Spore/WMG

Spore is the distant future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
Just read this article from the Warhammer 40K wiki. Eerily familiar, isn't it?
 * To extend on this:
 * During the late M41, the ancient C'tan Void Dragon has awoken on Mars. Once again enslaving Necrons under his rule, he also turned a large amount of Adeptus Mechanicus on his side, who also modified various animals (i.e Grox) as servants for his master. Eventually, Void Dragon has conquered most of the galaxy, bending the Imperium, Eldar, and other species of the galaxy to the knees - until a strange ally appeared - the Chaos God Tzeentch (perhaps supported by other Chaos Gods), who did not want C'tan to win, as their victory would result in Chaos' fall as well. He casted a powerful spell upon the Void Dragon's minions, twisting them horribly and mutating them into small, weak cybernetic humanoids who were forced to retreat to the Galactic Core, that was safe from the Chaos Gods for some reason. However, the horrible forces of the Warp have also resulted in the destruction of humanity, Eldar, Tau, etc - but allowed new species to grow on devastated worlds. However, Chaos Gods were not going to lose their grip on the galaxy, and have started to mastermind the evolution of the player species...

Darkspore IS the prequel to Spore, but in different way.

 * The Mutation Wars ended. The Corruptor was defeated and without him, the remaining Darkspores were left without control and have devolved into the primitive E-DNA-based animals. The Crogenitors have started to rebuild their empire from the scratch. They started their campaign of recolonising the worlds and eradicating remaning Darkspores. However, that turned out to be difficult, as the E-DNA was hard to uproot. As a result, the Crogenitors move to the only place in the galaxy where Darkspores could not survive (due to Hawking radiation) - the area around the Galactic Core. In order to make themselves capable of living on the lifeless worlds, Crogenitors remade themselves into the cyborgs. From the Galactic Core, they started to cleanse the planets of the Darkspore and settle there. I.e Crogenitors became the Grox.

However, E-DNA is still mutating in the areas of the galaxy far from the Core. This time, the Darkspores evolve to become sentient, no more relying on the single leader (Corruptor). New Darkspore start to evolve quickly due to the E-DNA, mutating into the new forms over few generations (Creature Stage). They quickly learn fire and basic crafts (Tribal Stage), then electricity and motorised vehicles (Civ Stage) and finally, the New Darkspore construct spaceships and start to colonise and infect new planets. The Crogenitors/Grox are trying to fight against them, but fail as they are far more dangerous than the old ones due to being sentient and capable of building machines. They now fight a desperate war to prevent the New Darkspore from conquering the entire galaxy.

Yep, that makes the player a Hero Antagonist and Grox the Villian Protagonist.

The WMG below about Darkspore was right the first time. It IS a prequel.

 * The Progenitors won in the end, and the new safe method of utilizing E-DNA was used to create the Grox. However, the Grox were created as an experimental combination of cybergenetic and necrogenetic E-DNA. We can tell how that turned out. Fortunately, new life sprouted from the galaxy due to a "glitch" in the old, unsafe DNA. When the Hive Mind of Darkspore was destroyed, the E-DNA quickly degraded into ordinary DNA, which spawned new life on all the planets that were once corrupted. Thus began Spore.
 * And the Staff of Life? It uses safe E-DNA to quickly repopulate an entire planet. The reason it only has 42 uses is because it uses fuel which it is extremely hard to get your hands on (i.e. impossible in-game).
 * Not exactly canon, but considering that Game Mods can make the Staff of Life have infinite uses, perhaps the comment below about "42" being the reward for discovering the nature of life, the universe and everything was right and it's powered by human imagination. However, although the source is like an infinite supply of gasoline, the staff has a limited gas tank. Which means there would be two ways to refuel it. Hook it up to a "pipeline" that taps the source directly, which can only be executed by the humans who hold said fuel source... or leave the Spore universe to refuel it in our universe. Which would make an interesting fanfic save for the fact that all Spore characters are both fan characters and canon simultaneously due to the nature of the game.

Sol? It's real, and humanity is right beneath your nose.

 * The humans of Earth have let global warming or some other disaster affect the planet and bring it down to a T1 score. The people are all living in domed cities.
 * So why do you not see said domed cities? Take a look at that other WMG below. The one about plants and animals being huge. Somehow the Square-Cube Law doesn't apply to the Spore universe, and humanity is one of the unseen races who are basically microscopic to the empires you deal with on a day-to-day basis.

