The Universe.

Year 3548 AD, 1023 AE (After Earth)

Star Nations:
The Alliance: The Alliance is the largest star nation ever to have existed, made up of humans super-soldiers and various alien species. The Alliance spans three fully populated galaxies where all planets found with sufficient conditions have been terraformed otherwise to survive on otherwise uninhabitable planets one must stay within the domes. Earth was destroyed by one of the races the alliance was formed in order to defeat the death of the home planet was the rallying cry to form such a powerful nation back when mankind was still exploring the milky way. Since then inter galactic travel was discovered and perpetual expansionism led to their vast expanse. All nations that border the Alliance are either absorbed peacefully or through warfare. The Alliance is, a republic style government where selected officials represent inhabited star systems to vote in a parliament, unfortunately due to vast corruption (and the invention of planetary mind control devices, but you wouldn't know about those) the populations concerns (if they could have any) are irrelevant to the Alliances interests. Instead the leaders each follow their own goals which primarily involve lining their pockets further. Although the real power behind the Alliance is it's highly trained (and pretty much allowed to do whatever they chose, but they run the mind control centers so what they say is law) core of psionics, only the most powerful psions are allowed to enter as well as such strict requirements allow for the exlusion of 'do-gooders' messing up the whole scheme.


The Guild: We Know. Anything for a price.

The guild is, well mostly an underground organization that it's true size and measure is known only by it's the 'The guildmaster' who is a anonymous stranger some people question if he or she even exists at all. As far as anyone else can tell the guild has operatives at every level everywhere people have civilized. Gathering information, spreading misinformation and stealing things that aren't nailed down and if it can be pried up it wasn't nailed down good enough. The main reason they exist even in the shadow of the alliance is testament to their infiltrations, the guild headquarters is a star system a mere 125 lightyears from the star system Solaris (The one your in IRL. Also the Alliance capital) and is the only free star system in the milky way. Suffice it to say, if you like the guild they can prove powerful allies. If you act against the guild however, they will strike back and not stop until the last trace of your existence is wiped from history. Make no mistake, while the guild does partake in plenty of legal activities it is a criminal organization.

The Republic of Hern:
The republic of Hern is a large star nation by it's own right existing at the far fringes of known space, it encompasses 13 solar systems many of which are poverty stricken and for such a distant future so far behind the tech curve. The largest advantages of this nation is despite it's lack of funding or technological superiority alliances with the guild prevent the Alliance from noticing them so they can focus on a government for their population. Terraforming planets takes a lot of time and money.

Small and Nearly Inconsequential Nations:

Pirate Organizations:

Red Nimbus.

Alpha Centuri Brigade

Druiki

Black Claws.

[To be finished as I get it worked out][u]

The Ancients:
Once a powerful civilization of millions, possibly trillions the ancients have evolved beyond caring about the other races and simply wish to live out in peace. The universe if dotted with the debris of not only this race but the millions of races which evolved and fought them in epic space battles long before mankind had even evolved. Due to the eons of warfare, the loss of their home planet hundreds of millions of years ago and simply a dwindling population the members of this super advanced race have dwindled down to a mere 13 survivors with relics of there past dotting the known universe.

Religion
Most of the known universe is atheist as most people believe science has proven beyond all doubt that Gods do not exist. This isn't to say that there isn't still small religious groups dotting known space, it's just to say that 95% of everybody does not believe in anything they don't see with their own eyes or at least nothing that math cannot prove the existence of. How this affects your characters? it's up to you, free will (kind of) still exists and as such you can still freely chose your characters religion and even make one completely up (including up to 10k other believers existing, unless your the one you want them worshiping) if you so chose.