WHIRLPOOL GALAXY:

For almost 2000 years, the Whirlpool Galaxy (NGC 5194) has been the home of over a billion struggling human colonies. Over 30 million lightyears removed from the cradle of humanity and with their roots long forgotten, these human colonies have no interest in archealogy. While many academics and scholars ponder the roots of the species, any solid records of how humanity came to be were lost in the galactic civil war.

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT:

The old governments of the Whirlpool Galaxy were all but annihilated as a result of the galaxy wide civil war. What had once been a thriving confederation of systems, was now nothing more than thousands of feuding, minuscule states. In the past several decades however, a new entity calling itself the "Central Government" has been seeking to reunite the galaxy under the flag of collectivism. The fledgling Central Government frequently hires the Gunmen to carry out its wishes, as it does not have the resources to maintain a standing army.

THE GUNMEN:

A spacefairing PMC-for-hire and the closest thing the Whirlpool Galaxy has to a police force. Their only allegience is to their own, and whoever can pay the most.