat skills employed by their operatives - a single synthetic can typically engage several human Enhanced at once.
Threat Level: Very High to Extreme
Rarity: Very Rare
Public Awareness: Mythical [some 'spoky space legends' about them circle around Mankind, but they are widely believed to be a myth].

Remnants

Remnants of now long-forgotten and dead species, still roaming the Galaxy and remaining a threat to those alive right now. Some of them are in possession of post-Wall of Faith weaponry and equipment, being both extremely dangerous... and a really valuable prey. Just like aliens, they do not cooperate and use vastly different tactics. Not to mention having vastly different goals (if they even have some).
The level of public awareness about their existence is greatly varied between them. Explaining existence of some remnants to the world would be too troublesome, and others are in possession of technologies that are seen as both dangerous and greatly tempting. As in majority of such cases, it's the Explorers' Guild (and the leadership of the Confederation of Mankind) that's responsible for the large scale censorship efforts.
Derelicts - Derelicts are abandoned ships belonging to numerous civilizations from ancient past. All of them were at some point devoured by the Hyperspace and now drift through its infinite depths, its entropy-defying nature preserving them despite millions of years passing in Realspace. Officially only the Explorers' Guild forces can attempt to enter such ships, however it's quite often for other ships to risk such excursions. After all, sometimes you can get extremely wealthy with absolutely no risk to your life. Of course, sometimes you get nothing but painful death, your ship joining the long list of much fresher derelicts.
Threat posed by a Derelict depends on many things. On whether its weaponry is activated and in automatic defense mode. On internal defense systems (like turrets, automatic robots and so on). On the general state of the hull (the ship cracking into half suddenly might expose boarding troops to Hyperspace, driving them insane). And, last but not least, on whether something made a nest aboard the ship. Derelicts are often a trap laid by some of the other threats, for example Legion or Abyssal Cults.
In the end, they might be a most worthwhile endeavour, however with how unpredictable they are, it's rather common for them to simply be avoided. After all civilian ship's insurance rarely covers illegal derelict boarding attempt.
Threat Level: Very Low to Extreme
Rarity: Common
Public Awareness: Total.

Seskans were a fairly militant species with a penchant for 'societies' constructed around a singular 'warlord' and armies upon armies of its robotic servants. With their technology fairly advanced and mostly automated it is of no surprise that some of their forces remain active. This includes both secretive and heavily defended planetary bases and occasional fleets still following the old patrol and/or search & destroy orders. With some hidden shipyards and refuelling stations they can maintain their routine for millenia.
Despite being slightly more technologically advanced than modern Mankind, majority of such installations and forces were purged when human settled the sectors that formerly housed core seskan worlds. Those that remain are typically former belongings of various exiles, who settled far away from the seskan homeworlds. The encounters with them are however steadily decreasing in regularity, suggesting that this threat steadily approaches extinction.
Seskan ships are technologically advanced, yet rather lacking in missile weaponry rendering them vulnerable to prolonged missile fire. What's more they are vulnerable to common anti-AI tactics, as their ability to promptly adapt to unexpected changes is at the very best lacking.
Threat Level: Medium
Rarity: Very Rare (Rare regionally)
Public Awareness: Total.

Silinruls are officially marked as an extinct species, which is both true and false. Their empire was wiped from the map during the Darkening, however when that happen they were technically no longer alive. Their entire species achieved the apotheosis of circuits and metal, transfering themselves into robotic bodies that could emulate themselves perfectly. Or so it was thought. Mental degradation of Silinruls was an important factor in making the Darkening such a horrible disaster. Some managed to survive despite that.
Contrary to popular opinion a few isolated pockets of the Silinruls survived the Darkening... but not the mental degradation that slowly changed into entities that were no longer sapient. They can build and operate ships, but there is no conscious thought in that - merely instincts activated at random by remaining assistant programs, offering 'suggestions' to now mindless Silinruls that they obey without question. Of course, they are hedonists as much as they used to be in life, as the assistants are following their 'old' programming. The need for slaves to do all the menial work and follow now pointless rituals remains.
It is unknown who was the first to name the resulting Silinrul raiding parties 'Harvests', but the name sticked. Their ships are extremely advanced (almost entirely built from archeotech-grade equipment), and their behaviour is almost entirely unpredictable. The knowledge about their existence is suppressed, however. Explorer's Guild and choice elements of Confederation' higher echelons do not want too many people to know about such a perfect source of answers about the mysterious technology used to transfer consciousness into machines. Not to mentions such ridiculously advanced robots. Especially as the process failed miserably in the end.
Threat Level: Very High
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Very Low, Suppressed.

