NSEarth

Nexus-System Earth, generally known as NSEarth, is one of the odder galactic anomalies - not only is it identical in size to the other Earth half a galaxy away with a vaguely similar history (albeit thousands of years behind technologically), it also appears to be entangled with variants of itself existing across a number of parallel worlds, enabling easy transit between parallel worlds without the need for high technology.

=Anomalous Characteristics=

Planets across the NSEarth system seem to mostly be entangled in small "Polka-Dot" regions usually tens of kilometers or less in diameter, in which moving along certain paths leads to a gradual shift in the traveller's worldline. These regions typically have oceanic locations outside of national territory, a fact which has been widely considered evidence for NSEarth being an artificial construct of some sort. Dots are often unreliable and can vary in size over time, a fact which has often complicated geopolitics.

Worlds within the system share common physical and orbital characteristics, though specifics of climate and geography can vary widely. Some have continents consistent with the standard Earth template, while others possess greatly changed geography that can range from massed archipelago systems to Pangeas. The general surrounding cosmology is the same for most NSEarth variants, though compared to Qhevak's Milky Way most alternate galaxies appear to be relatively uninhabited outside of NSEarth. Physical laws appear to also vary across some worlds, with wild superscience and easy magic being feasible on a number.

A large but unknown number variant Earths are accessible in the present system, though the number varies over time, with new variant Earths occasionally joining and leaving the system for unknown reasons. This fortunately appears to be a gradual process for the most part, forewarned by gradual shrinking or appearance and growth of Polka-Dots. Unexpected appearance of certain variants has occasionally caused trouble for the rest of the system, however, such as the appearance in mid-2020 of a number of Earths broadly controlled by (often short-lived) alliances of poorly governed and militaristic states.

=Society=

Most Earths are dominated by technologically Tier-6 Information Age civilizations, though the precise level of technology largely varies from Tier-0 and Tier-7 - and a few civilizations, mostly extraplanetary colonists, are even more advanced. While the size of the nexus system and the unreliability of Dots makes the emergence of true global powers infeasible, a number of worlds have gained large amounts of economic standing relative to others, such as NSEarth-4 ("Gholgoth") and NSEarth-9 ("Greater Dienstad"). While most nations are standard liberal democracies, autocratic monarchies and authoritarian socialist systems appear to be somewhat overrepresented compared to most Tier-6 worlds.

Mass warfare on NSEarth is unusually common relative to other worlds with developed Tier-6 nations, likely due to the impossibility of total civilizational destruction from even the largest inter-world conflicts. This has lead to the formation of a number of massive world spanning arms corporations, with a number (such as Kríertor Conglomerate, Lyran Arms and Wolf Armaments) having borderline superpower status in their own right.

The current largest alliance within the system is the World Assembly, an intrasystem extragovernmental body enforcing shared regulations across member states while attempting to keep the peace. The present headquarters are located on an otherwise uninhabited world near one of the more anomalous Dots, which appears to link all worlds within the system simultaneously.

The nature of the Polka Dot system makes global mass communication across the Nexus System somewhat difficult, although modern autonomous aerial drones following programmed courses across Dots can achieve fairly high information transfer rates. A number of attempts at creating NSEarth spanning social media have been attempted across the years, the most successful of which was PiffleNet, which fell apart in 2021 due to a very public child pornography scandal. One of the more popular replacements currently is PruCh, which got past budget issues with a more limited format.

Most NSEarth worlds are predominantly human, although a wide variety of intelligent species have been noted. This includes various anthropomorphic animal species (a large number of Pony dominated worlds joined the system in the early 2010s before vanishing shortly after), humans with animal characteristics such as Nekos and Spiorad, elves and dwarves, intelligent mushrooms, otherwise normal humans with cartoon or "anime" outward characteristics, and many others.

=History= NSEarth became widely known throughout the galactic community a in the early 2000s, shortly after Qhevak began to integrate itself within the galactic community. Since then, most powers have taken a relatively hands off stance towards it, though a number, including Qhevak, have sent ambassadors to the World Assembly. It has also begun to gain popularity with galactic tourists, and a number of small Qhevaki firms have even set up firms on the planet under aliases. More recently in 2020, a few members of Qhevak joined CHALICE, an alliance created partly as a joke by a number of planetary and extraplanetary powers from various universes in the system. The declaration of war on a number of NSEarthbound CHALICE members by SETA - a military alliance of nations new to the system with limited knowledge of CHALICE's true potential - lead to a very short-lived conflict in which the Qhevak-origin PMC Shivastra Offensive Services very briefly took part.

2020 also marked the growth of a coronavirus pandemic, which unexpectedly managed to spread throughout a large portion of the system. While not particularly lethal compared to other less widespread pandemics, it nonetheless resulted in a large death toll with resulting lockdowns and economic damage.