A million years from now, a million lightyears away, the age of space flourishes. Transport from planet to planet, system to system, galaxy to galaxy, is as regular as the morning commute. Peoples born on one planet can end their life on the opposite side of the universe with a satisfied smile, having seen all manner of strange and wonderful things that every world has to offer.
And there are many different kinds of peoples. The slow and steady jelly-like slime folk, the famous councils of the mycelium, the burgeoning, yearning enlightenment of mechanicals.
What’s that?
Humans you ask?
Well, legends say that they lost their planet of origin a long, long time ago. But many home systems are lost to the eventual cleanup crew of a collapsing star. So to the average space citizen, the plight of the humans isn’t much of a plight at all.
And they’re around. Let’s see. In this million-seat stadium, there’s…oop, there’s one! Aaaand, one more. So in a crowd of one million, there are 2 humans.
Human colony planets dot the outskirts of space civilization, with varying degrees of success with their own implementations of space travel. While most colonies retain contact with greater civilization for imports and the chance to travel, with elevators leading off of the planet to a nearby satellite station, some colonies have cut themselves off completely to the wonders of space.
And far from the excitement of the cultural centers of the universe, along the edge of civilization, in a backwater galaxy, in a backwater system, there is a backwater planet called Akabyssus. Notable at some point for its moderate levels of the manufacturing mineral qalium, which has since been strip mined and pumped out of the planet hundreds of years ago, the planet now has nothing much to remark upon except that it is yet another human colony planet with a struggling space elevator.
Purple sand covers Akabyssus. Most buildings are made of a mixture of this sand and orange clay. Its society and technology looks simultaneously from the 1600s and the 1980s.
And their favorite sport is a bloodsport involving a very pointy metal stick.