Aurums are another potential threat, however whether it's actually them is up to debate. Sightings of aurum ships in the Hyperspace and on the edges of civilization continue, their intensity similar to the first days of the Solar Commonwealth and the modern day. They do not communicate with Mankind, though there are recurrent gossips that occasionally they do but only with some select and secretive group of people (typically the Explorers' Guild, Confederation of Mankind leadership, or the Catholic Church).
What's more, every engaged and destroyed aurum ship disappears, probably using the aurum signature' spatial manipulation technology to teleport or dimensionshift away. It's not easy to achieve that, due to exotech firepower of these ships. Due to general lack of anything to gain from it, attempts to engage aurum ships are extremely rare and typically done by the most militantly-aligned groups (such as errants) who are simply seeking challenge.
There are also cases of ships disappearing in area frequented by Aurum ships. It is unknown if Aurum ships sometimes attack human ships, or if they are there to 'investigate' the reason of the disappearances, or if that's simply a coincidence. In fact, very little is known about those remnants.
Threat Level: Very High
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Very Low, Suppressed.

Procession of the Lost - Procession of the Lost is a massive fleet of half-active derelicts that tours the Galaxy in random. Nobody knows why it does that. Nobody knows how it still continues its silent procession. Nobody even knows how it manages to cross such a massive distances to move undetected from one edge of Human Space to another. As a result, it remains a mystery that enlightens imagination of many generations of Mankind.
It's arrival is always unexpected, which makes interception extremely complicated. And engaging it openly requires massive fleet behind you, for the Procession is composed of thousands of ships of various size, including at least one gigantic ship bigger than current leviathans - it's almost one hundred kilometers long. The Procession rarely stays in the same area for the time needed to mobilize forces capable of even putting a dent in its silent ranks.
Sometimes ships ran into the Procession accidentally. Its ship possess active weaponry, so any attempt to get closer will result in being shot. It is fairly rare, however, as a fleet of this size is easily noticeable and few are crazy enough to attack the biggest known fleet armed to the teeth with archeotechs. But still, deaths occur. At least from time to time. Normally, however, these danger is easily avoided.
Threat Level: Very High
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Total.

Banshees are a threat as mysterious as dangerous. They appear out of nowhere, the first warning their enemies receive being a telepathic scream audible from millions of kilometres. Their attacks are short and bloody, almost all of them successful and resulting in total annihilation of the banshee' victims. They take no prisoners and seem disinterested in scavenging remains of those they attack. Banshees are out for blood.
Their technology is almost impossibly advanced, with even the smallest ship capable of withstanding direct hits from heaviest conventional artillery. Only powerful exotechs offer any chances for a successful defense against them. Occasionally the banshee ships are destroyed, however examination of their wreckage remains consistently inconclusive. Their ships appear at least partially organic, making their impossible resistance to attacks an even greater mystery.
Banshee's attacks seem entirely random. After destroying their victims they disappear in Hyperspace. No communication was ever established. No answers were found. On the few occasions where the attacked ship managed to repel the attack and destroy the Banshee ship, its wreckage quickly dissolved leaving only few containers containing high grade exotechs. A prize for the winner? A trojan horse with a cognitohazardous properties slowly driving their users insane? Nobody knows for sure.
Threat Level: Extreme
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Very Low, Suppressed.

Sentinels are another mystery, perhaps even greater than the Banshees. Sentinels guard a network of Vaults safely hidden in the Hyperspace. Inside of those Vaults, an impossibly valuable treasures lie - including powerful exotechs, navigational data and knowledge about secrets of the universe. However Sentinel ships and their mechanical soldiers are extremely dangerous, and will react with extreme ferocity to any invaders.
Even if sufficiently determined attacker will somehow break in and steal something from the Vaults, Sentinels WILL arrive to reclaim the item or data. There were cases of entire star systems blockaded by fleets of almost indestructible ships, while their robotic warriors searching through the settlements (right after overwhelming the defenders, in non-lethal way if possible). Stolen items will be reclaimed. Stolen knowledge will be eradicated (by eradication of memories and computer data alike). Invaders will be found and dealt with.
If legends are to believed, sometimes Sentinels allow someone in, and gift them some of their treasures. Sometimes they even come out, delivering the goods to their target on their own. However what their agenda is (or if there even is one) remains unknown.
Threat Level: Extreme
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Very Low, Suppressed

