The universe

The Great War

Humanity awakened the first fragment of the AXIOM artefact and lived a golden age. Then the Axios returned to reclaim what they considered theirs. You are a freshly enlisted pilot on the belt front, where something sings beneath the rock.

Timeline

Where this story sits

The campaign spans from humanity's golden age up to just before the catastrophe that broke the known order.

  1. The Age of Advance

    Humanity awakens the first fragment and lives through an unprecedented technological explosion. Nobody asks whose artefact it was.

  2. You play here

    The Great War

    The Axios arrive looking for the fragments. They do not negotiate. The Coalition organises the defence and the belt front becomes the heart of the conflict.

  3. The Collapse

    The catastrophe that breaks the known order and gives way to the Age of Clans. That is where the story of Origins ends.

The sides

Two civilisations, one artefact

Faction balance is symmetrical on purpose: each side has an exact equivalent of every role and every stat. The difference is aesthetic and narrative, never power.

Unified humanity

The Coalition

“Wars are won with discipline, not with heroes.”

The unified human military fleet. Its fantasy is engineering, order and weight of numbers: metal ships with cockpits and plasma engines, crewed by people who know they are replaceable and take off anyway.

Who commands

  • Cmdr. Mara Vega Operations command for the belt front and the voice of your missions. Hard, direct, fiercely protective of her pilots.
  • Dr. Lena Osorio Chief xenoarchaeologist. She discovers the fragment resonance in the belt; her scientific ambition borders on reckless.
  • Ensign Dax Moreno Veteran squadron pilot and informal mentor. Sarcastic and loyal.
  • Admiral Castel Duarte Supreme fleet commander. Distant and political; speaks only at decisive moments.

Ancient alien species

Axios

“Children who played with fire.”

An ancient civilisation ruled by a conclave-mind, of inhuman geometry and organic-mechanical ships without cockpits. They do not come to conquer: they come to recover. To them, humanity is an accident that touched something it never owned.

Who commands

  • Archon Vess'Khar Commander of the Axios front and the voice of your missions. Solemn, ancient, speaking for the Conclave.
  • The Conclave Not a character: the choral mind of Axios. It is quoted, never heard directly.
  • Herald Ixxil Vanguard scout who hears the song of the fragments better than anyone. Unsettling, almost mystical.
  • Custodian Zha'Rethis Keeper of the Conclave's Memory, ranking above Vess'Khar.
Third force

The Custody Network

The contested sectors belong to no one. They are the territory of autonomous war machines left behind by the precursor civilisation that created the fragments. Custodians strike the Coalition and Axios alike because both come to loot the same thing: the Network reacts to extraction, not to flags. Conquering a sector isn't planting a banner — it's shutting down the local network and pushing out your rival.

The Custodians are an early work of what, much later, will be known simply as AXIOM.

A Custodian base: eight towers ringing an untouchable core.
A Custodian base: eight towers ringing an untouchable core.

Geography

The belt front

Seven sectors in total: each faction's home base, the four contested maps arranged in a diamond between them, and the station beyond. Only contested sectors score in the war.

Zeta System

Coalition flank

Richness
×1.0
Dominant material
Balanced

Alcyone Veil

Northern border

Richness
×1.2
Dominant material
Fragment energy

Crucible

Centre · only route to the station

Richness
×1.8
Dominant material
Quasicrystal

Earendel

Axios flank

Richness
×1.4
Dominant material
Balanced

The real sky of each sector, generated by the game's own skybox engine.

The campaign

The belt arc

The first arc covers levels 1 to 5 and both factions play it with the same structure and a different voice. Act I is already in the game.

  1. Level 1 · Recruit · Initiate

    Enlistment

    Your first deployment. The war has been running for years; you have just arrived. Learn to fly, mine your first asteroid and score your first kill.

  2. Level 2 · Cadet · Neophyte

    Border skirmishes

    The contested sector heats up and each side stakes its claim. Both commands notice the same thing: the enemy isn't only after territory, it's after something in the rock.

  3. Level 3 · Pilot · Acolyte

    The resonance · The song

    There is fragment energy in the belt's asteroids. Collect samples before your rival does. They confirm the unthinkable: this is bigger than the war.

  4. Level 4 · Airman · Scion

    The escalation

    This is no longer a border skirmish. Both sides pour in forces to triangulate the source of the resonance, and a war of attrition becomes a race.

  5. Level 5 · Ensign · Herald

    The deposit

    The source is real: a fragment shard embedded in the heart of the belt. Both fleets converge on it at once. Nobody takes it, and everyone understands the war has only just begun.

Progression

Ranks on each side

Every level carries its own rank, on a themed ladder per faction. Higher levels will be designed as the campaign grows.

Level The Coalition Axios
1 Recruit Initiate
2 Cadet Neophyte
3 Pilot Acolyte
4 Airman Scion
5 Ensign Herald

Higher ranks — Lieutenant, Captain, Commander, Colonel for the Coalition; Reaper, Archon, Custodian for Axios — are reserved for later arcs.

Desktop client · In development

Pick your side.
Enter the war.

Download AXIOM: Origins and deploy to the belt front.

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