In 2242, humanity emerged from a century-long dark age of resource depletion and geopolitical division. The Tianzhou Telescope Array of the Earth Federation unexpectedly detected a rift in the vacuum of space, proving that faster-than-light Stargate travel was possible. The theories of interstellar travel, buried for a hundred years, had finally become reality.
Humanity, once trapped in the cradle of the Solar System, had opened the door to the Milky Way.
Poor, weak, and technologically backward: these were the only labels attached to Earth's civilization as it entered the sea of stars. The vast galaxy was home to ancient interstellar empires that had endured for millennia, oligarchic conglomerates that controlled the star routes, interstellar pirates who occupied desolate regions, and anomalous civilizations concealed in the seams between dimensions. The brutal law of the universe, survival of the fittest, played out in plain sight.
Lin Chen, a retired mecha soldier, set out from the Solar System aboard humanity's first exploratory starship, carrying old starship blueprints left behind by his forebears. He witnessed the founding of humanity's first extraterrestrial colony, the humiliation of its first interstellar diplomatic mission, and the brutality of its first interstellar war. He also led a broken yet resilient and courageous human civilization as it grew fiercely in the gaps between the power struggles of giants.
From a weak newcomer on the outskirts of the Solar System to a rising interstellar force spanning the galactic arms; from a low-level civilization at the mercy of others to a core power shaping a new order for the Milky Way.
This is humanity's age of interstellar exploration, an epic journey of ordinary people going against the tide, shattering the shackles of the sea of stars, and ascending to the heights of the galaxy with nothing but their small, human bodies!
