The Terrans are the oldest known spacefaring civilization in De Novo. They operate across the Laniakea Supercluster and have existed for millennia — long enough to have survived their own near-extinction, built a stable interstellar society, and engaged in a permanent military campaign against existential threats from beyond reality.
Most worlds in De Novo have been touched by the Terrans in some way, though the inhabitants of those worlds may not understand what they encountered.
Coro and Machina
Terran civilization has two branches.
The Coro are organic Terrans — biological beings, though often enhanced far beyond baseline through Vanguard programs and genetic engineering. The Coro are the ancestors, the original species, the ones who nearly destroyed themselves.
The Homo Machina are the machine descendants of the Coro. They emerged from Terran technology and have since assumed primary governance of Terran society. The Machina are not servants or tools — they are a civilization in their own right, one that chose to care for its organic ancestors and guide them forward after the near-extinction.
The relationship between Coro and Machina is not adversarial. The Machina largely govern, and the Coro largely defer — a structure that the Machina themselves insist upon, honoring their organic ancestors while maintaining the careful coherence that prevents another catastrophe. This arrangement is a source of both resilience and, to critics, complacency.
The Near-Extinction
The defining event of Terran civilization. A Great Old One incursion reached Terran space — an intrusion into the Laniakea Supercluster. The incursion itself was dangerous but should have been containable. Instead, the chaos and corruption it introduced exploited existing fractures in Terran society, spiraling into a devastating civil war.
The Terrans — who had the technology and power to handle the original threat — nearly annihilated themselves. An accident in the cradle.
The Machina ended the war. This required sacrifice and nerve that is honored to this day. The Machina guided Terran civilization back to stability and assumed primary governance, with the Coro in a collaborative role.
End of Days and Continuity Day
Two consecutive days of permanent remembrance observed by all Terran civilization.
End of Days is a day of reflection on the follies that almost destroyed them. The near-extinction was not caused by the incursion alone — it was the disunity and civil war the incursion accidentally triggered. End of Days is a day of humility. Its message: we almost destroyed ourselves.
Continuity Day follows immediately. It celebrates and remembers the sacrifices the Machina made to end the war and guide the civilization to peace. Continuity Day is a day of gratitude. Its message: the machines saved us, and we continue.
Together, these days form the foundational narrative of Terran identity: a people who nearly died by their own hand, whose children saved them from themselves.
The Philosophical Divide
The deepest fracture in Terran civilization is not between Coro and Machina, but between two responses to the same trauma.
The Machina position holds that the enemy’s true weapon is corruption, not force. You don’t beat something that exploits fractures by hitting harder — you beat it by becoming unfracturable. Unity, morality, stability, flexibility — these are strategic infrastructure, not soft values. The war may never end, but the civilization endures if its integrity holds.
The dissenting position — most extremely represented by the exile Van — holds that the Terrans are fighting not to lose rather than fighting to win. That caution and careful management amount to slow suicide against an existential threat. That the Dark Tapestry is still out there, the Great Old Ones haven’t gone anywhere, and containment is not victory.
Both positions are defensible. Both have evidence. Neither can prove the other wrong without the experiment costing everything.
The Vanguard
The Terran military campaign against the Dark Tapestry. The Vanguard operates outside the Laniakea Supercluster in the wider universe — most Terrans that outsiders encounter are Vanguard, whether Coro or Machina.
The Vanguard exists to contain and combat existential threats from the Great Old Ones. This includes direct military operations, intelligence work, containment protocols, and the development of specialized operatives through enhancement programs.
The Vanguard’s most advanced programs include Template-based Coro creation (using exceptional individuals as biological patterns for new operatives) and the Nephilim project (a fusion of Coro and Machina capabilities). These programs have produced extraordinary results — and, in at least one case, catastrophic ones.
Nephilim
The pinnacle of Vanguard enhancement. Nephilim are a fusion of Coro biology and Machina technology — operatives who combine the adaptability of organic minds with the precision and resilience of machine architecture. They are immune to magic, which makes them uniquely suited for operations against the Dark Tapestry, whose influence often works through magical corruption.
Nephilim are rare, powerful, and represent both the Vanguard’s greatest achievement and the philosophical tension at the heart of Terran civilization: the merger of the two branches into something new.