Gatul is a federation of 26 civilized planets where life abounds.
All citizens are entitled to happiness and live the Gatulian dream. But that’s just the theory… In reality, the federation is far from perfect. The people live in fear and insecurity, especially the poor, which is the case for the vast majority. A terrible internal war has recently weakened all of Gatûl, but it would be hypocritical to blame it for that. The system was already corrupt and unequal enough before that.

Gatûl was built on an alliance of 7 planets, fighting together against a pirate empire that terrorized space over 3000 years ago. After the victory of the allies, the 7 founders officially federated their worlds and formed Gatûl. But the new federation did not stop there and set out to annex the other surrounding worlds in the name of the common good. Forced or welcome annexation, the history of Gatûl is not very clear on the subject and of course tends to congratulate itself on the result.

Cultures and systems were then standardized from one planet to another and the citizens’ brain chip became compulsory at birth. A formidable tool to have access to all the incredible services of the federation, as well as to the position of each one… but always for his own good!
The capital of Gatûl is a small, planet-sized space station called Gatund, which literally links 4 of the 7 founding planets. The world government, based on Gatund, has often been accused of making decisions in favor of the center worlds. Following a new annexation, a large part of the recovered resources is most often redistributed in priority on the 7 founders.

It is necessary to understand that the spatial zone occupied by Gatûl is, by chance or by a divine cosmic scheme, a spherical grouping of many planets. And the 7 founding planets of Gatûl are close to the center of this improbable sphere. Their expansion was therefore done in all directions at the same time, until there was no more new world within reasonable reach and the sphere was entirely Gatulian.

In order to be able to govern effectively in all four corners of the federation, Gatund has set up a sectoral division of the federated zones. A Sector groups together one or more planets according to their proximity to each other, and one of the planets in the Sector is chosen to host an OniGatûl. This political department provides governance on behalf of Gatund on the worlds it is responsible for.

At its peak, Gatûl federates XX planets, habitable or not, without counting the numerous moons and other Massive Space Stations (M.S.S.) where sometimes hundreds of millions of individuals live. It is when Gatûl finally arrives at the end of its era called “the great Annexation” that the real decadence begins. The resources are distributed, more or less well, and the global economic growth stops. Those who manage to seize the wealth of the system by their privileges or by their own means keep it, and the already existing gaps widen. Some political revolutions follow, redistributing power to all planets and their species, allowing access to the High Council to anyone. At least in theory…

The real great revolution of Gatûl will occur in an unexpected way. The discovery of humans, following very particular events, will change the life of the Gatulians. Humanity brings sports! In the playful sense of the word. Of course, the Gatulan species all had their sports practices, but they were martial or health-oriented. There were no fans or sports industry, no notion of team or competition. This sounds surprising, even impossible to imagine from a human perspective, and yet it is. Humans are the latest species to join the federation and have brought a breath of fresh air to it. Their sports spread quickly and underwent many modifications to accommodate all species morphologies. After years of convergence, Smash Ball is born, the ultimate team sport where all species can play.

The population loves it, the fanatics multiply, the whole federation plays and/or watches Smash Ball. Nobody cares about the daily problems fearing to miss a game! To the great happiness of the government…
But just when one thought that the importance of Smash Ball had become completely absurd, 4 titanic companies create a private league together: the Legendary Sponsor League. The success is immediate, the crowd is galvanized. sponsored item sold by the league becomes more valuable and stable than the Gatulian Credit. Gatund has more and more difficulties to contain the social and economic chaos. The 4 responsible companies are simply called “the Sponsors”. They are becoming so important in the daily lives of Gatulians that they are beginning to supplant the government, its role and functioning, in many areas.

