Universe Guide

WARNING! SPOILER HEAVY LORE PAGE!

The World of the Dova Sku Series

A tour of the major worlds, factions, and technologies that shape Christopher Thompkins’ life—from a quiet home on Earth to the ruins of Catora and the burning edge between enemy and allied space.

Ancient wars, dead empires, and a Transync network that was never meant for war. The Dova Sku universe is a place where our species is late to the party—and the bill is already due.

Big Picture

High-Level Timeline (Spoiler-Light)

This isn’t a full canon timeline, just enough to understand where the series sits relative to older wars and future trouble.

Long Before Human History

Rise of the Aku’Ra & Millenium Wars

The Aku’Ra built the Transync network, uplifted client species, and fought wars over who gets to shape the galaxy. The Svixen emerge as a great enemy willing to burn worlds to enforce their version of order.

Prehistoric Earth

A Brush with Something Bigger

Earth isn’t entirely ignored. Whether as a test case, a mistake, or something stranger, humanity brushes against the wider conflict. Whatever happened, it’s buried under myth, ice, and fourteen thousand years of amnesia.

Near Future

Discovery of Catora & the EM Tether

Humanity finds Catora and builds the EM Tether to reach it. The mission that carries Chris, Josh, and the rest of the crew to this “new beginning” unknowingly lights up an old node in the Transync network.

Transync

Contact, Ruins, and the First Fall

The crew of the Light Skipper lands on Catora, discovers old ruins, alien creatures, and the first hints of the Transync network. The Svixen answer the signal in force. Chris becomes Dova Sku in a last stand that will define who survives to tell anyone what happened.

Ascendant

A Warship and a Way Home

The survivors take control of the Ascendant and try to fight their way back toward Earth through a galaxy already scarred by Svixen campaigns. Old alliances, broken empires, and new enemies all converge around one uncomfortable fact: if Earth doesn’t know what’s coming, it won’t have a say in what happens next.

Book 3 & Beyond

Secrets of the Network

The final movements of the Dova Sku saga push deeper into the Transync network and the truth of why any of this was built in the first place. Some wars end. Others just change shape.

This page is meant as a companion to the books, not a replacement—major twists, character fates, and specific battles still live in the novels.

Worlds & Frontiers

Key Worlds

Everything starts sixty light-years from home, on a world humanity thinks it understands. It doesn’t. From Earth, the crew of the Light Skipper travels to the newly discovered exoplanet, Catora, also known as Randt to its original inhabitants.

Earth

Origin World Lost History

To most of its inhabitants, Earth is still a pale blue dot with a messy history and a shaky future. To older civilizations, it’s something else: a world that once brushed against a much larger war and then forgot. Fourteen thousand years of amnesia and myth stand between what humans believe about their past and what actually happened.

Tech level: Pre-FTL, experimental EM Tether, new to nanotech, advanced in cybernetics.
Conflict driver: Future Svixen invasion looms over every decision the crew makes.
Symbol: Home worth crossing a galaxy for.

Catora / Randt

Sepu Homeworld Forest World

A forest-covered alien world that orbits a main-sequence K-Class star. The sky appears more orange, and the colors of plants differ from their Earth-like counterparts. Populated by a vast array of mammalian and amtillian species (similar to both reptiles and amphibians from Earth, but with six limbs). The world was once inhabited by the Sepu, an intelligent amtillian species. Catora is humanity’s first real contact point with nonhuman intelligence—and the place where the illusion of a clean, simple colony world dies. The world is inhabited only by animals since its intelligent population was decimated and devolved by the Svixen. Ruins of the Sepu civilization scatter the globe.

Tech level: Scattered remnants of the Transync network.
Theme: New beginnings, survival, and rebuilding in the shadow of catastrophe.

Tual

Maaket Homeworld Blue-green Earth-like World

Tual is the homeworld of the Maaket, feline-like warriors whose culture blends lethal precision with rigid honor. It is a technologically advanced world, and becomes a key ally in the fight against the Svixen. A blue-green ocean-dense world similar to Earth, structured around a global monarchy-based society.

Tech level: Pre-space flight, experienced with energy weapons systems, energy shields, and braiding technology. Proficient with ground-based antigravity (e.g., hovercarts).
Key figures: Princess Cashy, Princess Nessa, and Ankir.
Story role: Place of alliance, first world visited using the Transync network.

Seutor

Tuaca and Natuul Homeworld Jungle & Desert World

An ancient, jungle- and desert-riddled planet ruled by the Tuaca and the Natuul. Seutor is where the Ascendant is obtained. The jungle is full of bioluminescent plant life, as well as fierce animal life. The composition of the atmosphere and the hot, blue-white B-Class star gives this planet's sky a violet hue. Tuaca architecture appears as a mix of steampunk and postmodernism.

Tech level: FTL-capable spaceflight, experienced with ship weapons systems, communications, and jungle warfare.
Key figures: Patron Rohga, Guardian Phostop, Posis, and Tivay.
Story role: Place of alliance, farewell, and a hard-earned hope.

