Over one million years ago the the galaxy was ruled by a powerful and malevolent race of beings known as the Krull. The Krull held an unassailable throne as the most powerful race in the universe; however, they were also a very paranoid people. They lived in constant fear that one day another more powerful race would evolve and overthrow them. As a result the Krull implemented a policy which systematically wiped out every other sentient species in the known universe. Secondly they would kill off any new species that would coming into existence.
The only race of people to escape this fate were the Neanderthal, the close cousins to the Cro-magnens. The Krull originally ruled over the Neanderthal because they made good workers and where highly adaptable to harsh climates; therefore, they made good colonists. For these same reasons the Krull found them to be one of the most dangerous races within their empire. The Krull almost succeeded in destroying the Neanderthal but as a last hope the Neanderthal of Centris stole a single nova bomb from the Krull and used it to destroy the only slipstream route into the Centerian star system. The survivors of Centris latter went on to father modern day Centarians.
Although the Krull were insecure about the survival of the Neanderthal, their plans to find another way into Centris were soon halted as a new and more threatening race developed. The Vill were able to reproduce at an incredible pace, and as soon as they developed their first slip-stream drive they quickly spread to colonize all reaches of the Krull empire. No matter how hard they tried, the Krull were unable to eradicate the Vill. Being unable to complete this task on their own the Krull turned to their biological engineers to design a race of super-powerful warriors, thus the scientists of Preditar I set about completing this task with dreadful success. Thus, the Preditars were born.
They stood twelve feet tall with claws capable of rending titanium bulkheads with ease. Their hides were tougher than steel, and they could even survive in the depths of space. They were the perfect monsters. Thousands of Preditar queens were engineered and allocated throughout the empire. Each one was it's own biological arms factory able to make hundreds of offspring per week. They reproduced faster and fought more fiercely than the Krull could have ever imagined. The Vill began to die out quickly; however, as Vill numbers dropped the Preditar found that the Krull made much worthier of prey.
Although the Preditar were not designed with the intelligence to operate most of the Krull technology that they managed to usurp, their shear physical prowess were enough to slowly wither the once mighty Krull race into extinction. Soon thereafter Preditar numbers also diminished. Unable to replace their aging queens, entire Preditar hives slowly died out. Whether by instinct or by some modicum of sentience the Preditar have used Krull cloning technology to keep their species from the verge of extinction. So, unlike the Krull, the Preditar have marginally survived the conflict; however, they are now isolated only to systems with these ancient Krull biolabs. Also lacking any real ships the Preditar are unable to navigate slipsteam on their own, leaving them unable to claim dominance over the universe ever again.
Thus, the galaxy was a blank slate once more. Free for any new race to take center stage.
The Vill were all but destroyed by the Preditar and their entire civilization was crushed. But not even the Preditar could drive this resilient race out of existence. It took hundreds of thousands of years but the Vill were the first species to assert itself as the galaxy's new dominant race. Just as before the Vill went forth an multiplied. They established a powerful republic and enjoyed nearly one hundred thousand years of peace, alone in a virtually boundless universe.
But then another race rose from the ashes of this shattered universe, the Morvuls. They were a race of savages, they had barely begun to master the arts of language and agriculture when the Vill first encountered them. None-the-less Vill scholars and scientists from every corner of the universe flocked to the Morvul home world in hopes of learning how civilizations form. However, they also brought with them their technology which they shared freely when their camps settled amoung the Morvul.
The Morvuls first seemed grateful for this new found technology; however, the Morvuls were soon corrupted by it's power. First, they used energy weapons to genocide many clans of predators on their home world. Latter, they used reactor technology to research powerful new warheads. Finally corruption met it's pinnacle as a great civil war broke out among several of the predominate Morvul dynasties in which millions of Morvuls died at the hands of Vill weaponry. It didn't take the Vill long to realize that the Morvuls were not yet ready for advanced technology; therefore, the Vill put down the warring factions and banished the Morvuls to a dessert planet in the far reaches of space which is now known as New Morvul. To this day the Morvuls hold the Vill in udder contempt and live only for the day that they can enact their revenge on their Vill overlords.
Again the Vill were alone, but many centuries latter another sentient race was discovered, the Terrans. They too were primitive beings, but the Vill learned from their mistakes with Morvuls and decided to wait until the Terrans could master space travel on their own before making contact with them. In the mean time Vill scientists were forced to observe these new people from a distance.