EA is actively trying to kill Spore.
EA doesn't like games that encourage creativity and freedom of choice. Hence the years of waiting, the gradual degradation of gameplay, the DRM backlash, the overpriced expansion packs, the infamous "Mech-parts" scandal, and hundreds of other slaps in the face.
 * Explain Darkspore, then.
 * Another nail in the coffin.

Steve created the Grox.
He didn't want to be bothered so he built an army of killer cyborgs in order to deter all but the most determined customers.

Steve is Spode.
Makes sense- he lives in the center of the universe, posesses a powerful Staff of Life, and is seemingly omnipotent.

An Alien with an itchy Monolith finger helped you out.
Every time you finished a stage he helped you evolve. That's why things don't work like they did for you for other species.

To make friends with another species, you convince them you are one of them.
Consider: Why is making friends social combat when it should be mutually beneficial? Because the species evolved to work with each other (within a species) by developing actions that elicited a positive response - certain movements and vocalizations. Creatures from other species evolved to mimic their actions. Its a standard evolutionary arms race as more and more accurate parts make it easier to find the fakes - and easier to fake. Note that it's not difficult at all to make friends with your own species, because you have the same skills.

The asteroid containing your cell originated inside your solar system.
At the beginning of the game, you see an asteroid (containing various microbes) fly past the sun and hit your chosen planet. Much later, when you get to Space Stage, one of your first tasks involves a crashed starship. The ship was (according to the game) trying to answer a distress call but was shot down. It could be logical that in a last-ditch effort to continue their task, they shot the asteroid to your home planet, thus starting your evolution (hoping that you would redeem them once you became space-faring).
 * Of course, you realize what that implies...

Sol? Just a fake.
This would explain why "Mars" and "Mercury" are so plain compared to their real-life counterparts. It would also explain why "Earth" is a T1 planet with high atmosphere. And in super Mario galaxy,. So, if the universe can be big enough for, then it could be big enough for two "Earths". The real Earth is in the real Milky Way Galaxy and this is just a system with identical planets.
 * Earth could just be a T1 due to different environmental needs between your species and humans. Also, it could be a long-since-abandoned version of Earth that became desolate and dead after humans left, possibly due to pollution. The air left there could be mostly waste products and thus unbreathable.
 * Dinosaurs were wiped out and dozens of species have been extincted. T1's pretty reasonable.
 * Also, Ganeymede is hot, despite the fact that it's frozen over in Real Life.

The comet that contained your cell organism was made by some other divine being.
It explains how your cell just comes from a chunk of stone thus bypassing the "almost living ooze" stage of development.

Adventure Town is a hallucination caused by copious amounts of narcotics.

 * After being appointed captain, your space hero celebrates by overindulging in every drug known to man or alien before arriving at the orientation meeting. Because something must explain it.

The Comet that contained your cell came from the either "asteroid call" or "Ice Comet" tool

 * It would explain why every planet is a T3.

Mankind is responsible for the Grox.
In the far future, mankind unlocks the secrets of the universe and discovers the nature of their reality. Somewhere along the line, mankind either bioengineers the Grox or gives a pre-existing species mechanical parts. However, because AI Is a Crapshoot, the Grox gradually turn against all other life forms. Because mankind had placed a Restraining Bolt forbidding them from attacking humans, the Grox instead turned against other life forms. They moved to the center of the galaxy, where habitable planets were few, and used mankind's advanced technology to conquer the galaxy. Mankind became a galactic pariah for creating such horrible monsters, so the rest of the galaxy turn against them. Earth was rendered barren of life and mankind was nearly exterminated. The few remaining humans decided to move to the very center of the galaxy where they would be safe: the Grox could not harm them, but they were too few to do any serious damage to the Grox. However, they hatched a plan. They would spread rumors of an incredible secret within the secret of the galaxy, hoping that one day other sentient species would reach the center. There, the human known as Steve would appear, giving the Staff of Life in the hopes that it would be used to strike back at the Grox. (Alternatively, the Grox themselves wiped out humanity. Steve is a human-built probe sent to the center of the galaxy in the hopes that a race sufficiently powerful enough would find the Staff of Life and use it against the Grox)

Spode is Haruhi.
What? Somebody was gonna say it.

