Metal Core

In the year 2273, the Solar empire was tearing itself apart.

A plan was devised to find a new home. Those who wanted to escape to a peaceful future disguised their venture as a mining operation and promised great fortune. Soon the massive ships were on their way. After five hundred years traveling through space, disaster struck. The flagship, the Glorious Future, exploded unexpectedly, killing all aboard. The blast damaged three other colony ships - the Argonne, Enterprise, and Halisson. Their crews awoke early from cryosleep to find communications cut off from The Ark, the fifth undamaged ship.

Chaos reigned as agents sabotaged systems, viruses struck and a power struggle to take control took over each ship. Over generations, the isolated ships developed their own societies, and factions emerged: the theocratic Holy Corporation, the militaristic Gear Breakers and the anarchic Metal Punks.

Hardened after centuries of meager space travel and infighting, the factions finally arrived at their destination, the planet Kerberos, and managed to maneuver their ships into low orbit. Some of the wreckage of the Glorious Future, having been latched onto the Gear Breaker’s vessel, broke off and collided with the planet. Its massive fusion drive detonated on impact, causing planet-wide devastation. The remaining destruction spread across the planet, and the bits of automatic terraforming machinery that survived began to do what they were programmed to do: fabricate. Fabricators sent out nanobots to collect metals, silica, and carbon and build industrial factories and cities. Over the last few hundred years, the automated mining and manufacturing systems the factions carried across space for the betterment of humankind have been redirected to a more ancient endeavor: War.