Different Threats

Extradimensional Entities

Something things creep in. Things that seem to be so alien that branding them as 'aliens' would just sound like an understatement. Things that seem to deny our understanding of science with their very existence. Things that can only be banished or contained, and not really destroyed. The current understanding of them is that they hail from some deeper parts of Hyperspace, from places like Abyss or Void, or maybe from a very old pocket dimensions (some even speculated that those could be older than the universe itself).
This is something typically left for the Explorers' Guild Department of Containment to deal with. It should be no surprise that so many members of it seem eccentric, if not a bit insane. They are facing existential threats that cannon be defeated (merely delayed or contained) on an almost daily basis.
There are many cases of extradimensional threats, however many of them are so extremely rare that they happen once and that's all. Only some are repetitive (and some of them will be written down here). What's common with them all is that nobody officially admits that they exist - that's because all manners of independent tinkering with extradimensionals is explicitly forbidden by a secret addendum to the Icarus Accords. Making more people know about their very existent would only make more people try to breach this taboo.
Nephilims originally existed as a form of spooky story told by veteran crewmembers to their new recruits. It took several centuries for technology to raise to the point where suffering a Nephilim incursion isn't fatal in 100% of cases, allowing their existence to be confirmed and more or less researched.
Nephilims are an entire assortment of extradimension entities of decidedly malevolent intentions that are periodically breaching reality and invading ships in either the outer edges of the star system or Hyperspace. The form they take during attacks seems to be based on culture and religion based common fears. To a ship crewed in majority by Christians they will come looking like one would expected demons to look (one of such occassions earned them their theologically incorrect nickname). For lamenters with their extreme fear of darkness they will come as a tide of darkness swallowing everything. For a ship from a desert world human culture they might arrive as a small group of entities capable of warping Reality, extending ship rooms and halls into entire deserts where the crewmembers will perish from dehydration and heat before reaching the door.
Why Nephilims do that (or what they are) remains unknown. Currently the closest thing to a theory about their origin is that they are a post-Wall of Faith civilization that managed to ascend to a higher plane of existence - and has pretty unhealthy hobbies...
Threat Level: Extreme
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Suppressed.

Shaper - The Shaper is an unknown extradimensional entity that seems obsessed with change. It's true looks are unknown, and its predations are recognizable due to the effects that the Shaper's presence has on everything, from space itself to animals and sapients alike. It warps the first, and mutates them into grotesque shapes (including their neural systems and brains, which typically drives the victims insane, if not simply kills them). Not all people surrender to the Shaper's influence, and from time to time its incursions end up repelled (often by the desperate mean of self-destruction).
Shaper is worshipped by a number of Abyssal Cults, especially those more interested in body modifications (and mutilations). Thankfully, its' open incursions into Reality are extremely, extremely rare. On the other hand, it's extremely rare for anyone to survive such incursions.
Threat Level: Extreme
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Suppressed.

Signal - Signal is a mystery. It is currently believed to be a form of extradimensional computer virus, capable of infecting computer systems regardless of their security. Once that happens, every infected computer begins warping Reality in its immediate vicinity. Shadowy figures (humanoids or not) are seen stalking the corridors, seemingly capable of erasing people (or merely their 'life', leaving them as lifeless husks) and rapidly aging things. Not to mention all the spacetime shenanigans that are as random as they are crazy and potentially lethal.
SIgnal infestations were mostly countered by mandatory modifications to anti-AIs computer securities, forcing total hardwipe of all computer systems if the Signal' influence is detected. This has a side-effect of forcing the crew to literally write the systems once again from the scratch (which can potentially be lethal to an unprepared crew travelling through space, though rarely). However, it does counter the Signal perfectly. Of course, unless someone is 'intelligent' enough to disable their anti-AI security...
Threat Level: Extreme
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Suppressed.

Emptiness - Emptiness does not exist. Emptiness does not cross into the Hyperspace occasionally, 'infesting' ships that had a distinct lack of luck to be in the immediate vicinity. Emptiness does not unmake sapience of majority sapient entities aboard those ships, instantly devolving them into an animalistic state - and, if further exposure occurs, into a fully catatonic state. Emptiness doesn't seem to be among the most alien of extradimensional threats, to the point where even Abyssal Cults try to avoid contact (or including it in their cosmology).
Emptiness does not exist. It's origins are known. Defending against it isn't almost impossible, though escaping from it's range (or emergency hyperspace exit) might sever its non-existent tendrils, stopping the process.

Threat Level: Extreme
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Suppressed.