Spode is Cthulhu.
And the ever-so-annoying Zealots are cultists. I could seriously swear that one Zealot's Simlish once gave way to "CTHULHU FTAGHN" in my game, so this is just obvious.

Spore takes place During PlanetSide.
During the timeline, the Vanu rose and created the Warp-gate System, which races throughout the galaxy used. Until an attack disabled contact to Auraxis and the Vanu went extinct, not knowing of the immortality the system provided (Which is why in the space stage you don't truely die as there is "advanced cloning technology"). Nobody ventured to the system due to an anomaly rendering the space around it, making travel impossible. However a wormhole existed near the planet, and that's how the Humans of the Terran Republic got there. The wormhole collapsed some time afterward.

Steve is human.
He knows the existence of Earth, after all.
 * He also has a human name and speaks English.

Your planet, along with every other one, was seeded by the Staff of Life, and the whole game is After the End.
Imagine this scene: Life is losing the war against the Grox. The situation looks dim, when what is now an insignificant T1 planet called Earth's leading scientists made technology that can seed any planet with life. Panicking, they proceed to use it on every freshly dead planet (which is to say all of them), hoping that something, someday, will reignite the spark of life. The Grox immediately finished off that last planet, took the Staff (along with the ship it was contained in), and guarded it in the center of the galaxy, just in case. After millions of years, spacefaring life rises from the post-apocalyptic galaxy, and the war goes on. Plus, the opening cutscene looks an awful lot like the Staff of Life, and the original Staff must have had more than 42 uses for it to be useful against the Grox.

Spode is Spode
It just makes sense.

Clark & Stanley are Time Lords.
Just really stupid ones... But it would explain as to how they manage to be in nearly everyone's adventures, be able to mess up many a captain's career, and continually die.

Spore takes place in a rebuilt Milky Way after the end of the Universe.
The universe is dying because of the entropy and an ascended humanity, trying to fight this, rebuilds the Milky Way, which by that point had evaporated, only since resources are much more limited, they have to make the worlds and stars that tiny. Steve is one of the ascended humans, the Solar System is just a memorial. The Grox are not really evil, they are the workforce of the ascended humans; they inhabit T0 worlds and their activity slowly raises the terrascore to an inhabitable one (maybe they produce a lot of greenhouse gases). Some of the ascended humans consider things are advancing too slowly so they create the staff of life to speed up things. Obviously this does not pleases The Grox.

All plants and animals in SPORE are in fact multiple miles in height.
This would explain why planets appear so very tiny, and why Earth's continents are so small.

'The Grox' are what Thrintun are called millions of years after Kzanol disappeared.
Every race in the galaxy used to be their slaves, but now their empire is losing to thousands of races suddenly becoming sapient and attacking them. After a few thousand years of this, the Grox destroy almost all sentient life. One of their planets becomes habitable over the next two billion years, and the Grox are forced to evolve into the Grogs.

The Darkspore is somehow connected to the Grox.
The Darkspore seems to have a habit of creating evil, megalomananical creatures, and the Grox were an early creation of it.

Spore gives us the Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer.
Obvious one, but one that needed saying. You can dress it up from a boring "How many charges are there in the Staff of Life?" to a more mysterious "How many Charges are there left on the Staff of Life after it was used to create the universe?" if you want... Not a good WMG, was this?
 * Actually, that could be it... And the Staff of Life is the source of life in all the universe, but when it runs out of charge...
 * Not necessarily a bad thing, since all that happens when the staff runs out of charges is it can't be used again. How is this good when supposedly no more life can be created? Maybe "42" isn't the answer itself, but the reward to finding the answer. The question is "What is the nature of life, the universe and everything?", which is kind of obvious if you think about it. Unfortunately for the digital creatures in the game, the answer is that they are merely toys for the race that created their universe. The upsides are that they discover the amazing power of the human imagination, and that said power is the real and limitless source of life and not the staff, so they need not worry about no new life. And they get a neat toy of their own that harnesses this power. Because the staff has to be powered by something, right?

The race that's always crashing those ships that you scan in your first mission?
They're evolved from the Butteyes.

