Galaxy Civilization — 5000 years across 5 star systems with named captains becoming legends
A 3D EPOCH demo: 22k-point spiral galaxy with 5 inhabited star systems, 5000 sim-years across 7 eras, 6 named civilizations, captains who progress to admiral to legend to statue, dyson swarm igniting at 2700, persistent across reseeds.
What this is
A 3D recreation of 5000 years of a fictional spiral galaxy, built as a continuous autoplay loop where reseeds advance the galactic timeline forward instead of restarting it. A 22k-point Points cloud renders the spiral arms with arm-shaped distribution. Five inhabited star systems sit on the galactic disk: Sol (Earth), Vega (Vegan colony), Centauri (Twin Worlds), Proxima (Water Moon), and Tau Ceti (Forge World), connected by Gate Sigma — a wormhole rendered with a custom portal swirl shader. Six named civilizations + four named flagship captains + twelve named ships + sixteen admirals/diplomats/scientists + sixty InstancedMesh trade ships fill the galactic stage. Twenty director cameras cut between galaxy wide, core burst, system close-ups, planet orbits, colony surfaces, ship bridge POVs, the wormhole, the dyson swarm, and a final close on the last beacon at year 5000.
The galaxy remembers. localStorage saves every civilization's expansion state and every named captain's career across reseeds. Captain Halen Voss starts the loop as a flagship captain. Mid-loop she's an admiral. Late-loop she's a legend. Across reseeds a statue of her is erected on her home colony — and that statue is still there four eras later when the colony has collapsed to ruins.
You don't play it. You watch it. And it remembers.
Why this is mind-blowing
The seven eras have actual cinematic shape. Year 0 is the first warp jump, cameras tight on a single ship engine glow. Year 250 is Sol expansion, dome counts on Earth growing 1→4→12 visibly. Year 800 is Vega Contact — UCS Solidarity reaches the Vegan colony and Capt. Halen Voss makes first contact in a peace conference camera, the chyron printing "Sol parade tomorrow." Year 1500 is the Confederation Forming — banners change on every colony, the wormhole gate ignites between Sol and Vega. Year 2700 is the Great Bloom: dyson swarms of 80 panels ignite around three suns, dome counts peak at 60 each, ship trails fill the galactic plane. Year 4000 is Decline: half the dome instances swap to ruin meshes, ship trade lines thin, the chyron narrates "The Centauri Incident — full diplomatic resolution in 1834." Year 5000 is BEACONS REMAIN: a single last-beacon camera holds on a memorial pylon while the spiral keeps turning. Then the world reseeds and another five thousand years begin. It's the existential-calm Twitch stream.
Prompt
Build a single-file HTML page that recreates "5000 years of a fictional spiral galaxy" as a continuous 3D autoplay world. Civilizations rise on 5 inhabited star systems, ships travel between them, captains become legends, dyson swarms ignite, and over millennia some colonies collapse to ruins while beacons remain. Asimov / Foundation cozy on Twitch.
Hard constraints:
- One HTML file, < 200KB.
- three.js r0.160.0 from unpkg, IIFE, strict mode, full disposable cleanup, reseed every ~10 min advancing to the next galactic era.
- First body line: <!-- ROUND16_EPOCH v1 -->
- localStorage memory under key `galaxy_civ_memory_v1` — 6 named civilizations + 4 named flagship captains. On reseed, advance civilizations.
- Generational aging: captains progress captain → admiral → legend → statue (statue mesh appears on home colony).
- Visible structural change: InstancedMesh dome counts grow 1 → 4 → 12 → 28 → 48 → 60 across eras, then collapse to 14 with ruin instances post-4000. Orbital ring fades in. Dyson swarm of 80 panels ignites at year 2700.
- 5+ sub-locations (5 named star systems): Sol/Earth, Vega/Vegan colony, Centauri/Twin Worlds, Proxima/Water Moon, Tau Ceti/Forge World, plus Gate Sigma wormhole.
- Mini-map = galaxy spiral arms with named systems pinned + active focus + ship trails.
- 100+ named entities: 6 civilizations + 4 captains + 12 named ships + 16 named admirals/diplomats/scientists + 60 InstancedMesh trade ships + chyron name pool.
- 18+ director cameras: galaxy wide, system close-up, planet orbit, colony surface, ship bridge POV, wormhole gate, dyson orbit, war fleet wide, peace conference, statue close, last beacon.
- Cross-system chyron: "Year 1473 — UCS Solidarity reaches Vega. Capt. Halen Voss greets the Vegans for the first time. Sol parade tomorrow."
- 22k-point spiral galaxy as Points cloud with arm-shaped distribution.
Tone: Asimov, Star Trek, Foundation. No real-world politics. Interspecies contact peaceful first; conflicts handled diplomatically ("The Centauri Incident — full diplomatic resolution in 1834"). The galaxy is wondrous and big. No graphic violence.Paste this into Claude, Cursor, or Copilot. Change one thing that matters to you.
What I learned shipping it
- How to render a believable spiral galaxy as a 22k-point Points cloud with arm-shaped distribution under 50KB
- How to grow a civilization visibly by gating InstancedMesh dome counts on a 0-5000 sim-year progress variable, then collapse it to ruins after the peak
- How to use localStorage to give captains real career arcs (captain → admiral → legend → statue) that persist across reseeds so a Twitch viewer sees the same Halen Voss commemorated centuries later