Known Space is the vast region, currently numbering forty-one intact spheres (along with an uncounted assortment of stars and other interstellar artefacts and anomalies) where the Constitutional Dominion of Illuminated Spheres is generally recognized as the primary power. Merchants trade, scientists investigate, technomancers experiment, entrepreneurs speculate, craftsmen toil, and pioneers homestead within and between the spheres under the jurisdiction of Dominion Law as enforced by the Constitutional Dominion Navy. Its many ships patrol the whole enormous expanse, trying with uncompromising and unsentimental efficiency to maintain order.

Only about 25% of all stars are associated with the deific intervention that results in the creation of spheres. With rare exceptions, the frequent small, cool red stars and the occasional enormous blues and blue-whites are generally believed to have coalesced spontaneously from the clouds of protomatter and energy that drift through the Everflowing and are not delineated by spheres.

Although the causative cosmology isn't well understood, and there is much speculation as to whether the development of a yellow star encourages the emergence of a god or gods, or whether it is the gods who control the formation of the star, it is generally accepted that the beautiful yellows are the Life-Bringers, wombs of first deific, and then of mortal life, sheltered from chaos within their Crystal Spheres.

However, while the facts of their creation is a subject for discussion, much is indisputably known about the Life-Bringers themselves. They range in colour from (hottest to coolest) palest yellow-white, light yellow, yellow, gold and orange, have a surface temperature that ranges between 12000 and 9000 degrees (Fahrenheit), weigh between 1250 septillion to 800 septillion tons…and endure long enough to nourish the life on their planets for many billions of years.

Known Space does not include the spheres of the Illithid Hegemony, but the Navy is ever vigilant, patrolling the marches between against the incursions of the merciless and brutal illithid slavers and pirates.

• Criminal violations
• Sociopolitical violations
• Environmental violations
• Theological violations
• Financial violations
• Cultural violations