DOMINION LORE AND TRIVIA

Dominion still contains many wonders to be uncovered, and many wonders that should have remained unknown

WHEN?*

Being the background world of Beyond the Final Frontier (my upcoming sci-fi series), the story happens sometime in the mid 182th century, or roughly after 18 200 CE. Long after humans expanded beyond the solar system, now living fractured amongst aliens native to this region.

WHERE?

It is a (fictional) region of space located behind the Coalsack Nebula as seen from Earth's perspective, between 700 and 900 light-years from Earth. The inhabited system closest to Earth is the Paza system, at 710 ly.

HOW OLD AND LARGE IS THE DOMINION?
Being officially about 3600 thousand years old and 240 light-years across, counting the most distant stations as part of it. The furthest civilized region within the Dominion is the human space around the planet Dhéģhōm. The year of the Prime Foundation is 14 655 CE in our calendar.

It contains a grand total of 7 thousand stellar-mass objects distributed across an estimated 3440 systems, from which 385 sun-like stars plus 46 multi-sun systems are known to contain at least one Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone. Five of those have been observed to sport complex life, it is not yet known why and how this many life-bearing planets exist so close to each other - as it implies through the Copernican Principle that the galaxy must be teeming with technological civilizations. But given its age and powers at play, the Dominion is an isolated case.

This angle clearly frames all three zones of the Dominion's civilized systems, here UP is north from the capital Argost.

There are 19 'civilized' worlds/systems, 60 identified habitable planets, and over 200 potentially habitable worlds, of which less than 10 have been deeply explored or even decently scouted. One of the reasons many interstellar civilizations popped in this small volume of space is the strong presence of certain ancient artifacts, which influenced technological uplifting events.

"ARTIFACTS"?
The artifacts are found in several moons, asteroid belts, and planets, and can be classified in two groups: those of ancient humans dating between 15 and 5 thousand years ago in some regions, and those attributed to an even elder extinct civilization that lived in the Dominion between 200 and 100 thousand years ago. Both civilizations went through the rise and fall of different societies, until ultimately disappearing.

SO ARE THERE HUMANS IN THE DOMINION?
Yes, the human world of Dhéģhōm is the oldest continuously inhabited by any civilization within the Dominion, although, their civilization seems to have forgotten or lost their pre-history entirely. Humans have also been found on several other planets and moons of the Dominion in several stages of pre-industrial and industrial societies less advanced than those of Dhéģhōm. Being so ubiquitous to every corner of this territory, they were the first aliens ever encountered by every other race.

HOW AND WHO OWNS THE DOMINION?

The Dominion is commanded from a moon system. The Arrene are small but far more technologically advanced and brutal than other native civilizations to the Dominion, which excludes humans and "The Unrelenting Force". Relying on strong AI and clone presence to enforce their law and domain.

Their x-ray pulse probes cleaned the interstellar medium, allowing ships to travel safer and faster through designated 'starlanes', which are populated by outposts for merchant and mining stations. The starlanes also allow for the establishment of a safe 'civilized space' within the Dominion where pirate societies are less likely to attack.

soft x-rays and extreme UV are used as driver radiation because they carry 100x more energy than your typical visible-light photon, targeting both dust particles and gas

The Arrene also offers a steady supply of resources and tech updates, since ensuring technological homogeneity allows the Dominion societies to be always on pair with each other, and always below them, reducing conflict incidence. At least, in theory...

A SHORT TIMELINE OF THE DOMINION

11 100 ~ 11 600 CE - The Arrene Begin Their Expansion

The Arrene achieved mastery of subluminal interstellar travel, starting a period of expansion across the known space, departing from Argost (arrene word for "Origin Point", taken as a misnomer of their homeworld), and arriving at planet Endreka.

11 800 CE - First Contact with Humanity

Arrenes meet with humans for the first time, living in hunter-gatherer societies across Endreka.

13 000 ~ 13 400 CE - The Nagiv Uplift

Discovery of the Nagiv race through weak techno-signatures, the Arrene jump in-system for a first contact and uplift them, ensuring the Nagiv develop as allies.

12 000 ~ 12 800 CE - The Qire Encounter Humanity

Meanwhile, the Qire sends a probe to a gas giant moon of their homesystem, also finding humans in a pre-stellar society.

13 800 ~ 14 800 CE - The Qiro-Arrene Wars & The Birth of the Dominion

Both Qire and Arrene meet at the Forzai system, and a diplomatic disaster starts the Qiro-Arrene wars. During this period, the Dominion is officially founded as a solution for splitting space fairly between the Arrene and Qire, also being a convenient military alliance against the Haydee incursions in search of ancient artifacts and caches. Those events are witnessed by the Hoku in their barely-interplanetary society from afar, too scared to join or even make contact, the Hoku then seek other stars to distance themselves from the Dominion.

15 914 ~ 16 157 CE - The Hoku Reveal Themselves (Accidentally)

Comet miners of the Hoku Expanse find a derelict Qire warship at the Muhori system, by reverse engineering it, the Hoku manages to better their interstellar travel while also alerting the Dominion of their existence by accident. Shortly after, being contacted and annexed by the Arrene, and by proxy, the Dominion.

18 154 ~ 18 200 CE - The Fall of Hokushoku & Dominion Unrest

An unknown conglomerate as powerful as the Haydee invades the Hoku space with unknown motives, the Dominion is unable to send enough reinforcements in time to fend off the invaders, Hokushoku and its colonies fall within days of first contact. The Fall of Hokushoku represents the start of a period of political unrest since the Arrene have showed themselves unnable to care for its allies against outsiders. The Qire scours the known space in search of humans able to access the genetic locks of ancient chelok technology, something we've once mastered might be able to solve all of their problems...

[CHECK THE GENERAL ONE HERE!]

INHABITANT RACES