(Stellaris / cosmic genesis / sole female lead: Gray / Red Republic)
Genetic Ascension allowed the people of Blue Star to break through the limits of their bodies.
Psionic Ascension brought them to the edge of the Shroud.
Synthetic Ascension let them encode their consciousness into data.
Three ascensions, three transformations. In just two hundred years, the Blue Star Republic rose from a planetary civilization to a galactic power.
Then they discovered they weren't the only ones to have walked this path.
The Fallen Empires had walked it. Then they stopped.
The Contingency had walked it. It concluded that every civilization to take this path had to be eradicated.
The Synthetic Queen had walked it. She reached a different conclusion: consciousness itself was the source of suffering.
The extradimensional demons had walked it. They didn't care about conclusions. They were just hungry.
Now Chen Shen stands on the threshold of the Fourth Ascension.
Cosmic Genesis.
This time, he won't change himself.
He'll change the rules.
(If you don't like it, please don't flame me.)
(The author noticed that all the Stellaris fanfics he read featured dictatorships, so on a whim, he decided to write about a prosperous, unified democratic government.)
(You can enjoy this even if you've never played Stellaris.)
