systems an independent sovereign government henceforth to be known as the Interstellar Cultural Confederation (ICC) and revolution was begun. A series of highly organized surprise attacks drove the UGTO forces from ICC space". The UGTO and ICC continue to war for many years. In 2266 a UGTO explorer ship disappears in the Sirius system. After investigation by both UGTO and ICC intelligence a joint force arrives to investigate. The taskforce is attacked by an unknown assailant and takes heavy casualties, but the UGTO manages to capture one of the enemy ships. The ship is piloted by an alien species named the K'luth, who reveal themselves to human colonies soon thereafter. The DarkSpace game begins in the midst of a human civil war, which has been intensified by reports of an alien species aggressively spreading its domain throughout the known universe. Development history Inception DarkSpace was created by Palestar, an independent development company founded by Richard "Faustus" Lyle. Lyle had the idea for DarkSpace in 1995, when he wanted to make a "massively multiplayer game with real-time elements based in the Master of Orion universe"; Lyle said that "Netrek, Starfleet Command, and Masters of Orion [were] the principle influences on DarkSpace". After getting the game to a playable alpha state in 2000, Palestar teamed up with Blue Byte to publish the game. Blue Byte, attempting to leverage the brand power their Battle Isle series, rechristened the game Battle Isle V: DarkSpace. Prior to the publishing agreement Palestar had offered closed beta test signups on their website. After Blue Byte became involved they handled the testing arrangements instead. In early 2001, Blue Byte announced a closed beta test of Battle Isle: DarkSpace - testing was to begin in February, and those who had previously signed up through the Palestar website would get first consideration. Remaining beta testers would be selected randomly. The initial group of testers was small, but worked closely with each other and the DarkSpace developers. According to Lyle, beta testing "really help[ed] to work out the bugs and correct gameplay issues". Drop by Ubisoft Soon after testing began Ubisoft announced that they were buying Blue Byte and making it a wholly owned subsidiary. They evaluated the projects Blue Byte was funding and decided that DarkSpace did not fit into the Battle Isle series. Consequently, UbiSoft canceled their publishing contract with Palestar, forcing the small outfit back into independence. Palestar