Gaming Steve Universe

The Gaming Steve Universe is a long-running science fiction Play By Post Game hosted on the site of the same name.

The Gaming Steve Universe takes place in an expansive galaxy populated by a large variety of alien creatures, each with their own unique themes and stories, so much so that some have even created their very own Expanded Universes. The main timeline is so expansive it's divided into several successive eras.

The story usually focuses on the military and diplomatic aspects of the galaxy's primary community of space-faring civilizations. It is not uncommon for players to role-play their respective civilizations as both individual characters and entire peoples, or more commonly, space fleets. That being said, the universe has developed quite a respectable pool of characters in its several years of existence.

A currently less active aspect of the game is race creation. It's a rule of thumb that one cannot role-play in the Gaming Steve Universe without initially creating one's own species. This could lead to some very interesting results, as showcased by certain creators who are quite keen on fleshing out their works.

It originally developed as an offshoot of a Spore 2005 Fan Fic. As the fan-made creatures and stories became more and more complex, the Gaming Steve Universe drifted further and further away from its parent material, eventually becoming its own independent universe.

The game itself can be found here. While the individual creations' pages can be found here.

This game provides examples of:

 * A God Am I: Zerone AKA The Walking God. He even dragged his entire race into a life of blind and eternal worship towards him.
 * The Nameless certainly feel this way.
 * Especially
 * The fact that they can justify it in the eyes of their more primitive subjects doesn't help either.
 * All Just a Dream: The entire
 * And I Must Scream: The Eternal Torture Device. Developed by the Terran-Ixians, of all people.
 * Artificial Gravity: A staple of almost all space-faring civilizations.
 * Ascend to A Higher Plane of Existence: The Nauceans.
 * And apparently, the ViS as well.
 * Ascetic Aesthetic: The Robotic Wexxians ultimately take the cake for this one. They use sleek and shiny design principles like organics breathe air. Just to make it clear, this is the same race that puts crystals and spires on their blueprints wherever, and whenever, they possibly can.
 * The Omic as well, with their equally ascetic architecture.
 * This is a side-effect of ViS design, and to a greater extent philosophy, which optimizes efficiency to a point where everything is as minimal as possible.
 * The Bino planet of Khuris, a planet covered completely in gardens and plazas which give out an aura of peace and tranquility. That is, before it's atmosphere got blasted by an unholy amount of radiation from its sun going supernova, plunging it into a global ice age and destroying much of its once paradisaical surface.
 * The Graidient as well.
 * Attack Drone: The Mon-Krai love to use their drones.
 * Dronels. It's even in their name.
 * Badass Army: Essentially the Second Galactic War was several of these clashing. What with the first Emergence of the Austians and their Super Soldier-esque Marines, the Alliance of Honor (which just sounds Badass) and the Grand Union deciding that Communism isn't badass enough for them and deciding to kick out REDSTAR.
 * The Communicant horde managed to take on half the galaxy at once. I'd certainly say they fit this description.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: While most creatures possess a relatively familiar biology, some of the more exotic ones can be very, very alien indeed...
 * Blue and Orange Morality: Some of the more "villainous" races usually have this. Though, that doesn't mean that benevolent civilizations are completely immune to it.
 * The Elbeasts' philosophy is to eat everything, as in everything everything. Some Elbeasts have even stated that they'll go as far as modifying their own biochemistry just so they can succeed in eating everyone. Suffice to say, no amount of logical or physical persuasion has convinced them to think otherwise. Ever.
 * Body Horror: The Corrupted.
 * Agnasi of the Iavolg. He's called the Fetus King for a reason.
 * Just about any Iavolg for that matter.
 * Chest Blaster: The Knights of Vengeance's First Knight, Verys, has a chest blaster powered directly by his energy core.
 * Combat Clairvoyance: The entire Jyunkichi race is notorious for this.
 * Cool Starship: Almost all civilizations have at least one.
 * This pretty much describes the majority of the Kratairian fleet.
 * The Pentekonterus don't have one... yet... and potentially, never will.
 * Cool Sword: The Blade of Axon. Definitely.
 * Creator Provincialism: The Luzonians, and how.