Others

Ghost Ships - Ghost Ships are ships partially devoured by the Hyperspace. They are divided into several categories on the basis of how much real they are, from Alpha class that exists merely as a gravity disturbance in Hyperspace or thermal signature in the Realspace to Delta-class that are almost fully physically existing and typically hostile, though they either dissolve in the Hyperspace or a pulled back into it once they receive too much damage to sustain themselves.
This is a common knowledge among the space, to the point that there is an entire 'school' of divination of future on the basis of ghost ship manifestation and their details. What isn't a common knowledge is that there are also Echo-class ghost ships. Only a handful of them, and yet any one of them is extremely dangerous and prone to doing things that really shouldn't be possible.
Threat Level: Low to Extremely High
Rarity: Uncommon to Extremely Rare (depends on class)
Public Awareness: Common.

Anathema - Anathema is a weaponized (and highly peculiar) brand of the grey goo scenario developed by the Truthseekers Corporation, It takes form of nanomachine packets that, once detonated, begins to infect nearby computers, machines and humans. The end result is pretty much a complete, if completely schizophrenic, meld. While a human melded with a combat robot will result in a slightly misshapen cyber-Enhanced, the result of a human being merged with - for example - a toaster, a bulldozer and a crate of sex toys will be much bizarre. Not to mention the same combo but with two humans. Melding will also be fairly taxing for the mind, with most of the infected going insane.
The process isn't fast, and might take weeks to complete. It can be countered by generous application of medical nanomachines updated to destroy the Anathema nanobots, but this will only work on the very early point of infection, as otherwise the melded body will simply broke. When situation gets REALLY bad, there were cases of wide-scale decontamination with nuclear EMP detonations, though this, too, killed majority of the infected.
The problem with the Anathema (aside from being an exact opposite of humanitarian, AND a nanoweapon), is that it is somehow sapient. Its consciousness resemble a lower class AI.... and can operate melded machines to some point. It's intelligence level depends mostly on ammount of nanomachines and melded computers (used as hosts) in the immediate vicinity). Unfortunately, Truthseekers Corporation made a slight mistake during the test firing of Anathema virus, causing a small number of infected individuals to overtake a ship and disappear in Hyperspace. Currently it became a particularly horrific yet not a very dangerous threat, that is a trouble only for people who don't notice the first stage of infection in time, or are particularly outdated in their technological level. That's about the Anathema virus - not about the creatures that it employs...
Threat Level: Medium
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Low.

Terminus Beasts - Ships and probes heading too deep into the interstellar void have a surprising tendency to vanish mysteriously. This disappearance is often accompanied by last, garbled and incoherent message, before nothing but silence. There is a number of theories that try to explain this mystery, the most widespread is the one that suggests that something is living in that darkness. This mysterious entities are called 'Terminus Beasts', though the term 'Beasts' is slightly melodramatic. They can as well be a very widespread post-WoF civilization, that for some reason doesn't anyone going into the dark.
Terminus Beasts are theorized to have their nests (or bases) on exoplanets, lone balls of rock floating in the darkness between solar systems. The absolutely most lonely, cold and dark places in the universe. How they look? Nobody knows. Why do they do what they do? Nobody knows. Are they truly some space beasts or maybe a civilization? Nobody knows. Very little is known
What is known, however, is that they utterly massacre the ships and probes they attack - on a few occasions the attacked ship seemed to notice the incoming threat and reversed its course in a futile attempt to escape, its trajectory leading its remains back to inhabited systems. They were always scraps, sometimes with bodies of the crew ruined by decompression. They seem capable of either suppressing all known ways of long-distance communication, which is responsible for the garbled and unreadable messages (alternatively they somehow mess with the ships' and probes' computers). They are also seem to dislike the light, as they never show up near stars.
Threat Level: Death Imminent
Rarity: Common [but nobody ventures to meet them in their habitat)
Public Awareness: Legendary.

False Stars - Some stars aren't exactly stars. There were cases of Explorer's Guild ships encountering desolate star systems, often with signs of prior, but now dead habitation... only to suddenly see the system's star begin accelerating towards them, its gravity throwing planets, comets and asteroids into utter disarray. It is currently believed that the False Stars are some sort of entity that can devour or replace the star, the gravitational disturbances accompanying its arrival throwing the entire system into chaos that ultimately results in all life in the system extinguished by asterois and comets thoroughly trashing everything.
To this day, nobody decided to brave a False Star. It is speculated that a WMD class of weaponry could slay whatever is impersonating the stars out there, however since the False Stars remain systembound, nobody is willing to try. Especially as there is always an option of such an attempt backfiring terribly or awakening something bad. Systems with False Stars are quarantined and erased from official records, their position marked in official hyperspace maps as extreme hazardous to scare trespassers away.
Threat Level: Death Imminent
Rarity: Extremely Rare
Public Awareness: Mythical.