Until war breaks out in 4072. Repsy, one of the 4 Sponsors, tries to overthrow Gatund in the name of the common good, the usual story…
A terrible 8-year war ravages the federation. Gatund is victorious and remains master of Gatûl. But the price is incredibly high. Planets have been completely destroyed and nearly 30% of the global population has been killed or disappeared. It is impossible to provide for all the federated worlds. The High Council decides to abandon the outer planets completely in 4086 and refocus its resources. An even more terrible blow for the abandoned worlds around Gatûl. They form a gigantic sphere in the grip of chaos, nicknamed the Chaosphere.
Gatûl takes advantage of the situation to completely change its policy, which was still “open” before the war, and imposes martial law. The laws become stricter, the controls become daily, always in the name of the greater good…

But by the grace of the Sponsors, the Smash Ball survives! The Legendary Sponsor League is recovering from the war as well, and a new company replaces Repsy. So it’s possible to forget all your worries with a good game of Smash Ball! After all, what better way to be happy?

There are titanic companies, having developed their activities in the major part of the universe. These big companies are at the center of the citizens’ life in Gatûl, they are present absolutely everywhere: transport, housing, food, care, entertainment, etc. Each company has its own speciality and has often been established for several centuries. It is rare that small companies can still emerge on an interplanetary scale, otherwise they are immediately crushed by the fierce competition.
In 4058 of the Earth’s calendar, four of the largest corporations in the universe formed a business alliance and created the Legendary Sponsor League. A private league that recruits only the best Smashers and Smash Ball Coaches in the universe. With the immediate and universal success of this new league, the power and influence of the four companies becomes greater than ever. These corporations, Inferno, Repsy, Kaarok and Suwot, were quickly named simply “The Sponsors” or sometimes “The Four”.
They acquire a privileged status in the lives of Gatulians, and eventually become a way of life. It is possible for a citizen to “sell” himself to one of these Sponsors for a better life. The citizen who signs such a contract gets many advantages: access to a home, an above-average salary and quality services. Billions of people sign these pacts with Sponsors and become “sponsored citizens” (CSP). The compensation is to perform the tasks requested, and to live only by and for the chosen Sponsor. The schools, stores, audiovisual programs and other services used by these CSPs can only be those provided by their Sponsor. Very quickly, Sponsors become nations within the nation. Until one of them goes too far…
Seduced by this power, the most powerful Sponsor Repsy tries to overthrow the government of Gatûl in 4072. What follows is a destructive 8-year war involving the entire Federation. After a fierce battle, resulting in the destruction of some planets and the death of tens of billions of citizens, Gatûl finally prevails and Repsy’s troops retreat out of reach into wild space.
After the war, the federation abandoned some of its frontier territories, which became the new playground for pirate clans. The Laziel company takes Repsy’s place among the Four. The Sponsors, made even richer and more powerful by the war and the reconstruction of Gatûl, offer their help to the populations of the 38 planets still federated and gain even more influence. About 31% of the global population is under contract to the Sponsors.
But the Gatûl government has warned them that any doubt about their ambitions will result in annihilation without warning. Since the abandonment of almost half of its federation, Gatul has been running its empire with an iron fist, and the Legendary Sponsor League is quickly becoming the only source of happiness in the lives of the Gatulans still affected by the war.

Smash Ball is a highly violent team sport that is beloved throughout Gatûl and beyond. It is a ball and combat sport played by teams of Smashers and Coaches. To win a match, teams must score Smashes, which can be obtained in two ways: by knocking out the majority of the opposing team or by taking the ball into the opposing Smash Zone. Some teams specialize in one strategy or the other, much to the delight of their fans.
But Smash Ball is more than just a sport. It is an industry, a way of life, and even a religion. The sport has evolved with Gatûlian citizens for centuries, but it wasn’t until a major corporation lobbied to offer a range of non-lethal weapons for use in Smash Ball. The public loved the added excitement, and it was even a Gatulan fashion to own a weapon of the same brand as those used by Smashers. This newfound obsession with weaponry made the fortune of Repsy, the company behind the weapon lobby.
However, the consequences of this newfound obsession were dire. The society saw an 800% increase in armed crimes throughout Gatûl, and up to 1200% in the most dangerous zones. As a result, civilian weapons were banned in Gatûl, and the possession of such weapons was heavily punished.
This story is a perfect example of the immense importance and influence that Smash Ball has on Gatulian society.