 * Crystal Spires and Togas: The ViS definitely fit this trope. Though, they'd probably consider spires and togas to be far too inefficient for their tastes.
 * The Robotic Wexxians. Especially the "crystal spires" part.
 * The later Tri-Wexxian Empire even more so. Their Capital City, Void, is located in an entirely separate, artificially constructed pocket universe.
 * The Orealyianis Monarchy, what with their reverse engineering of sufficiently advanced technologies in order to compensate for their lack in numbers.
 * Practically any civilization in the Extended Yuuniverse which has the technology necessary to field a Starship can be considered as one.
 * Dirty Communists Democratic Socialists: The Perrachi temporarily became this when they started to aggressively "liberate" weaker nations under tyrannies,
 * Played Straight in terms of the REDSTAR, who crossed into Complete Monster territory towards the end of the Second Galactic War.
 * The species that the former PSR (Perrachi Socialist Republic) liberated/conquered are independent, though their governments are "The Slakos Democracy" and "The Makal Commune". They appear to be averting this trope.
 * Empathic Weapon: The Blade of Axon chooses its master.
 * Emperor Scientist: Overlord Raganza of the Choro Deidalus.
 * Agnasi.
 * Enemy Civil War: If you take the viewpoint of anyone outside the REDSTAR Union, or the Grand Union, or, eventually, the Liberal Union, then basically most of the history of the Union can be seen as this.
 * Enemy Mine: During the Battle for Origin most of the species of the galaxy, even the Core Combine, were willing to temporarily put aside their current hatreds to fight the Nameless.
 * Epic Fail: The Pentekonterus did this a couple of times.
 * Expanded Universe: Meridian, Operation Sporegate, the Extended Yuuniverse, to name a few.
 * Evil Is Not Well Lit: Almost any race which is considered as evil will have pretty bad lighting.
 * The Iavolg don't have internal light fixtures in their vessels.
 * Justified in that they don't need them anyway.
 * The Nameless' Luminary Assault Carriers.
 * The  after it transformed into the
 * Averted with the Yerxe, whose homeworld basks in the sun at day and a large colorful nebula at night. They're fond of lasers, and are not above using murder as an art form.
 * Evolving Weapon: The Blade of Axon has the extremely useful ability of perfectly copying any technology it comes in contact with. And it once managed to stab a Sufficiently Advanced Alien straight in the gut. Guess what that means.
 * Frickin Laser Beams: Almost all races utilize them.
 * The Terran-Ixians have this as their most basic form of long-range attack.
 * This is the entire reason for the Terran-Radians' existence.
 * The Extended Yuuniverse essentially breathes this trope.
 * Galactic Conqueror: Zerone of the Communicants. He already succeeded in conquering his own galaxy, after which he decided to conquer the game's main galaxy next. Let's just say most of its inhabitants didn't take it kindly.
 * With over four million fully industrialized galaxies conquered through billions of years of constant military expansion, Lord Bathariadne certainly fits the bill. Fortunately, he's recently been losing far more territory against the resistance than whatever he's currently gaining, or regaining. It probably has something to do with all the Big Damn Heroes popping up all over the place, sometimes even in his own back yard.
 * Giant Enemy Crab: The Yerxe are 9-foot-tall super-strong desert-dwelling crustacean... things. The Galante also have more trope-appropriate giant crab-like walker mechs.
 * Green Rocks: Omnium a.k.a. Alkahest, self-replicating crystals which serve as additional processing power for people who perform Programming.
 * Happiness in Slavery: Mostly Averted. If anyone's happy, then they where forced to be... brutally. Communicants messed you up with Mind Screw tech until you were a fanatical follower of the Walking God, the Nameless seem to go out of their way to be complete jerks to their slaves, and the Core Combine simply screw with your genetics so much that your brain is basically rewired genetically to serve them.
 * Henchmen Race: Most races in possession of Organic Technology have done this at least once or twice.
 * The Nameless were so fond of doing this, they created eight fully-functioning CIVILIZATIONS of them.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:  during the Battle of Olosis.
 * High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The H'qur's method of performing first contact. Basically, they create H'qur-alien hybrids to bridge the massive language barrier between them and other races. It's far, far worse than it initially sounds. And you can read it here, in all the gory detail...
