Infinity Guild

The Infinity Guild, sometimes referred to as the Great Black Empire or simply the Guild, is a massive religious conglomerate encompassing multiple species and interstellar civilizations in the Guild Expanse of the Milky Way Galaxy. Formed by the Only Hierophant and his followers more than a million years ago after the destruction of the Qutixma Worlds, the Infinity Guild upholds a durable and complex religious hierarchy dedicated to the worship of Black Infinity.

Arrival of the Hierophant (1,150,000 B.C.E. - 1,100,000 B.C.E.)
The entire history of the Infinity Guild, everything that it ever did or created, started with a single entity: the Only Hierophant. Once the leader of a vast interstellar civilization in a far away galaxy, the Only Hierophant lost his mind after glimpsing at Black Infinity through a derelict piece of Vuokra technology. His insanity drove him to destroy this civilization, and his indestructible machine body made him completely unstoppable. With the help of the Silver Conservators, he was brought to the Milky Way Galaxy and turned into a Black Witness through the power of Un. This set the Hierophant on a new path, and after gaining control of the Silver Conservators that had brought him to Nexuta, he took to influencing the various alien populations of the Guild Expanse. During this time, the Guild Expanse was under the complete control of the Qutixma Worlds, a technologically-advanced, yet oppressive, alien civilization. Ruled cooperatively by two divergent species, the Old Qutixma and New Qutixma, the Qutixma Worlds maintained a fierce grip on the lesser species occupying this region of space, siphoning their resources and implementing strict controls on colonization. These disenfranchised populations were extremely impressionable, and the Only Hierophant's religious doctrines and promises seemed very appealing to them. This made it easy for him to quickly gain a large following, and his control over the Guild Expanse grew exponentially as several alien species flocked to him, seeking revelations and refuge from the Qutixma Worlds.

It is widely believed that the Infinity Guild could not have emerged if not for the unique behavior of the Qutixma Worlds' government. Although the Old Qutixma advised caution towards the growing influence of the Only Hierophant's followers, the New Qutixma dismissed the Only Hierophant as a delusional alien storyteller and his followers as weak-willed drones. The New Qutixma, overall, were very apathetic towards organized religion, believing it was antiquated and had been superseded by their advanced technology many thousands of years ago. It was this apathy that allowed the Only Hierophant to continue spreading his religion unfettered, with the Qutixma Worlds doing very little to stop him. They remained ignorant of the true scale of the Only Hierophant's religious following, now organized as the Infinity Guild. Only when the Infinity Guild prepared to militarize against them did the Old Qutixma and New Qutixma finally realize what a grievous mistake they had made.

The Black Crusade (1,100,000 - 1,000,000 B.C.E.)
In a singular, swift motion, the Only Hierophant caused entire populations across all of Qutixma space to rise up and attack the Qutixma Worlds. Having been plotting this strike for hundreds of years, readying their weapons and technology, his innumerable followers destroyed preliminary Qutixma defenses in no time at all, spreading outward to destroy all traces of the Qutixma. This revolution was aided even by those that had no religious affiliation with the Only Hierophant, as the oppression leveraged towards several alien species that lived within the borders of the Qutixma Worlds had made the Qutixma widely detested. Having been caught completely by surprise, the Qutixma were unable to mobilize quickly enough to combat the revolutionaries. Scientists and engineers aligned with the motivations of the Guild created advanced war technologies that were of equal, if not superior, quality and design compared to those used by the Qutixma, giving them yet another advantage on top of their numbers. As the forces of the Infinity Guild brought ruination to Qutixma civilization, they acquired even more followers, forcing the Qutixma off their largest and most prosperous colonies. Despite their inability to successfully combat the forces of the Infinity Guild, both the Old Qutixma and White Qutixma refused to join them or capitulate. Their hatred of the Only Hierophant and his lackeys became stronger with every victory the Guild secured against their dwindling military, and the decision was made by the leaders of the Qutixma to flee the remnants of their once great empire and retreat into more distant regions of the Milky Way Galaxy. Fearing extinction, the Old Qutixma and New Qutixma abandoned the old grudges and qualms that had divided their species millions of years ago, and combined together into a single species: the White Qutixma. The Qutixma now had a singular purpose: to stop the Infinity Guild at all costs. Establishing new colonies on the outskirts of Guild territory, the White Qutixma worked tirelessly to develop a more effective countermeasure against the encroach of the Guild. Eventually, they succeeded, creating the infamous Qutixma Null Obelisks. These tremendous rectangular devices were dispersed throughout newly-occupied regions of Qutixma space, inhibiting FTL travel for all non-Qutixma spacecraft. The sheer density of Null Obelisk saturation made these areas of space totally impassable for all outside civilizations, and gave rise to their names, the Great Divide and Bleak Divide. Although his followers wanted to pursue the Qutixma and wipe them out for good, the Only Hierophant chose to have the forces of the Infinity Guild draw back. The creation of the Null Obelisks would have severely impeded their invasions into White Qutixma territory, and the Only Hierophant took them as a sign that he should consolidate the Guild's control over the territory it already had and establish a more proper civilization. This marked the end of the Black Crusade, and left the Milky Way Galaxy in a radically changed state. The creation of the Great Divide and Bleak Divide separated the Infinity Guild from the Spur Trinity, barring most large-scale attempts to colonize this region of space. Consequently, the various intelligent lifeforms and civilizations that would emerge in the Spur Trinity were largely ignorant of the Infinity Guild's presence, allowing it to retain an aura of mystery that enshrined the organization for its entire history.