The Ur (as the Precursors are called) are an ancient civilization shrouded in mystery. Though little is known about them, their presence is felt throughout the
Hegemony and modern society is built on the discoveries from this lost culture. Archaeologists are unsure what they looked like because some Ur sites are built for beings the size of giants, while others are built for those only a few feet in size. Their language has millions of unique sigils, the meanings of which are hotly debated. There are conflicting theories as to why the Ur disappeared, but the bones of their civilization fuel studies and advancements throughout the Hegemony.
LEGACY
There are many pieces of Ur relics that are used on a daily basis. The jumpgate system and the jump drives that activate it are Precursor tech. Ruins of Ur cities litter moons and planets. Studies of their remnants have inspired many exploration missions. Over time many sites have been dismantled and stored away by the Hegemony, but any new unlooted finds (a piece of a ship stuck in an asteroid or hidden in a nebula, or a temple deep inside a planet) create a flurry of interest.
Children learn about the Ur, religions focus on them, and their technology affects travel. Many xenos claim that their system or planet was one of the first or last touched by the Ur. Mystic Cults have sprung up over a single Precursor location or artifact, and many branches of science deal with insights learned from a specific remnant.
ARTIFACTS
Remnants of still-functional Ur tech are called artifacts. The Ur, with their superior understanding of the universe, built wonders and marvels, but these were created so long ago that most have strange and unpredictable side effects in the present day.
Some pieces of Ur tech are very common. The AI cores in Urbots can be found in many broken shells and frames in the Precursor ruins. The Starsmiths produce jump drives, but they are humanmade devices that, at their core, use an artifact to open gates and allow ships to travel down hyperspace lanes. Common Ur tech is usually regulated by the Hegemonic Cults and Guilds, each holding the rights to the technology, and deciding what should be allowed into the common populace and what is too dangerous.
Most Ur tech is poorly understood, and usually has strange interactions with physics. Such objects are often extremely difficult to damage or destroy. Most artifacts tend to have few moving parts, and function for reasons nobody can explain. Artifacts can do almost anything, from producing a contained blade of solid plasma, to becoming a fixed point in space that cannot be moved for a set period of time, to frivolous things such as simply boiling all eggs nearby, or changing objects from one color to another.
Most artifacts also have strange side effects that range from the benign (freezing a person for a few minutes in time, making someone’s hair grow rapidly, changing eye-color temporarily) to the severe (slowly phasing a person until they vanish, making someone incredibly unlucky, causing someone to de-evolve, creating gravitic disturbances). Scientists theorize that these side effects are breakdowns of the artifacts over the ages—that at one time the artifacts worked flawlessly, but eons have worn them down. Such side effects are called jinxes or glitches. Although it’s not a hard rule, the more of an effect an artifact has on the world, the more likely it has a significant glitch.
The Hegemony requires folks to turn in any artifact they find. The
Cults claim that the artifacts corrupt those that hold them, and the
Guilds teach that they are physically dangerous. The Cults and the Guilds are supposed to examine each artifact, store the most pernicious, and return the benign to the finder with a seal proving right of ownership. More often than not, they keep powerful artifacts for themselves, and return few, creating a thriving black market for artifacts in most systems. Most gang bosses and unsavory characters will have one or two artifacts that give them an edge, and many Nobles and rich folk will have an artifact on display (often with a prominent Guild or Cult seal).