 * The Iavolg. Full stop. Their theme is aborted fetuses, after all.
 * Hive Mind: The Supara.
 * The Core Combine, with varying levels of individual freedom.
 * The Terran-Siptians.
 * The Atomna, a semi-singularity which have individual minds that are subservient to a central consciousness.
 * Horde of Alien Locusts: The Core Combine has elements of this. Once they're done conquering a world or exterminating a race, they simply move on to the next one. Also the Supara, who are actually an even more triumphant example.
 * Humongous Mecha: The Torpals' Secret Weapon.
 * The Photos love their giant walkers.
 * The Orealyianis Variable Armors, which also double as Transforming Mecha.
 * The Illuminator, a mecha constructed in the image of a Terra-Ixian, including its ability to use Programming. One drawback is that it's particularly picky when it comes to who it wants to be its pilot.
 * Insectoid Aliens: The Austians.
 * The Jyunkichi, who are basically alien mosquitoes with a knack for ninjutsu.
 * The Yerxe, who have six limbs and an exoskeleton. They still look more like crustaceans, though.
 * Intelligent Gerbil: A large number of races are this.
 * The Omic are a race of literal Intelligent Gerbils.
 * Large and In Charge: The Communicant God Emperor Zerone certainly fits this trope, being a veritable giant to his people.
 * The Nameless of the Nameless Empire take this to a whole new level, with their shortest members being several 'hundred' meters tall.
 * This becomes even more egregious when it comes to the elite Elders, who are so massive they can fit entire capital ships of most other non-giant races within the palm of their hands.
 * Though, the penultimate offender would be Lord Glutenheimer, who is as large as a full-sized planet.
 * And then we go to Lord Bathariadne, who,  is slightly taller than a Luminary Assault Carrier. To put that into perspective, if he and this star were to stand side by side, the star would be about the height of his shoulder.
 * A good guy example would be King Moriadne of the Terran-Ixians, whose "normal size" (they can, to an extent, change size at will) is three times that of an average Terran-Ixian.
 * Living Ship: Most races which employ organic spacecraft are likely to have these.
 * Wexxian spaceships, which also happen to be the race's closest analogue to females.
 * The Vara Orealyianis is implied to be one. And a wrathful one at that. Though, it's mostly played for laughs.
 * The Hnangha. The womb of the Fetus King.
 * It is implied that all Starships from the Extended Yuuniverse are this.
 * Living On Borrowed Time: Agnasi.
 * Lizard Folk: The Kratair.
 * The Pentekonterus.
 * Every single creature classified under the reptilian category.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: A side-effect of having Loads And Loads Of Races.
 * Loads and Loads of Races: This is what happens when people make creatures non-stop for five whole years.
 * Lost Technology: You'll be surprised at how often people manage to forget even their own technologies, let alone those that don't belong to them.
 * Magic From Technology: The Technomages, who use advanced technology in order to make things seem like magic.
 * The ancient art of Disjuncting was developed by the Communicants through an extremely precise and mathematically rigorous application of Chaos Theory. It is literally powered by Math.
 * The Extended Yuuniverse employs a similar art called Programming. Its underlying principles are almost, if not completely, identical to the former.
 * Oddly enough, the latter two arts were clearly invented independently of each other. Somewhat justified if such developments are seen as an expected product of sufficiently advanced civilizations.
 * Mechanical Lifeforms: The Robotic Wexxians.
 * The Terran-series.
 * Most residents of the Dominion whose biology fall under the "Soft" category.
 * Mini Mecha: The Chivi. Every single one of them. Justified in that they lost all of their limbs after a pre-contact world war involving the use of biological weapons.
 * My God What Have I Done: The Terran-Ixians, after their Heel Race Turn.
 * The other Terran series who also did the same.
 * Averted in the case of the Terran-Radians, who have always been Lawful Good and were only obedient to the Nameless because of an absolute obedience program embedded into their very beings.
 * Named After Their Planet: Just about every space-faring species.
 * Actually, that's often not true. The Goonals hail from Apica, the Galante from Yravo, and the Bino from Khuris.
