heart systems, go! - about

far into the future...

near-all worlds have been rendered uninhabitable in the wake of the Thanati apocalypse (often conflated with a holy war waged at the same time against the Thanati known as Screaming Hammer.)

the cultists sought to destroy all of Humanity, so that their dark lord, Tzchernobog, can usher in a new universe.

they failed to destroy everything, though - hope yet dimly remains for the corpse of man before the deathrattle:

• on the Spheres surrounding Planet Zero's Sun (formerly Earth), technocrats and wealthy descendants of trillionaires fight for the future of the most advanced settlements remaining.
• on Isfet, the Recolonisation has made great progress in restoring habitability, but the Veiled Jihad and the failure of the Elders' to attend to the Movement's needs have caused great stagnation.
• on Evergreen, the once-isolated planet protected from the wider Crescent and the cataclysm that befell it by the Greatshield, the Elders turn their attention to an incredibly backward, undeveloped society, that has forsaken most of the scientific advancements of the past age due to ignorance and the inherent barbarity of the local population. but somewhere beneath the permafrost, the secret to immortality may lie with the "natural" biology of the environs within . . .
• STYX, an artificial intelligence matrix of peculiar origins, transforms disobedient Isfetian slaves into compliant automatons, ready and eager to combat the dangers of the Ooze, the Ifreet, and more. now it's spectres even act as the voices of the Elders: what does it hope to achieve?
• the Fleet, nominally governed by the Spheres but de facto merely influenced, seeks to protect Humanity more actively in the current era, rather than act as the conspiracy-level safeguard against enemy corporations from the days of old. should the Veiled Jihad ever break into open conflict, it is their duty to erase the Lodges responsible from the safety of orbit, and in these days, respond to distress signals, and aid humanity wherever it can.