REAL NAMES: classified
ALIASES: Beacon, Artisan, Tank, Hazard.
ABILITIES: Artisan: creation of hard-light constructs; Beacon: omniscience, energy projection; Hazard: tracking and hunting living creatures via their lifeforce; Tank: superhuman strength, hard-light constructs. All of them can fly and survive the conditions of outer space.
KNOWN ASSOCIATIONS: G.A.T.E. (although with their memories altered, it is unclear if this loyalty stands); X-O Manowar.
Note that due to the sensitive information in this file, the members of the team will be referred to by their call signs. Artisan from the Chinese National Space Agency; Beacon from the European Space Agency; Hazard from NASA; and Tank from Roscosmos. All four are experienced astronauts and have impressive military backgrounds.
Starwatchers, also known as Monomen, are guardians of the Gyre, the blue dwarf star where the powerful, ancient gods known as Psi-Lords are imprisoned. Starwatchers' job is to assure the gods are contained, and to destroy the Sigils, representations of their power, like the one they got from the planet Gorin when Aric of Dacia was emperor. The Gyre, also known as Nihilo, is called a vampire star by the wardens, since it's sustained with the energy from the spaceships of the clans taken as prisoners.
When G.A.T.E.'s space telescopes confirmed that interstellar Object 1I/2018 U2 was a bullet aimed at the heart of our solar system, a top secret team was tasked with a mission: they were to transport an experimental tactical nuclear weapon aboard the Octavia Butler, a G.A.T.E.-designed shuttle retrofitted with Vine technology, to blow Object 1I/2018 U2 off course.
The team was captured by the Starwatchers, before they could complete the mission, and branded with the mark of the Psi-Lords. Imprisoned in the monoliths surrounding the Gyre, they were guided to freedom by an terran-native calling himself Scion, who claimed they were gods now. Providing that they had gained powers, the four astronauts fought their way out.
Soon they encountered other branded and got involved in an argument between a Widower (humanoid Cthulhu alien race) and a Yossari (cat-like humanoids alien race), that ended with the Widower dead, prompting the Starwatchers to intervene, as it is forbidden for a branded to kill another.
The time to correct the course of Object 1I/2018 U2 was running out. When Artisan was killed by the vindictive mate of the dead Widower, Hazard made a deal with Ravenrok: the Psi-Lord's freedom in exchange for having their friend back. With the destruction of our galaxy averted, Ravenrok took off to find more batteries of power, and probably to free other Psi-Lords such as Aesha or Graal.
The remaining Astro Friends were appointed the new Starwatchers. They retrieved the Octavia Butler, and went on to search for Ravenrok, to stop the return of the Psi-Lords.
Traveling outer space in search of Divinity, X-O Manowar became troubled by the planet-escale devastation in the wake of the Wasting, which had destroyed his former home of Gorin. He later arrived at a rare garden world, where he encountered Ravenrok. The god put his bond with Shanhara to the test, separating the armor from the man. Reunited, Aric destroyed one of the sigils of the Psi-Lords, freeing the planet from Ravenrok's control, but potentially leaving it vulnerable to whatever is siphoning life from worlds all around the galaxy.
OTHER DETAILS: "Astro Friends" has caught on as their clan name, after learning of the Widowers and the Yossari.
Technically, they are also the Psi-Lords, for a part of Ravenrok resides in each of them: Hazard, passion; Beacon, knowledge; Tank, protectiveness; Artisan, creativity.
COSMIC TOP SECRET
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
