CAPTAIN SEYMOUR DICKLOGIC BOLDLY COMES 1.

It is the latter half of the twenty fifth century A.H.T. No one is quite sure why but it's nearly two and a half thousand years after something really serious known to galactic historians only as The Horrible Turn. Hence A.H.T. is After Horrible Turn(TM).

Baseball is mentioned in the historical documents as a blood thirsty sport of uncivilised barbarians long before The Horrible Turn.

Nearly two thousand five hundred years after something really horrible happened, men are real men, women are real women and furverts from Alpha Centauri were wiped out by a deadly yiffing virus. No one realised until it was too late, but as they contributed absolutely nothing to society, no-one cared. The only entry in the Galactopedia mentions something about eggplants.

The human race has been spreading across the stars for so long that they have long forgotten where they have come from. But not old enmities, because well, they never really liked people who were different in the first place. In this sense, the Furverts of Alpha Centauri pre-emptively proved the God Darwin existed and that they were unfit. Mankind was anything but kind, they were however, very good at going forth and mating with anything that had the right sort of orifices, or could cook, or go "meh~" properly.

Many of the less socially capable types found the real men insufferable, probably because they got all the real women and nothing was left for them except... And thus even as they rejected a society that expect them to conform to simple honourable standards, the society rejected them. And this was society's greatest mistake, by not pandering to a generation of ever so special toxic snowflakes, they forced them out into the emptiness of space to form their own parody of Mankind devoid of all the merits and completely without a sense of humour.

The Hive Collective, formed almost a thousand years ago and they are still bitter about being rejected. Although due to poor record keeping, and even worse education caused by parental selfishness, no one except The Great Matriarchs remember any of this history. These same matriarch now control almost every part of their culture, breeding entirely by the use of photocopiers and parthenogensis as quite honestly, the men of the Hive Collective were… Nevertheless, and despite everything about their founding, the Hive Collective grew rapidly and in a disorganised manner as their fleets fled Tried to prove their worst enemy wrong. What they lack in qwolity, they make up for in quantity and some of the Hive Collective's military have displayed uncommon success normally attributable to marking the cards.

Due to poor record keeping, it is also entirely possible that this founding of a fledgling nation of special snowflakes was The Horrible Turn. It is also possible that certain parties in The Manliance re-wrote history for their own benefit. But that way lies the rabbit holes of planet Conpiratorious IV, none who explore them return...

Even worse, it is possible that the rumoured poor record keeping in ancient history is in fact a cover up and that society is only six hundred years old. But no one seriously believes that or they never come back from the interviews.

The Manliance, devoid of special snowflakes, became devoted to the three totems of manliness, real men must be real men, women are good for only one thing and that involves kitchens, and beer. And keep your mitts off the goats.

Everything was fabulous until they discovered that some of their most manlificent tenets were wrong. This was one of the most wrenching Horrible Turns(TM) that the Manliance ever experienced and it caused a long period of re-alignment. The best beer in the galaxy was brewed by a woman, sex was better with women on top and Space Goats were dangerous. Not just dangerous but real "holy shit they ate my ship!" dangerous.

After this critical period of inequality, the Manliance modified their three totems of manliness and got on with the business of being manly. Thus started the modern age of manliness. About one thousand three hundred years ago. Or three hundred if you believe the crazies.

What about aliens? Indeed, there are many aliens but the worse aliens are those you can see in a mirror. Wars with aliens and how they were resolved tell a lot about society, the study of this also provides historians with a decent income as those who fail to learn from history will soon become what they failed to learn.

The Manliance practices tolerance, if that doesn't work, annihilation sounds good and this is why they have The Space Orcs Marines! Tales of their acts of daring make great action films although 3D has long been abandoned for anything except films of decidedly salubrious goings on. Needless to say, tolerance and having the right sort of dangly bits and orifices has worked a lot more often than annihilation. But there are Space Orcs Marines anyway, because sometimes you just have to kill everything or they won't learn. Many historians regret not deploying them when this approach had been a viable cure for The Hive Collective. They forget that the space orcs marines were only founded in 1775 A.H.T. This is likely an issue with selective record keeping. That or the tradition of cooking the books.

There is a third empire, but to reveal anything more than the fact they exist would ruin the plot. At this time, pretend you didn't read this bit. This paragraph does not exist and your eyes are playing tricks on you.

After centuries of ignoring each other's existence. The Manliance and The Hive Collective finally became aware that they were mutual enemies of such magnitude that even the Existential God Cat would not come out of his box for either of them. There was nothing for it but to declare a state of lasting enmity and engage in various forms of espionage. One of the worst being The Galactovision Song Contest, but that is now under a moratorium.

The unaligned planets, populated in the first great diaspora, now became a point of contention between The Hive Collective's Collectors and The Manliance's Navel Survey. Every free world that joined the Manliance was an insult to the Hive Collective, every world that went the other way, the Manliance simply redrew the official maps and refused all contact. Some worlds realised this, others had politicians.

Many planets refused to sway either way, especially those without politicians... in the ever shrinking zone between the two great empires, and the Manliance welcomed them, traded with them and gleefully defended them against misguided armadas of the Hive Collective in exchange for free trade.

Many great and decisive battles were fought near these stars. The Battle of Big Toe, The Battle of Dim Sum and The Giant Toilet Offensive. Great military leaders sent fleet after fleet into the buffer zone as they tried to bring the two eternal enemies into direct conflict. Accidentally on purpose sorry was that your planet we mistakenly destroyed?

Legendary Admirals, renown statesmen, even though many of them were women, the Manliance had them all. Gender neutral titles were banned because they were un-manly. Comedians like the ever popular Captain Dull became famous for boldly discussing "salesperson", "personscaping" and other weird terms, nothing was sacred to Captain Dull.

Except for the galaxy's best brewery, which was run by a woman. Mrs Grimley and her double-stoat lube was to die for. Indeed, many Naval bases kept a large stock of her beverages. It also prevented scurvy.

Yet some planets were not contested over, what sort of game was The Manliance playing?

In the latter years of the twenty fifth century, The Manliance's Navy under the command of their most manlificent man since the incident on page fourteen, Rear Admiral Bottom, hatched a dastardly plan to take the battle for Manlificence right into the enemy's back garden. Together with the most secret agent the Navy had never realised existed, they planned a plan so daring, so devilish that many people thought it was the plot of a space soap. A secret agent who was so secret that no one knows her name. Or even if she is really a female she, or blonde.

Indeed it was, and that was a stroke of pure genius. Operation Vodka Volcano was on. But first, they needed to find the secret cold sleep tomb of the greatest commander the Manliance had ever know.

It would not be easy, all the records had been destroyed or twisted beyond recognition by history professors suffering from publish-or-die regimes.

Captain Seymour DickLogic, the Manliance needs you.