{Excerpts from the Martian Republic’s Official Encyclopeadia}

Adversary Culture: culture at the centre of the ‘Final War’ presented in the Precursor Archives discovered on Mars in 2023.

According to the Archives account, the Adversaries pushed the Precursor Culture to the brink of extinction before disappearing suddenly from known space. Due to ambiguities in the Archives, which have yet to be completely translated, it is unclear whether the Adversaries were human or not.

Precursor Culture: pre-Terran human culture surviving on Mars until 20 000 BC; remains of their cities still survive under the surface of Mars, and much conjecture has gone into the connection between the Precursors and many ancient artifacts on the surface of Earth.

Once spread throughout most of the galactic arm, the Precursors were nearly eradicated in a war with the Adversary Culture. After the Adversaries disappeared, pockets of Precursors survived on Earth, Mars, Sh’ar’n, and several other worlds. Without the ability to maintain the advanced technology of their antecedents, some survivors having been bombed back into the dark ages, the Descendant Cultures lost most of there heritage.

It was the discovery of the Precursor Archives on Mars that led to many scientific finds, such as warp drives and inexpensive, clean fusion, which gave the embryonic Martian Republic the edge it needed to defeat the corporate powers of Earth, and gave us the ability to travel beyond our own solar system and contact other Descendant Cultures, such as the Sh’Ar’n.