A DARK FUTURE...

 The spacers of Phage live in a distant future in which advanced technology exists alongside unspeakable alien horrors and callous, dystopian governments. The setting is predominantly space opera, but blends the familiar conventions of that genre with elements of Lovecraftian horror and cyberpunk to create something darker and grittier. The earth humans knew was conquered long ago by a corrupt, warmongering civilization, and humanity's descendants are but one of many subjugated peoples scattered throughout colonized space and treated little better than vermin by the dominant alien culture.
  Hyperspace, the strange parallel dimension that makes interstellar travel possible, spawns creatures and hazards that can easily end a crew's lives or drive them to madness. But to those who lost their homeworlds to the expansion of the Collective, the opportunity to fly across the stars in spite of the danger is one to be seized and appreciated — for those with the courage and imagination to exist outside the Collective's shadow, the chance to make a score big enough to buy sustainable independence is a rare diamond worth searching for amid the grit and the rust. The setting takes its name from a terrifying malady that afflicts those exposed to the bizarre warping energies of hyperspace, consuming the mind and the body and driving the victim to homicidal rage and eventual blindness. Fear of this occupational hazard is ubiquitous among those who survive by doing business in the trade lanes.

Artist Credit: "A Fate Worse than Death," by Fernando Ong