For those who thought that space exploration beyond the solar system was an impossibility, delimited by the laws of physics, the true last frontier that humanity had to reach for was virtual reality.

At the end of the 22nd century, in the year 2189, this frontier was finally reached.

The place where the dream of many was realized was in Europe, and those who achieved what many others considered impossible were a group of enthusiasts who called themselves  "Seven Stars".

Named "Virtual Reality Immersion Device", whose official acronym was "VRID", the result of their great effort and unwavering determination, the device successfully immersed human consciousness in a virtual environment.

Inevitably, the VRID attracted the gaze of the world. However, a series of unfortunate events ended up preventing this dream from being fully realized.

The strangest of these events was the mysterious disappearance of four of those seven developers of the device. Officially, they had simply disappeared without a single trace. Unofficially, many rumors emerged about this mysterious case. Kidnapped by a company that wanted the VRID technology, or by some government agency that wanted to use it for war purposes. It was it even said that the four developers had ended up totally immersed inside the virtual environment made possible by the VRID.

Whatever the truth behind the disappearance of four of the Seven Stars’ members, the truth is that this was only the least of their problems in moving from the development stage to the commercialization process.

The biggest problem of the VRID was its high production costs. The components of the device and the complicated manufacturing process made it nearly unaffordable.

Having lost most of its developers, which made it impossible to focus on reducing the cost of components and simplifying the production process, the VRID was abandoned, and with it the dream called "virtual reality".

By the year 2229, when the world had already forgotten the VRID, the project was resumed.

Secretly, a new group of enthusiasts in Asia managed to convince the last survivor of Seven Stars to give them all the data of their project.

Thus, at the beginning of the 23rd century, in the year 2301, Five Stars, the name adopted by the new group of developers, introduced VRID 2.0 to the world.

Five Stars did not have to do much to make the VRID affordable. The passage of time and constant human technological development did most of the work.

Exceeding any expected expectations, VRID 2.0 was an overwhelming success. A great achievement considering that during the first two years the device only two virtual reality video games were released, which were SimSocialPlay and Gates of Nashrem.

SimSocialPlay, less a video game, was practically a virtual reality social network. It consisted of a series of virtual rooms in which VRID 2.0 users could interact with each other using avatars created by themselves.

Gates of Nashrem was a multiplayer role-playing video game set in a fantasy world. It was nothing more than an improved and refined VRID-Nash-Rem with better graphics, a trial game originally developed by Seven Stars for the first VRID.

By the year 2306, the number of virtual reality video games was over one hundred, and by the year 2310, the number was over a thousand video games.

Among the large number of companies that developed virtual reality video games, both professionals and amateurs, one of them started to stand out in a notorious way, Ignis Games.

With Etherborn Online as its flagship game, Ignis Games began absorbing many small developers and their projects. Among these projects, there was one that turned out to be an uncut diamond, and in just two months after its release was cataloged by the critics as the best video game in the history of VRID 2.0. Its name was Conquest Online, or ‘CO’.

Conquest Online was a video game that broke any paradigm set by all the virtual reality video games till then.

It was not just another role-playing video game, shooter, or Sim-life like the ones that flooded the market. Conquest Online was a game of strategy, tactics, and management.

Conquest Online was also not a video game that encouraged cooperation between players, like all other video games in the market till then did. In Conquest Online, there were no alliance systems, clans, or diplomatic dealings beyond the simplest words between players.

With all this, Conquest Online took a step aside in comparison to the rest of virtual reality video games, setting its own rules and its own, unique style.

"There can only be one conqueror!"

With such a challenging and forceful slogan, Conquest Online challenged players with a very clear ultimate goal - total individual conquest of their virtual world.

Not surprisingly, with all that it offered, hundreds of thousands of players who had accepted the challenge saturated the game’s first and only server.

During the first three months after launch, Conquest Online was a worldwide trend in all the social networks and even in conventional media. The fierce battle royal between players was a spectacle that made most forget the many pay-to-play accusations about it.

As the months went by, the brutal mechanics of the game began to show their consequences. The number of active players was notoriously reduced to only a few hundred.

Nine months after the release, when there were only 13 active players left in the game, making it clear that the final goal of the game was about to be achieved, Ignis Games made a big announcement.

To the delight of those wishing to try out such a competitive game and those seeking revenge, a second server was launched.

Ignis Games put Conquest Online back into the focus of the eyes of the world.