 * Ninja: The Jyunkichi. And seeing from the fact that they seems to prefer going solo, they're probably well aware of what their status as ninja entails.
 * No Biochemical Barriers: Played straight, and how.
 * Lampshaded by the Orealyianis, who use a pseudo-atmosphere of nanomachines on their ships and planets in order to make them habitable to anyone who sets foot on them.
 * Equally averted, and in the same manner, in the Extended Yuuniverse.
 * Organic Technology: The Core Combine uses this combined with some inorganic systems and the Supara uses this in even more staggering amounts.
 * But who really takes the cake are the Zeront, whose technology consists solely of biological constructs.
 * Overly Long Name: King Glutenheimer His Excellency Master for Eternity, Field Marshal Prince Physician Gluten, Master Programmer, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Master of Universal Affairs, Lord of all the Species of the Earth and Creatures of the Sea, and Conqueror of all other races in the Universe in General and Galaxy-627 in Particular.
 * Or his style: One Whose Rank Is So High That Even His Rank Cannot Be Named Except By Himself.
 * This gem comes from the Yerxe: Zvirnnau VII of the Most Honorable Above All Others Zvau Dynasty, Greatest and Holiest Emperor of the Mightiest Empire of Sahrzhir, May No Words Ever Foul the Proud and Glorious Name of Sahrzhir, King of Kings of Kings by Divine Right, The Chosen One of the Sun and the Nebula and the Rivers, Conqueror of the Desert Tribes, Destined to Rule all of Yerx, All Beings of the Entire Universe Who Ever May Even Allow the Slightest Thought of Harming Our Wonderful King of Kings of Kings to Pass Into Their Feeble Brains Condemn Themselves to Eternal Torment Justified by the Completely Obvious Divine Righteousness Surrounding He Who Will Annihilate All Evil a.k.a. Zvirnnau VII
 * Paint It Black: The corrupted Bathariadne and the  who chose to side with him during the   Their skin turned pitch black to show the fact they they no longer emit any light, but rather absorb it. Well at least anything not in the yellow part of the spectrum.
 * People Jars: The entire Chivi race was forced to become this after consuming an antidote for the many genetic anomalies that were caused by a global biological war. By the time they found out about its long-term side-effect, it was already too late.
 * Planet Looters: Core Combine, and they take everything.
 * Plant Aliens: The Pakuweinia, Fnarls, and Xinmayi.
 * Poor Communication Kills: Many, many wars were started because of this.
 * Powered Armor: The Kratair's military Exo-Suits.
 * To a limited degree at least.
 * The Photos military has this as standard equipment for all of their soldiers.
 * Averted by the Chivi. Their power armors are actually Mini Mecha made to resemble their race's original body scheme.
 * Power Glows: In the Extended Yuuniverse, a very reliable way of measuring how powerful a person or object is is by looking at how bright he/she/it is.
 * Except for those whose nature were corrupted. For them, it's usually the other way around.
 * Powers As Programs: Programming. Literally.
 * Good luck trying to gather enough RAM to run them, though.
 * That's what the Green Rocks are for.
 * Proud Merchant Race: The Sombrerons are 'the' merchant race of the galaxy. If there's anyone who can screw the rules or drive their enemies to submission through sheer power in the world of Economics, it's them.
 * Proud Warrior Race: The Torpals, the epitome of Hot Blooded. Their entire culture pretty much revolves around combat. They love fighting so much, they even have an ongoing project with the express purpose of uplifting primitive planets just so they could fight them.
 * Rasputinian Death: Yerxe have backup brains and hearts in their torso, head, and each of their six limbs. This means that to effectively kill one you have to slice it up into at least twenty carefully cut pieces.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Most player-controlled royals exemplify this trait.
 * The Wexxian Monarchy, and later, the Tri-Wexxian Empire.
 * The Orealyianis Monarchy, whose caste of royalty are genetically designed for a life of selfless leadership.
 * The Luzonian King always charges first. No exceptions.
 * Rubber Forehead Aliens: Completely averted. One of the creatures closest to being one would be the Photos, and they are definitely not human.
 * Serial Esscalation: Lets see...
 * How many more Core Combine, Shadow, and Nameless can we add to this battle to make it more epic?
 * How much more Dakka can we fit onto one star ship?
