Cornucopia Prime

Cornucopia Prime is a planet.

Cornucopia Prime is a dead world and has been for ages, but it had a power that made it the real source of power behind the once mighty Empire as it was once known before it splintered and became three different factions and a small number of additional small factions all claiming the mantle of "Empire" today.

Cornucopia Prime was the home of a number of bizarre precursor machines known as Universal Constructors, when it was known that one could put non-living matter in the input device no matter the size of it or the composition of it, it would be 'saved' to a crystal database, and then the matter could be replicated endlessly through an output device. Food (but it would not copy living livestock or crops), medicine, beverages, z-dust, raw chemicals, supplies, terraforming technologies, batteries, whole entire ships, habitation modules, precious stones, rare metals, and more could all be rapidly duplicated and ready for use. It was the stuff of magic and turned the Imperial Logistics Supply Corps into the strongest power in the galaxy if not the universe.

This allowed the Empire to rapidly conquer the entire galaxy, not through warfare or intimidation, but through gifts to other species, and allowed their colonists to participate in what was known as Colonization Fever where colonists of worlds freshly claimed by the Empire could have all their needs and wants met. The Empire spread exponentially through the galaxy and turned regimes such as the Aquamari Harmony and the Urbrox Star Forest into protectorates where they stopped making claims to any systems or worlds, but could keep what they had, and their denizens were declared citizens of the Empire with all the rights and privileges of being as such.

This made the Empire dull and their citizens picky though. No longer needing to be thrifty or to value quality over quantity, the people of the Empire indulged in a series of fads that changed radically over short periods of times. Between fast fashion with bright and garish colors or covered in strange things like nano-bot feathers or consisting solely of AI-controlled ribbons and strange and particular food tastes as well as extremely particular habitation modules that would be rejected if one thing was not right on one side and the fact that colonists only wanted to settle on the most luxurious and idyllic of paradise worlds, and even temperate Old Earth-like worlds were rejected in lieu of these rare planets and moons. These inhabitable but imperfect worlds served another purpose, they became the dumping grounds for citizens of the Empire. Everything from rejected clothes and wasted food, to habitation modules and ships that instead of getting repaired or upgraded were simply discarded on these worlds. They became known as Garbage Worlds and serve as a reminder of both the glorious times the Empire once had as well as their hedonism.

Another problem was arising though, someone else had their eyes on the Empire, and this was someone who would not be bribed away. To this day, people are still curious as to why they did what they did and you will find any number of theories and debates on it from universities to bars in space. Nothing can be truly created from nothing and perhaps the Universal Constructors were taking resources away their planes, a law of reality was being broken and they were formed by the universe or some sort of celestial judge to exact justice, or maybe they were just driven by greed and jealous, and one can hear a list of many other possible reasons why. As Colonization Fever was continuing and the citizens of the Empire were all living in the lap of luxury, experiencing the greatness of rapidly duplicated goods, sharp and jagged portals from another plane of reality opened at various points in the galaxy and they emerged... tripod-mobility-based bio-mechanical lifeforms known as the Cybronocht.

The conflict between the Empire and the Cybronocht became known as the Cybronocht War, and it was a brutal fight with many Cybronocht vessels and fighters getting destroyed, but no matter what, more came through the portals, and it quickly became apparent they were heading for Cornucopia Prime. They could not construct portals wherever they pleased, but were "close enough" and were beginning to encircle Cornucopia Prime. Strangely, the Cybronocht made no attempt to attack civilians and would only attack vessels that attacked them, carried their remains, or were involved in the defense of Cornucopia Prime.

The Empire put every defense they could muster around Cornucopia Prime and the Emperor was there in person along with top leadership. The belief was to put so many ships and forces around Cornucopia Prime to make it impenetrable. Then came The End. The Cybronocht poured as many forces as they could while firing new superweapons in a berserk fashion. This came as a surprise as the Cybronocht never before fought like this during the war. The Emperor, the admiralty board, war heroes, a large amount of the armed forces, and even the leadership of the official Church of the Empire were all destroyed in The End. The Cybronocht then simply destroyed an object labeled the Throne on the planet's which acted as a central controller which disabled all Universal Constructors. The Cybronocht then departed outside the plane of reality.

The consequences of this quick but brutal war were immediate and severe. The Empire was decapitated, and this meant various new factions were already rising up, scarcity was now an issue and this caused further tension as some seceded from the Empire and others turned to piracy and crime to meet their needs. Terraforming became much more expensive as supplies ran out and projects had to be abandoned, and some half-terraformed worlds became Horror Worlds when they could no longer be maintained. And the alien protectorates no longer had a reason to be under the banner of the Empire and they seceded as well. And the Empire today? Now, three major factions and a number of smaller ones all claim the mantle of the Empire that at one point had points of control all across the entire galaxy, they all claim right to control the worlds and stations it once had, and they declare the others to be traitors and renegades.

Cornucopia Prime still exists to this day, it still has the network of Universal Constructors but they will not work without the Throne, each of those three have repaired pieces but also pieces that can not be reverse engineered and are simply in their possession. The world itself is under the tight control of the Real Empire, one of those three, and perhaps the one with the strongest claim of being the Empire, at least in the legal sense of it. It might be possible to restart it if the Throne was made whole. But what would happen?