Today, the Legendary Sponsor League completely dominates Smash Ball. To understand the implications for the sport and Gatul as a whole, it’s important to trace the evolution of Smash Ball from its inception.
Human sports quickly became part of the daily life of Gatulians, and after a few decades, the government requested the creation of a unique sport that could unite the population under a single entertainment. Thus, Smash Ball was born. In order to promote the sport, Gatund announced a large tournament across the federation, open to everyone. The organizers never anticipated such a success, with over 87 million teams registered. The tournament lasted a decade and became legendary, spawning series, movies, and other forms of re-enactments that are still popular with fans today.
To avoid future chaos, Gatund established an interplanetary league capable of handling large events: the Gatuleague. This league set the official rules and organized major events. The technical terms of Smash Ball were also defined and written in English, as a tribute to the humans who were considered the indirect founders of Smash Ball. The Gatuleague was established on almost all federated planets and was divided into sub-leagues, with each Sector having its own official Gatuleague. Each sub-league answered to the Department of Sports Coordination (DCS), a new institute of Gatund dedicated to Smash Ball. Over the next 850 Earth years, Smash Ball evolved and became a true pillar of Gatulian society.

In 4058, Smash Ball underwent its biggest change. Four mega-corporations, later nicknamed “the Sponsors,” created their own private league to compete and undermine the Gatuleague market. They recruited only Smash Ball legends for huge sums of money. The ratings for this new league exceeded 90% at launch and never dropped. The starification and hype made Smashers and Coaches into idols on a level never seen before. The Gatuleague collapsed, and revenues dropped so much that a vicious cycle began: the more the budget shrank, the less events and marketing could be supported.
Within a few years, the Gatuleague’s Smash Ball was unrecognizable. Some leagues had to close, and hundreds of millions of Smashers were out of business. To make up for the loss, some Gatuleagues began offering an unexpected service: mercenaries. Since Smashers were skilled at fighting, teamwork, and sometimes even weapons, it was not an absurd proposal. Many Smashers became Smasher-Mercenaries, and the Smash Ball matches of Gatuleagues became promotional events to showcase the teams. A competition with real stakes began to emerge between the Gatuleagues, who didn’t hesitate to sabotage the matches or teams of their rivals in order to make them less attractive to potential customers.
After this major change, Smash Ball had two faces: the pure elite Smash Ball imposed by the Legendary Sponsor League, where the love and fanaticism of the population was concentrated on only a few tens of Smashers and Coaches, and the mercenary Smash Ball, which promoted muscular squads able to answer the needs of distressed Gatulians. It’s worth noting that the war against Repsy from 4072 to 4080 had greatly weakened Gatul. The planets that were still federated could hardly count on Gatund’s help as it focused on reconstruction and order. Thus, the Gatuleague of mercenaries, which might have seemed shaky and unsustainable, took on enormous importance after the war, especially when calls for help from the Chaosphere multiplied.

The Chaosphere is a complex space biome made up of 23 civilized planets left behind by Gatûl after the war. In just 15 Earth years, life in this area has gone from almost democratic and civilized to tyrannical and deadly.
In 4086, when the decision was made to abandon the farthest worlds from the center of the federation, time seemed to stop for the people involved. As everyone realized the possible consequences, billions of citizens rushed to spaceships and molecular teleporters to get to the federation’s new borders before it was too late. But the government, prepared for this, blocked classic space access. Of course, space is vast, and skilled civilians could hack their ships and take other routes than those automatically used by the AI. However, it’s in these less-traveled paths that pirates lurked, waiting to intercept civilian ships.
Many ships made it through both barriers, and billions of citizens found refuge within Gatûl. But that’s just a small number compared to those who lost their lives to the military ships or pirates. The populations of abandoned planets were reduced by nearly half.
Later, the High Council of Gatund called these passages a necessary lottery for maintaining order in the federation, with the successful crossers being the lucky winners.
A short period of reorganization and unity followed in the worlds of the newly-named Chaosphere. People gathered in cities and discussed their future. High-ranking political authorities had often left long before the official announcement of Abandonment. But what came next was terrible.
Pirate clans attacked helpless nations. Local armies, concentrated in more developed regions, couldn’t help people in remote areas. The pirates, coming more or less from the same place, spread throughout the same side of the Chaosphere.