 * How much bigger can the star ships of the extended Yuuniverse get?!
 * How much bigger can the CHARACTERS of the extended Yuuniverse get?!
 * How many more Dirty Communists, Bug Swarms, Eldritch Abominations, Omnicidal Maniacs, and Extra Dimensional Demi Gods can Origin face and kick their assess?
 * What kind of new horrible super weapon will the creators demented minds come up with next?!
 * Servant Race: The Robotic Wexxians, who vow to protect all organic life in the entire universe, at any cost to their own. Even their name, "Wexxian", means "Servant" in their native language.
 * "Terran" means "Vassal" in the Dominion's local tongue.
 * The Pentekonterus were employed as pack animals before they became sapient.
 * Shining Goodness: The Universal Administrators and
 * The Terran-Radians, being sentient Knights In Shining Armor and all. Though instead of wearing the armor, they are the armor.
 * Shiny Looking Spaceships: Naucean spacecraft.
 * With their sleek white and flawless exteriors, Wexxian spaceships fit this trope to a T.
 * Slave Mooks: The Communicants, Nameless, Core Combine, almost all villainous races have this.
 * Slave Race: Several races have them, Communicants had them, Nameless have tons of them, and they make up a vast majority of both the Nameless' and Core Combine's military.
 * Squick: The Yunimian Water Festival.
 * Starship Luxurious: The flagships of most Terran-Ixian fleets have entire planets inside of them just to house representatives of other species, or any refugees they might come across on their travels.
 * The Orealyianis' home system is actually the salvaged remains of a Terran-Ixian Starship.
 * Each Luminary Assault Carrier contains a Nameless' personal planet.
 * Standard Sci Fi Army: Almost everyone has one.
 * Standard Sci Fi Fleet: Almost everyone has one, too.
 * Starfish Aliens: A considerable number of creatures are this.
 * Actively encouraged, in fact. To the point that anything remotely humanoid or familiar was flamed off of the forum at one point.
 * Starfish Language: What limited samples of languages there are don't fit this description, but UFO King recently went ahead and invented a language for the Perrachi. The phonology looks like a somewhat limited version of English with emphasis on sounds that seem more fitting of a beak than a human mouth. Oh, and they speak in different "voices" for different types of words which sound like weird musical instruments, represented in the writing system by different colors.
 * A lot of previously established Perrachi names don't fit the phonology, like "Tuolfs". This was explained by the fact that Perrachi are excellent at vocal imitation, but non-basic sounds are seen as unorthodox and unusual. This probably makes them amazing translators...
 * Super Robot: All robotic Wexxians have the potential to become these. Most military ones already are.
 * The Terran-Ixians and the other Terran series.
 * Super Soldier: Almost all races have them.
 * Some are even composed of nothing but super soldiers.
 * That's No Moon: The Nauceans' Moon Spheres, which are literally as large as the MOON. And ever since their owners ascended, they've also doubled as BigDumbObjects.
 * The Vara Orealyianis certainly fits the bill, essentially being a gigantic mecha space carrier with two capital ship-sized space guns attached to its shoulders, as well as countless other smaller weapons sprinkled across its surface.
 * The Vara Orealyianis even has an entire city in it!
 * The Extended Yuuniverse's sense of scale is a very egregious offender, with most major space navies having flagships the size of supergiants.
 * That's no planet... It's an Assault Node!
 * That's no star... It's a Starship!
 * That's no event horizon... It's a Luminary Assault Carrier!
 * The Atoner: The Terran-Ixians and other Terran-series who chose to join the resistance.
 * On a more personal level:
 * The Battlestar: Almost everyone has this, and often in great numbers, in their respective space navies.
 * Freedom, the Royal Wexxian Flagship.
 * The Berserker: Lord Zantetsunheimer of the Nameless, who acts as a conduit for the entire Nameless Empire's collective rage. No wonder he's in such a bad mood all the time.
 * The Chosen One: The Wexxian Avengers, the only people whom the Blade of Axon chooses as its wielder.
 * The Empire: There are more generally benevolent empires than there are malevolent ones, ironically.
 * The, usually, benevolent Urshan Empire is one of, if not the greatest and most long-lived empire in the galaxy.
