Some ascended to become super-advanced 'transcendent worlds' that appear utterly alien, while others regressed to a pre-industrial state. While small interstellar empires may occasionally form in highly-dense stellar regions such as star clusters or nearer to the galactic core, many of the isolated colonies bomb themselves back into the Stone Age, resulting in a wide technological gap. Thus, each colonized planet has largely been left to its own devices worlds develop at their own pace with limited contact between them. One obstacle has proven to be insurmountable-the light barrier. About three and a half thousand years in the future, humanity has spread itself across the galaxy, colonizing thousands of worlds and developing new technologies.
