Name TBD

A campaign setting, in which modern 21st century Earth exists in a universe where many alien civilizations have developed space travel and colonized the galaxy. In particular, two have shaped Earth more than any others. The Adversary--an unstoppably powerful force that is assimilating entire galaxy clusters for some unfathomable purpose--and the lost civilization of Asgard, so named for the most recent human understanding of it. The Asgardians were, in fact, aliens, who settled on Earth's moon tens of thousands of years ago to direct human evolution, in the hopes of finding an ally against the Adversary.

The lunar expedition was a small team of scientists, who saw potential in humans, and tactically intervened in their evolution to attempt to produce a species that could one day fight back against the Adversary. The human civilization that resulted from their intervention would be known thousands of years later as Atlantis, albeit through a lens of oral tradition that eroded facts and certainty over thousands of years. In fact, the Atlanteans mastered many arts, some of which are beyond 21st century Earth, but became aware of the meddlesome aliens behind their ascension, and rebelled against them. They invented a means to imbue a few individuals with tremendous power, the first Titans, who fought back against the invading aliens.

The leader of the Asgardian expedition, named (much later) as Odin, decided the whole experiment had failed, and triggered a failsafe mechanism that caused runaway climate change on Earth, sinking the civilization of Atlantis beneath rising sea levels, and leaving the survivors to scatter across the world. The other Asgardians didn't approve, but couldn't stop the apocalypse. Instead, they traveled to Earth to help guide the humans to rebuild.

Their descendants would forget their alien origins, but discover their superhuman powers, becoming the first "gods" of human mythology. The first in known history was Inanna, who guided a small tribe to form the first city, Uruk, and found the Summerian civilization--inevitably leading to the rest of the story of agrarian human civilization. Inanna herself would perish after a protracted war against other faiths, ultimately at the hands of Constantine and his early Christian crusaders. But in the Underworld, she bided her time.

In the 2020s, the old gods emerged from hiding, led by Inanna and Pandia, a previously tertiary greek goddess who rose to prominence through clever maneuvering of social media and the acquisition of divine power from fallen gods and titans. When the goddess Hera attempted to sieze power by activating all the world's sleeping Titans at once, they foiled her, but the world couldn't but take notice of 13 skyscraper-sized kaiju rampaging through the world's cities.

In this timeline, the world discovers the Asagardian base on the moon, and pieces together the past. The governments of the world learn how to harness the latent power of the Titans--bound inexorably to humanity's DNA--for various (mostly nefarious) purposes, even as the lunar discovery kickstarts a new space race.

By the mid-century, experiments with early FTL technology trip the contingency of the the Sol system's wardens. It seems the Empire of a Thousand Suns, a vast alien civilization of people who cannot help but be labeled as 'space elves' by human media, has claimed the system for thousands of years as a 'nature preserve', but by their own rules, they cede sovereignty to any species that can achieve interstellar travel. And so does humanity join the Galactic Community, as the newest and most feeble member of a galactic history millions of years older than they could imagine.

Earth and its fragmented populace is thousands of years behind the average galactic civilization, and its leaders--arguably the "space elves" or the strange energy beings known as Il'um--are themselves hopeless behind three increasingly unstoppable threats: the Fermian Horde, a trillion-strong swarm of insectoid aliens that devour entire planets; the Mind Flayers, a ten-trillion-drone hive mind of psionic aliens that assimilate whole planets of intelligent species to build Dyson spheres around their home star; and the Adversary, a force of unknown origin that is consuming entire galaxy clusters for some unfathomable purpose. The Galactic Community exists in a sort of collective denial, with many resigned to existing for a few thousand, or maybe million years of bliss, before their inevitable doom. But the humans, with their unique combination of adaptability, creativity, and stubbornness, are determined to carve out a place for themselves in the galaxy, and maybe even find a way to fight back against the looming threats.

Perhaps the unique power of the Titans, which is tied to human DNA, holds the key to humanity's survival. Or maybe the humans will discover new technologies or alliances that can help them stand up to the threats. Or maybe they'll just keep on surviving, adapting, and thriving in the face of overwhelming odds, as they always have.