Through intelligence gathered from prisoners' memories, the Successors gained a general understanding of the native galactic civilization they were currently fighting.
This was a civilization developed by a race whose biological structure roughly resembled humanity's. They too had facial features, four limbs, and five fingers and toes, but they were not human. Their skeletons were twice the size of a human's, they had two powerful hearts, grayish-white rough skin, no hair, and faces resembling Voldemort from Harry Potter. They called themselves the Mann.
This was a galactic-scale civilization that had conquered its entire galaxy, the highest-level alien civilization among those the Successors had encountered that was still alive.
The Mann had discovered the existence of the Spirit Realm before they had begun exploring and expanding into the universe.
However, much like the Serene, they had produced a great and powerful figure comparable to the Sovereign. By himself, he halted the Mann's in-depth research into the Spirit Realm and sealed it away, causing the Mann to turn toward physical science instead.
With the spark of Spirit Realm technology extinguished, the light of science shone upon the Mann. Their civilization flourished, technology exploded, and they began colonizing the universe.
Their territory expanded continuously, from a single planet to their entire home star system.
As their study of the universe deepened, the Mann came to understand galaxies. They learned that their home star system was merely a drop in the ocean, and that even their home galaxy was as insignificant as dust compared to the universe as a whole.
If the Mann wanted to continue expanding, they had to solve the problem posed by the immense distances between stars.
Like the Collectors of old, they used electromagnetic acceleration in massive ring-shaped structures to reach sublight speeds for interstellar voyages. The Mann developed in