But what about “the other side of the sphere”? Well, that’s where Inferno comes in, the most powerful Sponsor after Repsy, offering help to worlds lacking global services. Almost as if they had anticipated the events, Inferno quickly spreads and provides military and social protection to frightened inhabitants. Gatûl was now suspicious of powerful Sponsors and watched them closely after the war. But in the Chaosphere, Gatûl had no authority.
An exception to these takeovers was the case of the former Sector 18, home to the planet Etonak. The only remaining intact planet in the sector, its people had taken Repsy’s weapons stored on a neighboring planet. They prepared militarily before the Abandonment, so no pirates could approach the planet. The same went for the so-called well-intentioned Sponsor, who didn’t offer their “help.”

Over the years, the Chaosphere found its own way of establishing some sort of order. Each Sector had an OniGatul, a center of administrative and political power that governed the sector’s planets on behalf of Gatund. After the Abandonment, some OniGatuls stuck around and kept order on the planets they managed. But things quickly went downhill, with these OniGatuls turning into tyrannical power centers led by power-hungry rulers. They made deals with pirates, allowing them to take over entire regions in exchange for a non-aggression pact and business opportunities.
On the flip side, Inferno replaced Gatûl in every way. You might think that people in these Sectors were better off, but their individual freedoms were severely limited, much more so than in Gatûl. The media was tightly controlled, and Inferno’s propaganda was everywhere. A new empire was forming…

Caught between pirates and tyrants, the Chaosphere has become a chaotic disaster. A mix of the Wild West and contemporary dictatorship, people do their best to survive. Gatûl’s abandonment is complete, and the federation is despised by everyone. Increasingly, people believe it would have been better if Repsy had won the war. In this tumultuous era, numerous potential adventures and perils exist. As systems collapse, new rumors and tales give rise to legends.

The very reductive term “pirates” refers, for the Gatulians, to lawless individuals who sow terror in Carbonide space. These pirates call themselves Atonaro, which literally means “Other Path.” They are divided between a nomadic and sedentary lifestyle. The sedentary ones live on the planet InOdarza, far from Gatûl’s space.
A portion of the Atonaros is not made up of criminals at all. Some of the 12 clans can be considered as scavengers, isolationists, and political dissidents chased away by the Conglomerate.
To truly understand how pirates function as a whole, we need to go back to before Gatûl’s creation. Around the year 500 of our calendar, the Kesens people from the eponymous planet discovered distortion technology and became capable of traveling vast distances through space. Unfortunately, their natural inclination towards violence and chaos led to a massive exodus of the population, who embarked on brutal raids against nearby unarmed worlds. Over the following centuries, the inhabitants of some civilized planets began to resist the pirates by developing their own technologies, based on those of the Kesens, until it became almost impossible for pirates to practice their “art.”

However, the tide turned again. Three Kesens brothers named Iskan managed to unite the pirates under their banner and establish their empire. We are talking about genuine legions of slavers and murderers, estimated at almost 1 billion members. Most pirates are still Kesens, but over time, many other species have joined their ranks. Under the Iskan’s command, the empire became structured and expanded, easily pushing back the defenses of almost every planet. But not all…
Seven planets that quickly caught up technologically took advantage of the pirates’ brief weakening to solidify and form an army. These seven planets created an alliance that waged war against the Iskan brothers. The alliance ultimately won the war in 966 (Earth calendar) during a final battle where 23 elite soldiers simultaneously assassinated the Iskan brothers. These legendary heroes are still praised and celebrated in Gatûl today.

