But arriving in the ruined system known as 1150 Red, the Monarch is immediately stranded and beset on all sides by the ghosts of a fallen human civilization...

The story will follow the crew of the UES Monarch, one of the last members of the military's exploration fleet, or ExFleet.

The crew of the Monarch travel to a dangerous corner of discovered space, chasing a thin rumor that a second earth has been discovered just beyond the edge of the map.

We journeyed to the stars to find ourselves in some great other. But without that other, without that mirror, we are lost.

And the same questions arise in a new context:
"Why are we here?"
"What's the point?"
"Are we alone?"

And I wanted to ask similar questions in an opposite environment--what is the place of humanity in a universe that has confirmed our isolation? What if the galaxy really is empty, and every planet we thought could hold life was actually as lifeless and dead as Mars and Venus?

Much of Star Trek is time spent musing about humanity's place in the wider universe, but I always found it curious how they have to contextualize themselves within a galaxy full of life--and specifically full of like that looks like humans, and in some cases are compatible.

I was originally inspired by the tone and feel of films like Alien and Bladerunner, but more specifically I wanted to use Ozymandias to respond to works like Star Trek that often utilize a vast array of humanoid aliens that populate the galaxy.

What is Ozymandias? Partly inspired by the Percy Shelley poem, Ozymandias is going to be a dark character study that explores human solitude, and our place in the universe.