Andromeda - the backstory

The beginning 

More than 14.000 years ago from where the story starts, an advanced alien race from their home world "Tarn Vedra" discovered a solution for interstellar travel: The Slipstream. Using the graviton strings between solar systems, they developed generators that would allow ships to use a different space dimension to travel along those strings. Like that, a ship could reach different galaxies in very short time.

The Vedrans decided to share their technology and formed the System's Commonwealth, a civilization that would span 3 galaxies: The Milky Way, Triangulum and Andromeda. The Commonwealth was a multicultural society that would unify many different races under one political administration and was long considered the greatest civilization of all times with millions of member worlds.
The Commonwealth also had its own military unit that would protect it against odds: The High Guard. Equipped with a vast fleet of thousands of ships, the High Guard possessed the most advanced technology of the three galaxies, including sentient warships with a highly developed A.I.

One of those ships was the Andromeda Ascendant, a 1,3km long vessel of the Glorious Heritage class, flag-ship of the High Guard. With a crew of over 4.000 men and women, Captain Dylan Hunt was the latest commanding officer of the Andromeda Ascendant. 

The Fall of the Commonwealth 

Despite the technological power of the High Guard, the Commonwealth, which now existed for 9.766 years suddenly found itself threatened massively. A race called the Magog attacked member worlds of the Commonwealth without warning and slaughtered every living person. The casualties were extremely high, especially for the Nietzscheans, a member race of the Commonwealth, consisting of genetically engineered humans who are organized in prides (tribes) and live strictly after the philosophies of Nietzsche.

Every attempt to follow and trace back the origin of the Magog failed with the destruction of the High Guard ships as a result. Seeing themselves incapable to defeat the enemy, the Commonwealth signed a non-aggression pact with the Magog on Antares. Although this would secure peace for a certain period of time, this contract aroused massive riots within the Commonwealth. The Nietzscheans saw the contract as a sign of weakness and secretly developed plans to take over the Commonwealth.

During a routine mission, the Andromeda Ascendant was hailed by a distress call from the Hephaistos system, a world with mostly Nietzschean population which was threatened by a black hole. As the Andromeda emerged from slipstream, it immediately came under fire by 10.000 waiting Nietzschean vessels. It was an ambush, especially since the Andromeda could not escape through slipstream due to the gravitational distortions from the black hole.
Its captain, Dylan Hunt, decided to evacuate the Andromeda in order to warn the High Guard about the treachery of the Nietzscheans. In order to save the Andromeda, he tried a slingshot maneuver around the black hole, only with the aid of his Than pilot who remained aboard and the Andromeda's AI. The ship however was sabotaged by the first officer Gaheris Rhade, who was a Nietzschean himself. Dylan managed to kill Gaheris, but the Andromeda drifted so close to the event horizon that the ship froze in time for 300 years.

The long night

Although the crewmembers of the Andromeda managed to warn to Commonwealth, the resulting war drained resources on both sides, resulting in the ultimate defeat of the High Guard. The Nietzschean fleet was massively narrowed down as well, however. Instead of forming a Nietzschean Empire, the prides engaged in distrust and fought against each other. The known worlds were now scattered in a power vacuum. The more advanced races like the Than or the Perseids retreated and lived in an isolated community. The Vedrans, founders of the Commonwealth, even managed to cut off their home world Tarn Vedra from slipstream and were totally isolated from the rest of the universe.

Most worlds however suffered from the opportunism and struggle for power of individuals. Slavery, anarchy and chaos were the things that characterized the long night.

Andromeda rescued

After 300 years, the freighter Eureka Maru started a rescue mission to Hephaistos. The Andromeda Ascendant had become a legend and the crew of the Eureka Maru was engaged for a treasure hunt. They found and rescued the Andromeda from the black hole, not knowing that its captain was still aboard. The captain of the Eureka Maru, Beka Valentine and her crew boarded the Andromeda in order to take the ship over. With the aid of Seamus Harper, the engineer, they managed to get access to some of the systems. Dylan Hunt however - in his own territory - managed to defend the ship and learned from Harper what had happened during the long night. 

When the orderer of the Eureka Maru noticed that he could not take over the ship, he pushed the Andromeda towards the black hole, so no one else could have it. Being betrayed and left for death, the crew of the Eureka Maru joined Dylan and together found a way to escape the black hole. Dylan saw it as his duty to try to find remnants of the Commonwealth and to bring it to life again. He even managed to get the members of the Eureka Maru as his new crew. Those six, who had lived a scavenger life before would now form the crew of the Andromeda Ascendant, which had carried a crew of 4.000 before. Together, they started on a seemingly futile mission...