As time went on the Vill became disgusted with these new people for there war-like ways. Not even the Morvuls could compete with the shear blood lust that the Terran aristocrats and monarchs possessed. Although Terran ambition was considered an unacceptable risk by many Vills, the Vill Republic ruled by a single vote that the Terrans would be allowed to continue their evolution. Where as the Krull's greatest fear was the evolution of other races, Vill's greatest fear was becoming the new Krull race.
The Terrans, also known as Humans, evolved very quickly. In less than ten thousand years Humans evolved from the primitive nomads that the Vill first discovered to a race capable of inter-planetary space travel. They are constantly driven by fierce competitiveness, which has forced each human nation to allocate massive resources to research in hopes of out-doing all others.
The primary focus of Human technology has always been the military arts. Not even the highly sophisticated Vill energy weapons could compare with the effectiveness of humanity's weapons of mass destruction.
In the year 2118 of the common era, Terran scientist Aneda Beer first discovered that many star systems, including Sol, were skewed by a number of connecting sub-space anomalies called slip-stream conduits. Five years latter another scientist named Derk Harding erected the first operational slip-stream drive called the SRF_01. The slip-stream drive provided nearly instantaneous movement between star systems. Thus, Terrans were free to traverse the universe.
Terran hopes of colonizing outside of the Sol system were soon forgotten as every world they encountered was already heavily colonized by the Vill. The United Nations was divided as to weather man kind should begin an aggressive expansion campaign against these bug-like creatures. Therefore, like always when Humans have a disagreement, they went to war. The Terran Federation favored aggressive expansion, it was comprised of the United States, China, Great Britain, Japan, and Germany. The Alliance of Isolationism, who opposed expansion, was comprised of all those wossy little counties like Canada and Brazil. The Terran Federation won World War VII in under a year, thus uniting humanity under a single empirialistic democracy.
The Vill had long since lost interest in Human wars, mostly because there are so many of them; therefore, the Vill were completely unaware of the consequences that World War VII would have on them or the ten year rearmament program that followed. Humans began to stockpile massive amounts of warships, fighters, battle mecha, and atomic weaponry. The Terran Federation caught the Vill entirely off guard. Being that the Vill hadn't fought a single defensive war in nearly a million years, the Terran Federation quickly and easily ravaged the Vill, colony after colony. Terran torpedoes, point defense weapons, and energy shielding proved to much for the advanced Vill beam weapons and cytoplastic hull-plating. After three years of war, a peace treaty was signed between the Terran Federation and the Vill Republic; the Human and Vill war was over.
The Treaty of Grav was signed by all members of both parties ruling bodies. It dictated that all Vill systems within two jump-points of Earth would become part of Terran space. Secondly, it stated that that neither party would be allowed to enter the other's territory with armed ships. Finally, both parties were obligated to aid each other in the case of war with another race. (see more under Treaty of Grav)
As in every new instance that vast new territories have become available to Terran colonization, the new frontiers opened up by the Treaty of Grav were approached by four distinct waves of people who progressively transformed the empty waist lands into independent new territories.
The first wave were the explorers: scientist and map makers interested in surveying new territories and documenting it's anomalies; thus, making it safe for others to follow in their foot steps. Secondly came the colonists, hoards of exiles and refuges fleeing their homelands in hope of a better life. Third came the pirates, large well organized bands of brigands. They preyed on the profits of the newly established colonies, often with great success. Finally came the military, powerful homeland armies and armadas bent on the destruction of the pirate factions to consolidate colonial power for their motherlands.
At this time, the newly added territory is too great for modern military actions to drive pirate activity completely out of existence. To this day pirate activity continues to be a problem; however, with current military expansion history is likely enough to repeat itself.
In 2152 a new slip-steam conduit was detected in the Sol system. It was too small for any Terran slip-stream craft to navigate safely; therefore, a small probe was sent through. Politicians hoped that it would emerge somewhere deep inside Vill territory thus adding many new systems to the Terran Federation, in accordance to the Treaty of Grav. Instead it sent back pictures of a new and highly advanced race known to neither the Vill nor to the Terrans. Contact was quickly lost with the probe as it was captured by one of these alien's ships. The only clear feedback gotten from probe was it's coordinates, Alpha Centari. Therefore this new race of people became known as the Centarians.
