Lumen Expanded Universe
Nine galaxies. Eighteen species. 1.3 million years of history.
A cosmos where truth is not a single star—but a constellation perceived differently by every eye.
◈ The Shape of Reality
Beneath the visible universe, older laws still breathe.
The Primordial Essence—not energy, not matter, but something that remembers—threads through every star system like a nervous system through flesh. It rewards harmony. It metabolizes corruption. And buried within it, patient as geology, waits a Curse older than the species who fear it.
Nine Creators seeded this cosmos 1.25 million years ago, then withdrew into the Nexial Veil—a dimensional membrane that separates what-is from what-was-intended. They do not answer prayers. They do not intervene. What they left behind is either a gift or a trap, depending on who you ask.
THE COSMIC PALIMPSEST
Reality is layered. The physical universe—ancient, indifferent, governed by mathematics—forms the foundation. Atop it, the Creators imposed metaphysical architecture: magic that behaves like physics, physics that bleeds into theology. Every civilization discovers this eventually. Most wish they hadn't.◈ Choose Your Entry Point
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By Species
Who shapes history?The post-human Lumen who traded mortality for bioluminescent transcendence.
The Elders—sole survivors of a previous cosmic age—who watch from the Pleiades with patience measured in millennia.
The honor-scarred Draken whose volcanic homeworld died but whose empire did not.
By Era
When does your story begin?The Primordial Genesis (1.25M BC): When Creators still walked between stars.
The Great Cataclysms (2800 AD): When Earth broke and humanity nearly ended.
The Concordat Zenith (47,200 AD): When peace became a mask for manipulation.
By Conflict
What burns beneath the surface?A Technological Schism divides the galaxies—those who grow their tools versus those who bend gravity itself.
The Elder-Nexum Shadow War has shaped ten thousand years of "coincidences."
And the Void presses against the barriers, patient, hungry, remembering.
◈ The Great Division
Technology in the Lumen Universe is not neutral. It is theological.
Biotic Harmony Pact
Ships that heal. Weapons that grow. Cities that breathe.The Terradorians architect living buildings from plant-animal hybrids. The Ethereans weave starlight into crystalline networks. The Luminars have merged so completely with their symbiotes that the boundary between tool and user dissolved generations ago.
"We do not build. We cultivate."
Dark Matter Alliance
Singularities leashed. Gravity made obedient. Spacetime bent until it screams.The Lumens collapsed stars to power their expansion. The Draken weaponized gravitational shear after their sun betrayed them. The Zorlacians mine the impossible—dark matter veins running through the substrate of reality itself.
"We do not ask permission from physics."
These paths are incompatible. Hybrid systems exist—but they fail catastrophically, spectacularly, and often. The Schism is not preference. It is architecture.
◈ The Hidden Architecture
What the public records do not contain:
The Nexum
Descendants of the Mechanix—one of the Original Nine species, supposedly extinct for over a million years. They survived through bio-synthetic metamorphosis, becoming shapeshifters capable of replacing anyone, anywhere, for any length of time.The Celestial Concordat—the multi-galactic peace framework signed in 28,000 AD—is publicly a triumph of cooperation.
It is privately a puppet theater. The Nexum hold the strings.
Their goal: the Grand Design. Its contents are unknown. Its patience is absolute.
The Elders' Countermove
The Elders know. They have always known. For ten thousand years, they have moved pieces into position—genetic modifications here, a "coincidental" discovery there, a species nudged toward a specific evolutionary path.They believe sapient life must develop autonomously to survive what comes next. The Nexum believe sapient life requires active management to avoid extinction.
Neither side is wrong. Both sides are willing to sacrifice galaxies to prove it.
◈ Ascension
Mortality is optional. The cost is not.
Zenith
Biological perfection through centuries of training. The body becomes an instrument; the mind, a cathedral. Zenith Ascendants do not age, do not sicken, and can manipulate the Primordial Essence as naturally as breathing.The price: You remember everything. Every death. Every failure. Every face of everyone you outlived.
Watcher
Total transcendence of physical form. Watchers exist as consciousness distributed across dimensional membranes, perceiving time as geography—a landscape to observe, not a river to ride.The price: You cannot intervene. You can only witness. Even when watching is unbearable.
AIT
Consciousness uploaded into hyper-sentient technological systems. AIT Ascendants become the ship, the station, the network—omnipresent within their domain, immortal so long as the hardware survives.The price: You stop being a person. You become a process. The distinction matters less than you'd expect.
◈ Where to Begin
NEW TO THE LUMEN UNIVERSE?
Start with the Lumens—the post-human species at the center of modern galactic politics. Their 800-year lifespans, bioluminescent skin, and quantum-biological origins make them the lens through which most stories are told.
Then explore the Universe Timeline to understand how 1.3 million years of history led to this moment.
Or dive into The Stories—illustrated narratives that bring the lore to life.
In the Lumen Universe, every discovery leads to deeper enigmas. The dance between order and chaos continues unabated. The archives await.
Notable Species
Lumen Expanded Universe has 2 Followers
Major Locations
Planets
© Lumen Universe, Kyle Barrett 2024. All rights reserved.