 * The benevolent Tri-Wexxian Empire, which encompasses much of the Meridian Galaxy.
 * The Nameless Empire plays the evil archetype horrifyingly straight, however.
 * The Federation - Early on, the C.A.B, then the S.W.U, then eventually the Grand Union, and then it gets complicated...
 * The Plague: The Infection.
 * The Spock: Professor Karlan Talsenreave.
 * The Unpronounceable: Some races have languages so incomprehensible they have to create hybrids of themselves and other species just to make it physically possible to understand each other.
 * The Usual Adversaries: The Core Combine. Verily.
 * Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Terran-Ixians. Though, it doesn't stop them from doing something else.
 * Transforming Mecha: The Core Combine's Raider-class Assault Armors.
 * There's also the Orealyianis' Variable Armors. From Space Plane to something roughly humanoid, and sometimes in between. The flagship of the Orealyianis Stellar Navy itself is one of the largest transforming mecha in the known galaxy. The Variable Fortress Vara Orealyianis is over three hundred fifty kilometers long.
 * There is a reasonable explanation for the use of these mecha. The Variable Armors were designed to allow the Orealyianis to combat the Nameless on a more or less equal footing. Basic use of Fridge Brilliance reveals that "on equal footing" doesn't mean technologically, but the sheer fact that using Variable Armors is the only way to engage the Nameless (whose smallest members are as tall as modern skyscrapers) in close-quarter combat. Their plane-like primary mode allows for fast, long-distance cruising that would usually be provided by shuttles, and the transitional form exists as a middle ground, providing respectable amounts of both speed and maneuverability. This is pushed to the extreme with the Vara Orealyianis, which was designed to fight the larger members of the Nameless, who can be as large as the minor planet Pluto.
 * The Luzonian Knighthood also utilize Variable Armors, though not as commonly as the Orealyianis do.
 * Turned Against Their Masters: Some theories concerning the Core Combine's origins utilize this.
 * The Terran-Ixians and most other Terran series to their former masters, the Nameless.
 * The  to their former masters, the
 * Warrior Poet: The Graidient are often this.
 * Wave Motion Gun: Almost everyone has at least one.
 * The Vara Orelyianis' two main String Energy Amplification Through Concentrated Emission of Sub Space Vibration, AKA SEACESSV, cannons. At over a hundred kilometers long, each one is big enough to be considered a capital ship in its own right.
 * The  A wave motion vacuum cleaner which creates a powerful wormhole that gobbles up entire enemy FLEETS.
 * In the Extended Yuuniverse, the main cannons of Starships are basically gamma ray bursts ON STEROIDS.
 * The Nameless' Luminary Assault Carriers are said to be capable of downing enemy an Starship in a single hit. They'd have to redirect most of the ship's power for this to actually work, though.
 * Weaksauce Weakness: The common Terran-Ixian, a sufficiently advanced super robotic warrior capable of summoning force fields, teleporting all across the battlefield, shooting particle beams out of its eyes, and growing into a three hundred meter tall rampaging killbot can easily be thwarted by...
 * We Can Rebuild Him: The Photos' ABU units are essentially maimed soldiers who chose to undergo extensive cybernetic upgrades in order to continue serving in the military.
 * We Have Reserves: Whenever this trope is invoked, it’s either: A.) The race in question is biologically designed for this and thus has no qualms about using such strategies or B.) The commander is a serious Jerk Ass. Sometimes both.
 * The Core Combine's general strategy is simply to deploy in such massive numbers that they will eventually obtain victory.
 * The Supara's tactics are similar.
 * Don't get me started with the Communicants.
 * Same with the Nameless.
 * One particular type of minion, the Dronel, is designed to flood hostile ships and planets. Literally.
 * Willfully Weak: The Kratair have yet to ever go all out fighting an opponent, out of the interests of toying with their quarry or avoiding collateral damage.
 * The main purpose of Terran-Ixian Neutralization Divisions is to engage combatants without delivering lethal damage.
 * You Will Be Assimilated: As the Core Combine like to say it: "Prepare for Skrallification..."
 * You Will Be Assimilated: As the Core Combine like to say it: "Prepare for Skrallification..."