"This is the final argument of kings." —Inscribed on a scaled-down statue of a gigantic cannon outside the Fourth Empire Royal War Museum.
Milky Way Galaxy, Unknown Regions.
On a flat star map, this was a vast region located on the western side of the Milky Way Galaxy, occupying roughly a quarter of the galaxy. Of course, the Milky Way Galaxy was three-dimensional and rotating, yet this region had always maintained that relative position.
On every map of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Unknown Regions were blank. But that blankness was relative. In truth, for the Unknown Regions, all star systems and planets had already been detected; they simply could not be reached. The total stellar mass of the Unknown Regions was approximately 15% of the entire Milky Way Galaxy.
Incidentally, there were still quite a few regions in this galaxy that had not even been detected, such as Wild Space. That region concealed even more secrets—and equally more lethal dangers.
In fact, even before the rise of the Galactic Republic, civilizations such as the Kilik Swarm and the Infinite Empire had explored the Unknown Regions, but achieved very little.
What prevented them from venturing deeper into the Unknown Regions was the chaotic hyperspace network within them. Astronomers vividly called this tangled mess of hyperspace routes the "entanglement."
Simply put, hyperspace routes elsewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy generally followed clear patterns. One route was one route, and they rarely crossed. Even when they did, the distinctions were clear and they did not interfere with one another.
Such hyperspace routes were, in fact, an exceptionally favorable environment.
The reason this galaxy contained so many entities with backward political systems but extraordinarily abundant resources and bizarrely developed technology was the existence of hyperspace routes. They allowed any civilization that mastered hyperspace-jump