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 644th century, or roughly after 64 350 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 which is 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 around 13.5 thousand years old and about 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.

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 the three zones of the Dominion's civilized systems, here UP is north for 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 60 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 160 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 in 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 technologically advanced and brutal than other native civilizations to the Dominion, that excludes humans and "The 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

50 150 ~ 50 650 CE - The Arrene achieved mastery of subluminal interstellar travel, starting a period of expansion across the known space, departing from Argost (arrene name for "Origin Point"), and arriving at planet Endreka.

50 800 CE - Arrenes meet with humans for the first time, living in hunter-gatherer societies across Endreka.

52 000 ~ 52 400 CE - Discovery of the Nagiv race through weak technosignatures, the Arrene jump in-system for a first contact and "uplift" them, ensuring the Nagiv develop as allies.

54 000 CE - Meanwhile, the Qire sends a probe to a gas giant moon of their homesystem, also finding humans in a pre-stellar society.

57 000 CE - 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

58 000 ~ 61 600 CE - The Haydee raids the known space searching for Mizar artifacts, they make no distinction between Arrene and Qire in their campaign. So the Qire clans establish military alliance with Dominion in order to fight the Haydee menace, with little to moderate success. The Dominion-Haydee wars are observed by the Hoku in their barely-interplanetary society, too scared to join or even make contact, the Hoku seeks other stars to distance themselves from the Dominion.

62 800 ~ 63 300 CE - 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.

64 000 ~ 64 357 CE - 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 a few decades. The Fall of Hokushoku represents the start of a period of political unrest since the Arrene have showed to be unnable to care for it against outsiders. The Qire scours the known space in search of humans that are able to access the genetic locks of ancient human technology, something we've once mastered might be able to solve all of their problems...

INHABITANT RACES