Stellaris: Ascension, prologue

 Hello all.

I thought it would be an interesting experiment/exercise to try and create a narrative based around a playthrough of Stellaris. For those who are not aware, Stellaris is a 4x Grand Strategy game set among the stars. You guide a civilization through its first tentative steps into the void, through first contact with various species, through trial and tribulation, to the "victory year" when you are scored against the computer to see who ran the best civilization. Who had the strongest economy? The best military? What kind of neighbor were you? What role did you take in times of galactic crisis?

I'm oversimplifying a bit, but that's the sum of it. The challenge, then, is to boil the narrative down into definite moments, the decisions that will shape the destiny of the very stars themselves and the people burdened with making them, and in the process of doing so to try and strip the game of many of its strategy elements and try to instill a more narrative-driven approach to this campaign. I believe it will prove rather interesting.

To start, we'll open with the background of the civilization I built for this playthrough....

In the year 2185, Humanity teeters on the brink of disaster. War between the Alliance of American Nations and the Grand Unity of Asia -- or, more appropriately, the countries at the head of their respective powers, the United States of North America and the People's Republic of China -- had broken out in earnest after nearly twenty years of mounting tensions. The United Nations issued toothless demands for peace while the European Union watched passively, their leaders refusing to be dragged into what they deemed "America's war." The cost in lives and resources was catastrophic, yet neither side showed any willingness to sit down and talk.

Everyone wondered how long it would be before someone ordered a nuclear strike. Everyone assumed it was only a matter of time. Religious leaders declared that the last days were upon the world while corporate warmongers leveraged all their influence into maintaining the status quo. It seemed the world world had spiraled out of control.

Amidst the escalating crisis, a new faction arose. Seemingly all at once, everyone was talking about the Rational Consensus Party. They identified as anti-war, anti-corporation, even boldly claiming the title of anti-religion. "We have let our passions bring us to the edge of the abyss," their representatives would say. "We must use our reasoning to find a safe path forward." Their message was popular, their leader -- a man no one had ever heard of before, one Harris Reaves -- was charismatic and intelligent, and their funds and reach seemed endless. Within a year of their emergence they had an overwhelming following, and won the popular vote in the USNA by a landslide, securing the presidency for Reaves. President Reaves leveraged the USNA's role in the AAN and brought a swift end to the war with the GUA, then set to work at home.

By the time his term of office was over, no one doubted that he was primed to become the next Chief President of the AAN, and they were right. What no one saw coming was that he would leverage the power of the AAN against the UN, reshaping the face of international politics seemingly overnight. By the time anyone realized what had happened, the planet had taken an irreversible step towards true unification. This did not sit well with many of the world's powers; foreign nationals felt their sovereignty was threatened, religious leaders despised the openly agnostic behavior of this new government, and corporate magnates who had long grown accustomed to the power afforded the mega-wealthy felt their shadowy empires slipping away from them. They tried to organize, to consolidate their power against the rising star of the Rationalists.

Reaves was fifteen steps ahead of them. He had been laying traps for years by then, setting up laws and policies that independently seemed innocent, yet laced together formed a perfect trap. In a move as stunning as it was brutal, Reaves sprung into action, stripping power from his opponents, seizing resources, and consolidating his control. Contemporary reports called him ruthless. Historians would call him genius.

From the ashes of Reaves attack would rise the United Human Technocracy. The nations of the world were reorganized, power redistributed, economies redesigned, and when Ting Shen, head of UHT's research, discovered the existence of the Hyperlane Network, the Earth stood ready to extend its reach into the cosmos. But space is a vast place, and Humans have never been good at letting the past die....