In MoO3 you begin the next era in the Master of Orion story by leading your people back to the stars after a millennium of domination, enslavement, and suffering under the heel of the power you thought defeated at the end of the last game; the Antarans.  That's right, the Antarans.  A few decades after your invasion of their strikepoint world, the Antarans sent a conquest fleet to reduce the upstart Orion Sector to rubble.  Politically split, weakened by turmoil during the years following the destruction of what they thought was the Antaran homeworld, the Orion Sector races were no match for the massive, technically advanced Antaran Black Fleet.

What followed was a dark age of suffering; the people of the sector were removed from their homeworlds, relocated without care into work camps and experimentation camps where they contributed top the growth of Antaran Science.

And now, after the deaths of untold billions, the bulk of Antaran forces have mysteriously disappeared, and the attitude of their governing center at Orion has changed.  The Orion Senate has been re-established and those enclaves of the Orion races that are capable of reaching out into space are once again free to do so.  No-longer are races united - human enclave meets human enclave, each descended from the survivors of research or work camps, klackon enclave meets klackon enclave, and the meetings are not always friendly.  Many have changed, many have their own agendas - and over it all, the shadow of Antaran power looms.

Read more of the ongoing story of the Orion Sector in the various archives for the excellent fan fiction that has been written since the game's release. Listed below are some of the sites that host fan fiction; most will take new submissions as well if you want to write your own.

• The Orion Sector Fan Fiction Archive (closed to new submissions).
• www.FanFiction.net - covers fan fiction in general, link goes to the MOO3 subsection.
• Atari Forums - Off Topic, for MOO3 fan fiction only.

Fans have created some fantastic FAQs and strategy guides, and Orion Sector makes those strategies, tactics, and tips available here.

• A Typical Game' Walkthrough
• Lore Weaver's Race Strategy Guide (pdf - 845k)
• Renaux's Battle Guide
• MoO3 Economics Guide

In addition to these works, you can also try:

• The MOO3 Citadel of Words (COW), a kind of Master of Orion 3 Encyclopedia (and hopefully, what the in-game encyclopedia should have been).
• Station Prime, an online game manual and strategy guide