The Story of the Milky Way Galaxy.

It was 2001 Jan 1 at 1:01:01 GMT when it happened.

The world - truthfully, the entire universe - fractured.

A massive green lightning bolt appeared, miles wide, and traversed from one pole to the other through the unseen interior of the planet Earth. It extended countless light-years into space in both directions, and froze in place.

While odd, this was nothing compared to what happened next. The entire population of the planet gained the ability to reshape reality to their will. Simultaneously.

People flew across cities. Massive robot mecha were summoned. Magical spells tore across the countryside. The planet cracked under the pressure of billions of stories simultaneously being told. Billions of wishes all coming true at once.

Society could not survive like this. Humanity could not survive.

On the only channels available, by the only means they could - the leaders of the world instructed their followers to lift the very cities they lived in from the ground, and to follow them into a great armada towards the center of the galaxy.

There they founded The Gigacity, an amalgamation of the world's greatest metropolises. And they founded the Galactic Alliance. The central authority and most populous and powerful nation in this new galaxy.

Those who marched to the sound of their own drums did not heed this advice, but instead found each other through their connections and interests, and founded a great many planets throughout the nearby regions.

The gaming worlds bound together into the Confederation of Centrally Controlled Planets, and set global rules, so that each planet was its own design, and had its own set of strange but consistent rules.

The others bound together into the Federation, a loose organization of the most creative and exotic worlds. They rarely interfered in the affairs of others, and celebrated diversity and science. They founded the Galactic Institute, and set out teams to study this new universe and uncover its many secrets.

Others still, who hearkened back to simpler times, traveled in the opposite direction, trusting no-one else, and built a new paradise, where things could be like they used to, for all time eternal. They founded the Community, and promptly established defense pacts, then broke off nearly all other contact with the rest of humanity.

Rebellious souls, not content with either the status quo or the passive nature of the Federation, founded the Star Union. A powerful although small nation, a mishmash of people from many which came before, who all together sought out interference, to right the wrongs of the galaxy, whether people wanted them to or not.

And the final group, the smallest of all, headed to the far side of the galaxy, and sought to found New Earth. A place where only the normal laws of physics should apply, and nothing else. It was a new planet, but it would be the most similar to the present day, for all its flaws and joys.

Many still founded their own, smaller groups, not seeking to join any of the larger factions, and even fewer still set out to live a truly independent life. As in a galaxy of a hundred billion planets, there was more than enough room for anyone to be whatever or whomever they wished.

And Earth itself was left to decay. A great storm of catastrophic magnitude swept the planet, and engulfed it in eternal darkness. A horrifying amalgam of peoples' wishes and fears that no-one dared approach. It was declared off-limits, as the sheer power next to the fracture itself could not be contained or controlled.

And so our story begins some unknown years later, in a small office of the Galactic Institute, as many more teams begin their journeys to study this new galaxy.