Three months latter this small conduit was widely opened into a full-sized rift in the fabric of sub-space. An entire armada of brightly colored vessels emerged from the conduit and set course strait for Earth. All Terran forces were quickly recalled from active duty and sent to intercept the approaching fleet. Over five hundred warship were in position by the time the alien fleet reached Earth. Finally the approaching ships halted and transmitted this message to the Terran fleet. "We are unarmed, we come in peace." This message sparked the beginning of a close partnership between the two races.
The Centarians explained their close lineage with the Human race. Humans were actually the descendants of the Cro-magnens, a subspecies of Neanderthal that were considered too unadvanced for the Krull to have genocided. They also explained how their people were disconnected from the rest of the universe during the war with the Krull. It has only been in the past hundred years prior to this reunion between the Neanderthal's decedents and the Sol system that they had managed to reconnect Centris to the rest of the galaxy. Humans are the first race that they have made contact with since their fall over one million years ago.
With the discovery of the Centarians, and a final hope of lasting peace within the cosmos, a new spirit of exploration and commerce was founded. Old military cutters and gun boats were re-outfitted as scout vessels in hopes of finding new races to trade with. This task proved more dangerous than originally thought. The Eye of Oden was at first a fertile star system; however, in 2160 when the first research vessel, Valhalla, was sent there it was unexplainably lost.
Follow up military forces found the system to be infested with billions of Preditar, both in space and on the planets. Many ships were lost and forced to self destruct. A massive nuclear strike was sent against the Preditar hoards that were still on the planet surfaces. Although the battle was lost, the Preditar in that system quickly died off after the strike. The now radiation covered waist land of a system was renamed Desolation and is now home to a number of pirate bases that use the radiation for cover.
Latter in 2164 another research vessel, the Phalanx, was mysteriously lost in the Omega system. Fearing another Preditar colony, the Terran Federation united with the Vill and the Centarians forming a massive battle fleet laden with nuclear armaments and point defense weaponry; however, when the fleet arrived at Omega, they didn't find so much as a bacterial cell, nor the remains of the Phalanx. Confused, and some what relieved, the warships returned to their respective home planets having not fired a shot.
Two weeks latter this mystery came to an abrupt resolution as a small black warship appeared out of thin air only fifty meters from Federation HQ Station. Another new race was discovered; however, it's origins are far more mysterious than that of the others; however, their cloaking technology mimicked that of the Krull. The Vill in particular feared these Kolak, as they called themselves, believing that they might well be the Krull's descendants; however, they've never been seen without their battle suits for Vill historians to verify this link.
Upon contact the Kolak forced the Terran Federation to sign a treaty preventing any Human or Kolak ships from entering the Omega System. Furthermore, the Terrans had to agree to keep all other races from using Omega System to infiltrate Kolak space. In exchange the Kolak vowed to remain neutral in any Human affairs. Although a trade agreement or a military alliance would be more preferable for the Federation, they had no intent on starting a war with any beings with such advanced technology. The Treaty of Omega was signed and the Kolak ship disappeared just as it had come. This was the first and only encounter that Humans have ever had with the Kolak, and lived to tell about it.
The Morvul, although banished and strongly monitored by the Vill, eventually learned of the Vill's defeat in 2137 by the Terrans. For the first time in sixteen Millennia, the Morvuls had hope. Lord Dong of the Swinglow dynasty was the closest thing that the Morvul had to a leader at this time. Upon hearing this news, he organized all of the other predominate aristocratic leaders. They put together a way to secretly research Human battle strategies and weaponry. Progress was slow because of the Vill's endless watchfulness over them. It took nearly a century, but by 2219 the Morvul had cached an incredible array of warship, missiles, and even their own battle mecha.
By this time Lord Dong had already died and his grandson, Shwang Swinglow, had named himself the supreme commander of armed forces. One by one Shwang over took Vill planets. In accordance to the treaty of Grav, the Terran Federation was forced to step in. Although this faltered the Morvul advance, the Vill made the fatal mistake of launching a surprise attack on the Morvuls through Federation space. This was a direct violation of the second prevision of the treaty of Grav.
With tension already mounting between Terrans and the Vill with the signing of the Omega treaty, the Federation lifted their war on the Morvuls with the expectation that they would aid them in their new war on the Vill. They assumed wrong. The wraith of the Morvuls has already been placed on the Federation and could not be signed away with any treaty. Thus as of now the Universe is locked in a three way conflict know as the Grav Wars.