Editing Maelstrom's Edge (section)

==Background==

In the far future, a golden age of exploration and progress has been shattered. Humanity and alien alike teeter on the very brink of annihilation. A gigantic apocalyptic explosion of dark energy known as the Maelstrom is rapidly expanding 
out from the heart of the galaxy, destroying everything it touches. As worlds and stars on the Maelstrom’s Edge are obliterated, those who have the means flee towards deep space, while those left behind fight for the chance to escape. For millennia before this catastrophe, humanity spread across the galaxy at sub-light speed, painstakingly eking out an existence in space and on barely habitable worlds. Then the cybel network was discovered. A gossamer web of dark energy threads stretching between every star, this new form of interstellar transport allowed humanity to colonize thousands of worlds across the galaxy’s Spiral Arm. All the progress that the cybel network brought, the Maelstrom took away. The Maelstrom erupted from the center of humanity’s 
worlds a millennium ago, racing down the cybel tunnels, splitting them apart and spilling their destructive energy out into real space.

The Edge is a stormfront, light years wide, where real space meets the Maelstrom’s tide of roiling, coruscating energy. The apocalypse is inexorably coming to every planet on the Edge. From ancient space habitats to luscious terraformed worlds, everyone in the path of the Maelstrom must make a choice. Unite or divide, give or take, fight or die. Those living on the Edge are not bulletproof or elite. They are ordinary people caught up in a bewildering cataclysm, their only goal is to survive as best they can. The destruction wrought by the Maelstrom has led to conflict between many of the organizations and governments in its path. The competing corporations of the Epirian Foundation made their fortunes using advanced robotics and geoengineering to alter worlds for colonization and resource 
exploitation. 

Now as the Maelstrom approaches, the Epirians are forced to abandon these worlds, using their enlisted soldiers and retrofitted robots to defend their interests. Diametrically opposed to the Epirian Foundation’s interests are the Karist Enclave, a secretive group of religious extremists. They believe that the mentally and physically prepared will not be destroyed by the Maelstrom, but instead 
will ascend to a higher plane of existence. The Karists use vials of altered cybel energy to ‘commune’ with the Maelstrom, achieving a trance-like state they associate with ascension. 

Eternal refugees, the Remnant Fleet abandoned their homeworlds long ago, when the Maelstrom first appeared. They travel from star to star in vast space-bound cities, their elite exosuit-clad Champions mounting covert missions to procure precious resources which fuel the Fleet’s exodus 
from the galaxy. The refugees, revolutionaries, pirates and mercenaries that are left behind on abandoned worlds are collectively known as the Broken. Desperate humans team up with abandoned aliens, swarming worlds near the Edge as they try to survive for as long as they can. 

The abhumans of the Kaigus Pact are leftovers from the first humans to set off amongst the stars, whose centuries aboard the weak gravity of their colony ships changed them forever. The Kaigus rely on bioengineered symbiotic lifeforms to sustain their weakened bodies. Beyond the Edge, the assembled consciousness of the Tragunite Host watches the coming disaster, awaiting their moment to act. Against the implacable onslaught of the Maelstrom, every dockworker, farmer, director and mercenary is faced with the same dilemma: what will you do to survive?