You are Spode.
You control large numbers of creatures, and you never actually find out who Spode is. You don't play as the creature. You actually are Spode filling its body with your presence.

Spore is set thousands of years into the future.

 * This is why the continents and life forms on Earth look different.

Spode is... a spud.

 * Wouldn't it be perfect if God of a game like Spore was really Mr Potato Head?

Darkspore is a prequel to Spore, or the reverse.

 * If DS came first,.
 * If Spore came first, you ARE a Crogenitor in the time before the Darkspore. Which leads to:

At the time you began Cell Stage, the Grox were a friendly culture.
Billions of years constitute far more than enough time for a total cultural overhaul and species rework. And the pre-Face Heel Turn proto-Grox may even have seeded the worlds.

Spore is set in the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann universe.
Humans were just driven underground by the time your species has reached the space stage, Teppelin has jet to be built. Interstellar travel is DRIVEN by spiral energy, so does all your weapons(excluding missiles and bombs). Oh yeah. The Grox are the anti-spirals.
 * Alternatively, the Spore galaxy is in an After the End state because it was one of the galaxies used as a weapon...
 * The Grox are the Anti-Spirals prior to becoming a Hive Mind.

All archetypes are general categories.
Each empire will have traces of other archetypes in its culture.

Earth is a post apocalyptic Sim Earth
Something, probally a war, caused most life to go extinct and ruin the environment. Thais would explain why Mars and Mercury look different; they are not the same planet.

The Grox are the descendants of humanity.
Think about it: their writing has similarities to our own, their bodies kind of look like our own...the question is how this happened.

Notice how the Earth is T1. At some point, humanity was suffering a critical problem when it came to pollution. In order to survive, they relied more and more on cybernetics. A Zealot-based spaceship ended up crashing on the planet, revealing information about the centre of the universe. You see, the Staffs of Life had been around long before the Grox and even Steve: they were part of an Eldritch Abomination many know as Spode.

At the time, mankind was incapable of interstellar travel, so they were forced to take the long route. A group decided to spend their lives piloting the "Steve" ship, and locate the Staffs of Life so that the Endofthe World As We Know It would be averted. Hundreds of thousands of years passed. By the time they had reached their destination, these people had atrophied and no longer cared about habitable planets. When the Staffs of Life were found, they reverse-engineered them so that they could survive in the far more plentiful "uninhabitable" worlds.

Steve, however, was intelligent and still planning on completing its mission. A battle broke out, and Steve was banished into the supermassive black hole. Due to countless millennia of isolation, the descendants of humanity had become extremely irritable and aggressive. The Grox are the result: beings driven so hostile they will attack just about anything they don't like. Humanity ultimately died out on Earth, and their insane descendants became the feared Grox.

Spore is an alternate universe of 'Battlestar Galactica'.
Problem?
 * By that logic, Spore is an Alternate Universe of Star Wars and Star Trek. Not to mention Real Life.

Humanity seeded the galaxy
A billion or so years ago we spread out and found the universe a barren, lifeless place. So we went out and terraformed thousands of planets. Eventually, it came time for us to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence and we sent comets containing cells with the potential to evolve sapience at our former colonies so there would be several species to inherit the galaxy.
 * Steve remained behind for some reason, probably to reward anyone who managed to make it to space.
 * Earth is dying because the sun has started to expand, that's it.
 * The Grox are the only species with no relationship to humanity, that's why they can't stand environments that are paradise to everyone else.

Spore takes place in the same universe as Neon Genesis Evangelion...
And all the races, including yours, are all seeded by Black Eggs. Clearly the FAR learned not to take any chances after Earth and just designated whole galaxies as Black or White recipiants rather than individual planets or systems.

Some of the other archetypes have non-militant forms of Spodism.
Diplomat empires, definitely.

Warrior and Knight empires may or may not tolerate Spodism, depending on the empire. Trader, Scientist, and Bard empires, who knows if they permit religion or not? (If not, Spodists and Shamans might actually do an Enemy Mine.)

Some archetypes would certainly persecute Spodists:
 * The Shamans would not tolerate their mortal enemy in their realm.
 * The Ecologists' population control boards would not tolerate the concept of loving those deemed "superfluous".