Patchave

Cruillum Homeworld Desert & Frozen Poles

Patchave is the desert world of the Cruillum. The planet has frozen poles that create enormous rivers spanning from pole to equator. All of their cities are built along these rivers. The extreme temperatures make for strict daily schedules. Their civilization is built on harmonic resonance and “singing to the glass,” manipulating materials and technology through precise vibrational control. The crew stops here to repair the Ascendant after a brutal space battle, and to use the local Transync gate to return to Seutor for parts.

Specialty: Resonant engineering and glass-based tech no one else fully understands. They have learned to work with the planet's extreme temperatures, utilizing heat as much as shade.
Key figures: Kess.
Function in the story: Crucial repair yard and waypoint under pressure.

Powers & Players

Factions in the Shadows of an Old War

By the time humans step out into the wider galaxy, the sides have already been chosen. The only question is which side will use them—and which side will erase them.

Humans of Earth

Newcomers High Variance

Human beings are late to interstellar travel, but they’re adaptable, stubborn, and bad at doing what they’re told. That mix produces Lieutenant Christopher Thompkins: a Navy SEAL with a broken past who becomes the “Dova Sku”—Hell Machine—after becoming part cyborg and binding with an ancient AI he later names Liam.

Strengths: Improvisation, emotional resilience, refusal to accept “inevitable” outcomes.
Weaknesses: Fragmented politics, limited tech, almost no understanding of the true rules of the galactic game.

The Svixen - Homeworld Unknown

Galactic Enemy Extinction-Level Threat

The Svixen are a mammalian race similar to Earth's red kangaroo. The warrior-dominant people are strong, fierce, and skilled in battle. They have a tribal society where respect and privilege are earned through battle and conquest. To their enemies, the Svixen are a nightmare made of beasts, fire, and doctrine. To themselves, they’re the righteous enforcers of a brutal peace. They don’t merely conquer worlds—they correct them, pruning species and civilizations that grow in ways they consider dangerous, and devolving species they can later use as fodder.

Doctrine: Destroy the networks, control the species that depend on them.
Relationship to Earth: Historically distant, uncomfortably interested once humans leave Earth.
Strengths: Highly advanced technology. Fleets of warships capable of destroying or invading worlds.
Weaknesses: Tribal politics that aren't always working together, their Code of Honor can be exploited.

The Maaket of Tual

Allied Warriors Energy Manipulation Specialists

Sleek, feline, and lethally efficient, the Maakét are as much engineers as they are warriors. They specialize in weapons systems, energy shields, and ways of not being where the enemy thinks you are. Their politics are complicated, but once they commit to a fight, they commit with claws out.

Key allies: Princess Cashy, her sister Nessa, and the warrior Ankir.
Contribution: Energy inversion techniques, ship shield upgrades, and Ankir as a warrior companion.
Strengths: Energy shields, energy inversion, and ground-based antigravity tech.
Weaknesses: Introvert-dominant species who prefer not to leave their own planet. Quick to make rash choices.

The Tuaca of Seutor

Allied Warriors Space Flight Capable

The Tuaca are ape-like, physically imposing, and deeply connected to nature. Seutor’s deserts and jungles have taught them patience and perspective, and their culture requires that they be one with nature. They try to stay neutral in the wider conflict, but neutrality has limits when the Svixen bring war to their doorstep. The Tuaca ally with the humans, but walk a thin line between neutrality and involvement, offering wisdom, shelter, and transportation, rather than outright allegiance. Two Tuaca warriors, Posis and Tivay, join the human crew of the Ascendant as they journey to Earth. Their species has spent millennia in opposition to the other species that share their world, the Natuul.

Key figures: Patron Rohga, Guardian Phostop, Posis and Tivay.
Contribution: The gift of the Ascendant, shielding tech, ship weapons, and a moral compass in a very amoral war.
Strengths: Using what the world provides and wasting nothing. Skilled in jungle warfare.
Weaknesses: Fragmented politics, limited tech, almost no understanding of the true rules of the galactic game.

The Natuul of Seutor

Not Friends, Not Enemies Ambush Specialists

A hulking orcish species with advanced tech obtained by stealing it from the Tuaca, but no centralized government. A tribal culture with frequent conflicts with the Tuaca. Progress comes from raiding and reverse-engineering Tuaca tech. The humans’ first excursion to Seutor involves an ambush by a Natuul war party.

Strengths: Sneak attacks, jungle ambushes, and overwhelming strength.
Weaknesses: Fragmented politics, little to no technological advancements on their own.

The Cruillum of Patchave

Neutral Engineers Resonance Specialists

The Cruillum are lizard-like humanoids who have turned survival into an art form, and turned their desert world into a laboratory for harmonic resonance technology. Their “singing to the glass” techniques let them coax weapons, shields, and structures into forms no one else can replicate. They’re not eager to pick sides, and they understand the value of keeping everyone at arm's length.

