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Three hundred years ago, the Gates that connected the galaxy-spanning Empire of Man fell silent — not from war or judgment, but from simple, catastrophic failure no one left alive can explain. Cut off from the wider empire, the frontier world of Eridea Sector collapsed into a dark age of scavenged technology, warring successor states, and forgotten colonies.

Houston Cole never asked to be part of any of this. A mechanical engineering graduate on Earth, he dies in the same instant his own overambitious invention explodes in his face — and wakes up centuries later and a galaxy away, his mind transplanted into the derelict body of an ancient Empire-era industrial robot, stranded on a nameless scrap planet at the edge of known space.

Alone, without a body he recognizes as his own, and with no way home, Houston does the only thing he knows how to do: build. Piece by scavenged piece, using a dead engineer's manuals and a half-broken 3D printer, he claws his way from bare survival toward something like a future — while slowly discovering that the mind now running his machine is no longer entirely human.

Beyond his scrapyard horizon, an Empire without legitimacy, an Alliance born from resistance, and corporations that outlived the fall are carving up what's left of civilization. Houston doesn't know it yet, but Eridea Sector is running out of room for anyone who stays neutral for long.

A Stellaris and Starsector inspired novel

Tags:
Stellaris/action/fantasy/space/interstellar/fleetbattles/space battles/fanfiction/AI/nonhumanmc/robot/advancedtechnology/dragons/crisis/fallenempires/spaceship/civilization/strategy/system/overpowered/pirates/futuristic/warinheaven/

Chapter 1 - Rewrite