The Milky Way. Our galaxy. It's great expanse was far greater than we ever imagined. What else was out there, and who else was out there? Humanity set out to answer the countless questions about our galaxy. After only a few centuries, we shot forth into the stars. Not driven by some disaster on our homeworld, nor by fear of something there, but by curiosity and the burning desire to explore. We discovered and colonized dozens of new worlds, and, eventually, found another race like us. Together, our technology and cultures exploded into a New Renaissance. It wasn't long until a more advanced race found us and shot out technology even further along. Years later, we found another race, and another, and another, until nearly ten sentient races were known to exist and seven of them joined the Union of Intergalactic Powers, a peace treaty declaring free trade and travel between the races and their colonies. Then came the creation of the Warp Rings, a massive array of rings with the ability to create wormholes within them. Through these rings, we were able to travel in days our hours what used to take years. But as the races colonized planet after planet, criminals found their task easier than ever before. It wasn't long before bandits, gangs, thugs, and all other kinds of scum had become a plague that infected every colonized world in the known galaxy.
And that's where the Bounty Hunters come in. The rising crime rate was too much for local or even galactic government to handle, and bounty hunting became the best solution. Bounty hunters popped up in all corners of civilization, some more successful than others. Crime fell rapidly with the increase of hunter and bounty hunting was soon officially announced the most profitable freelancer job in the galaxy, and the most dangerous.
This is where our story begins. In a certain quadrant of the Milky Way, two bounty hunters, a dreaded tag-team, had found a name for themselves and were forging a reputation like none other. They traveled in their speedy yacht, the Regalia, and were feared by scum wherever they set foot. None could escape them. As their fame grew, so did their enemies, and they eventually funded the building of a battleship exclusively for the use of bounty hunters they deemed worthy. An ex-admiral was given the ship, which they had named the Versailles, under oath of fealty to the two hunters.
Even still, they found that the enemies of the hunters were everywhere, and a safe haven was no where to be found. And so they built one. Using their extensive private funds, the two built the ultimate warship and deemed it the Sanctuary. It was the pinnacle of power in space. Its space particle engine dueled as a massive laser cannon, and was faster than any other ship in the cosmos. They equipped it with a vast array of weapons and defenses, as well as a state-of-the-art cloak field generator.
Eventually, the Sanctuary became known as a ghost ship and a safe haven for hunters in trouble or danger. Desperate hunters sought it out when they were in dire need, and it always found them. It rescued many a stranded or drifting ship. But no one knew the truth behind it and its mechanized crew and AI. The truth that it had been built by two of the most infamous and rich bounty hunters in the galaxy.
So the hunters, with their fleet of the Versailles, the Regalia, and the elusive Sanctuary, carved out the worst of the worst scum known to civilization, and searched the stars for adventure.