Contribution: Critical ship repairs, Transync gate access, and tech tuned to the Ascendant’s needs.
Stance: Practical, cautious, and always aware of how much heat is being spent.
Strengths: Manipulating harmonic resonance energy. Using the planet to its fullest potential.
Weaknesses: Introvert-dominant species who welcome strangers with a quick goodbye, and meet neighbors with blades and fire. Few allies.

The Aku’Ra of Su’Laeris

Precursors Unfinished Business

Long gone—or smart enough to stay off stage—the Aku’Ra are the rumored architects behind the Transync network and numerous uplifted species. Between them and the Svixen, the galaxy is full of wartorn or abandoned worlds. The Millennium War with the Svixen caused the Aku'Ra to set out from their homeworld tens of thousands of years ago in an attempt to help other worlds in the Svixen warpath. Their help came in the form of advanced technology and genetic manipulation, which they called "uplifting." Once a species was uplifted to a certain stage, it would be left to its own devices.

Contribution: Uplifting of numerous species throughout the galaxy. Spreading the Transync network to every new world they uplifted.
Stance: They have done what they can. Now they let the galactic game play out.
Strengths: Highly advanced technology. Unified society. Genetic manipulation.
Weaknesses: Unknown at this time.

The Sepu of Randt

Extinct Devolved into Sveri Sku

A race of amtillians, a class of animal native to Randt, comparable to both reptiles and amphibians on Earth. Bipedal, walking on their two digitigrade rear legs with four arms, unlike all other amtillians who walk on all six legs. With a skull shape resembling Earth’s canine species, they were hairless with glossy black skin that shone with hints of silver-mercury when reflected in the light. Randt was invaded by the Svixen long before our story begins, and the Sepu race was devolved into Sveri Sku—Hellhounds—no longer intelligent, they are commanded into battle as fodder, now willing sacrifices by the Svixen.

Tools & Tech

Technology of the Series

For most of human history, the galaxy has run on systems Earth didn’t know existed. The moment Chris connects to one, everything changes.

The EM Tether

Human FTL Experimental

Earth’s first real stab at faster-than-light travel, the EM Tether is less “warp drive” and more “galactic slingshot”—a way of riding precisely shaped electromagnetic fields along precomputed paths. It’s good enough to reach Catora. It is absolutely not designed to handle the kind of traffic, interference, and weapons that older civilizations throw around as a matter of course.

The Transync Network

Ancient Infrastructure Travel & Storage

Transync is more than communication and more than transit. It’s a mesh of stations, relays, and protocols built to synchronize cities, fleets, and even entire planets. When Chris links with Liam in an old Catoran station, he taps into a faint echo of what the network used to be—and paints a target on himself in the process.

Capabilities: Fleet coordination, information storage, matter translation under tightly controlled rules.
Risks: Exploitable by empires, catastrophic failure modes on planetary scales.

Dova Sku: “Hell Machine”

Hybrid Operator Living Weapon

“Dova Sku” is an alien phrase that roughly translates to “Hell Machine”—a battlefield role where a cybernetic soldier becomes a terror in battle. In Chris’s case, that also comes with an alien AI named Liam, and the merge is anything but clean. The result is faster reaction times, deeper situational awareness, and a man who’s never fully alone in his own head again. When combined with the Drake Scale exosuit, the Dova Sku is nearly unstoppable. In Svixen history, their warriors are said to have only been vulnerable to death when facing a soldier of hell. The Hell Machine in Svixen history was a Svixen warrior who completely eradicated a competing tribe single-handedly—a demon made of flesh and metal.

Upside: Increased perception, muscle control, reflexes, and strength.
Downside: The line between “tool” and “person” gets blurry on both sides.

The Ascendant

Acquired Warship Moving Fault Line

The Ascendant is more than a ship—it’s a mobile embassy, weapons platform, and cultural pressure cooker. Originally, a civilian craft owned by a high-class Tuaca citizen of Lesfer. In a world where ambushes and pirating by the Natuul is a frequent occurrence, the Tuaca-built ship was designed with attack and defense in mind. Upgraded with Maakét weapons tech and energy manipulation inverters, Tuaca and Maaket blended shielding techniques, and a fine-tuning of all ship systems by the Cruillum, all share the same hull while trying not to kill the crew before the Svixen do.

Everywhere it goes, it drags the past with it: old treaties, old grudges, and technologies that were never meant to merge.

The L.O.L.A

Experimental Human Tech Team Taxi on Catora

The dropship L.O.L.A is a human-made prototype designed by DARPA specifically for troop and vehicle deployment. The Low Orbit Landing and Assault vehicle is fusion-powered and capable of planetary entry, atmospheric flight, and low-orbit maneuvering. Meant to be carried by the Light Skipper and deployed as the crew's main form of travel around Catora. Two were brought on the mission, LOLA 1 and LOLA 2, affectionately called "Lola" by the crew.