For a hundred thousand years mankind has held the stars, claimed and shaped their worlds, and imbued them with technomancy. Vast and ancient, the galactic sphere of von-Neumann machinery, arcane origin of the Noosphere Unity, the universal principle of civilization, making manifest the Light, key to an orderly universe. In the unity's light there stands the Mechanist Union, arbiters of technology, artificers of nanomachines, conjurers of electric spirits. Technomantic basti

Peoples of the Mechanist Union, structured in Clades or, in rarer cases, Lodges and Metacultures. The lives of Mechanists revolve around the Noosphere Unity, allotting a distinct role and function to each strata of society, down to the individual. Clades of Mechanists begin as familiar communities within this structure and are shaped accordingly by ways of cybernetics, biomechanics, and other paths of Noopshere Technomancy. Unlike the Terran Empire, the Union radically change

Peoples of the Terran Empire, including imperial house nobility, imperial citizenry and free folk. Because the Empire actively pursues the preservation of biological and augmented distinctiveness in its peoples, Terrans contain a wide variety of humanity’s strands. Biological augmentations and gene-tailoring are the most chosen paths, and to limited extent Psionic Providence. Each Terran strand will typically contain an apt biological or mental distinctiveness, and often enjo

The totality of all Earth’s children and their descendants across the Known Galaxy, including all strands of genetic drift and augmentation. Inhabitants of strange and savage worlds outside the Terran Empire and Mechanist Union are counted as part of Humankind just the same. As both galactic powers claim a mandate over all humanity, dealings with such outsider human populations are prominent causes of tensions between the two. Outside of humankind there exist sapients of ar