Completely disorganized and at the mercy of the victors, many pirates managed to escape the battle. After years of wandering, they gathered on a distant planet and founded a new civilization. But after a few centuries, Gatûl, which possessed the new molecular technology based on C’Mater, carried out an aggressive expansion and approached the former pirates’ planet. Gatûl then offered the planet annexation to join the federation, which already consisted of over 50 planets. The ex-pirates decided, through a vote, to willingly join the federation rather than face its wrath. However, two centuries later, a rebellion broke out under the iron rule of the Sector’s OniGatul. A portion of the population took up arms and sabotaged the planet’s core, causing its destruction. They preferred to destroy it rather than let it in the hands of hypocritical tyrants!
The 12 nations of the planet gave birth to 12 great pirate clans that fled Gatûl, just as their ancestors had. But this time, they stayed close to exact their revenge by attacking and plundering the so-called holy federation.
Today in 4101, pirates are still present. It is said that they are based on a partially artificial planet with mysterious coordinates. Over time, the hatred towards the federation has not really diminished, but many pirates have preferred to focus on their world and gradually forget about Gatûl. Added to this is the fact that many outcasts and anti-system individuals have joined InOdarza and contributed to diluting the original pirates.
The entire pirate group had not really posed a threat within Gatulian borders, which were well defended. But since 4086 and the famous Abandonment, they are back in the Chaosphere, and the most terrible among them are wreaking havoc on defenseless worlds.

Kolteyn is a coalition of five inhabited worlds. Each of these worlds is associated with a star, although these terms are not appropriate here. Indeed, the space of the coalition is completely cut off from the laws of physics as we know them. The stars are actually solid luminous spheres, made up of unknown materials. As for the worlds, they possess unique shapes and characteristics that defy any classification.
This scientific anomaly that is Kolteyn remains unexplained for the Carbonide scientists of Gatûl. However, the Kolteynians have their own answer. According to their stories, they come from a single species created by the divine Concept Kolt. In fact, all of Kolteyn and its impossible-to-decipher physics would be the work of this higher being…
The Kolteynians possess unique characteristics, with bodies that seem to be made of flexible and solid crystals, adopting various shapes depending on the Kolteynian species. Among the five species, only the Kaarsians are very humanoid. The other four have singular morphologies that are difficult to describe. Each has special abilities that the Carbonides cannot call anything other than “ancestral magic.”
The Kaarsians, for example, have a gem in their chest charged with a large amount of energy from their world. This gem allows them to perform feats such as briefly bringing memories or stories to life. The Kurs, on the other hand, can blend into energy currents and reappear wherever and whenever they wish. They can also defragment into a multitude of pieces, as long as they all remain connected by thin filaments of pure energy.

Beyond their worlds and their physical peculiarities, it is also their politics and power that arouse curiosity. The Kolteynians have always been known to the Carbonides. Although they have rarely mingled with the rest of the universe, they have interacted enough to inspire legends. Pirates were once interested in Kolteyn, hoping to find priceless treasures there, but they were quickly annihilated. The danger posed by the Kolteynians is very real and persists through the ages.
When the Gatûl Federation expanded, it always took care not to appear hostile towards the coalition, despite the distance separating them. Several diplomatic exchanges have taken place between the two powers throughout history, but only the highest authorities know the details of these encounters. All that is known is that the Carbonides are welcome on Kaars, if they can survive there, and that a few hundred Kaarsians are currently traveling through the borders of Gatûl.
As for the other Kolteynian species, the Kurs, the Koajs, the Kadvels, and the Kebaris, they remain unknown to the Carbonides and show no willingness to change. Their worlds are officially off-limits to non-Kolteynians.
The Coalition is led by a diplomatic leader named Karsis. He is the supreme authority of the planet Kaars, but also guides the other Kolteynian peoples, without imposing anything on them. The Kolteynians seem united and bound by their history and common origins, which can be perceived as condescension when a Kaarsian addresses Carbonides.

Recently, in 4098, the daughter of Karsis undertook a diplomatic mission on behalf of Kolteyn to Gatund. Princess Kaarah, a title given by the Carbonides, found herself involved in a post-war plot on Gatund. Her role in resolving this plot seems to have improved the image that the Carbonides have of Kolteyn. Perhaps in the future, a genuine dialogue between the two great powers can be established with sincerity.
However, a shadowy area and a potential source of major conflict remain: Kaarsians are reported as missing or unaccounted for within Gatûl’s borders. A situation that would normally be mundane for authorities, but not for Kolteyn, who has already warned that the consequences would be dire if these disappearances turned out to be not accidental…