The Delphic Expanse Campaign

So my daughter and I have started working on a side campaign to incorporate various elements from the Sci-Fi genres and universes that we like into a campaign.  We have incorporated various elements from Star Trek, Babylon 5, Firestorm Armada, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, etc into a playable campaign using the Firestrom Armada ruleset. For the introduction into the campaign I started writing a backstory to bring it all together.

Disclaimer alert, this is written for in-house play and not intended to infringe on any sci-fi genre.

Delphic Expanse Campaign

Three years after beginning of the New War the Directorate was testing a new super weapon .  This new weapon was designed to create a reaction in a sun that would produce an enormous radiation flare which would eliminate the population of a system leaving the buildings and planets unharmed.  The Directorate chose a sun of a remote system on the edge of the Delphic Expanse.  During this test something went horribly wrong and caused the sun to supernova destroying a research station and the battle group stationed in the area.  The largest exploration conglomerate Interplanetary Expeditions (IPX) went in to discover if anything could be salvaged.  During the fold space jump out of the system a single ship’s navigation malfunctioned and sent it into the expanse barrier.  However the ship was not destroyed and emerged unscathed.  Perplexed by this turn of events IPX began an intensive survey of the area and determined that the intense solar radiation has begun to break down the barriers around the expanse.  Until this point thick thermobaric clouds surrounded the expanse, thus blocking any entry into the enormously unexplored region of space.  Thermobaric clouds are a hazardous type of gaseous formation which can be extremely dangerous to starship navigation. 

The Expanse is approximately 2,000 light years across and is virtually unknown by all the species of life.  No explorer vessels have found any traces of a way to penetrate the expanse.  Intense gravitational distortions, similar to quantum singularities, made travel through the Expanse extremely difficult as it appeared that space did not obey the known laws of physics in the region; travellers risked injury, disfigurement, or death.  Over the course of several generations many races have attempted to enter and chart the expanse.  A group of Sorylian’s mistakenly entered the Expanse, but returned anatomically inverted (and still alive). Unsuccessful attempts to explore the region were also made by the Aquan ships Seleya and Vaankara. The Seleya was later discovered, with its crew driven mad due to exposure to an unknown radiation, and subsequently destroyed.  Each time a ship attempted to bypass the thermobaric clouds and enter the expanse the gravitational distortions disrupted the jump point and destroyed the emerging ship.  There have been only rumors about what lies in the expanse until now. 

Since this discovery all races have rushed to the region to attempt to lay claim to the vast untouched resources of the area.  Of course IPX has sold the instructions for entering the expanse to the highest bidder; unwittingly IPX sold the instructions to any race that could afford it.  There is little known about the expanse, but rumors of hostile groups of races run rampant throughout the galaxy.