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Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Mapping the Domain of Man
« on: March 20, 2024, 12:26:34 AM »
Based on the little information available to us, it’s possible to create a rough estimate of the territory of the Domain of Man prior to the collapse. Explanation below:
The rendition of the Milky Way I used was found on the Creative Commons search portal.
In any case, I hope you enjoy my little map. Praise Moloch.
- KMS
Large image download:
I did my best to figure out how to make text into a clickable link, but I couldn't do it.
Spoiler
We know that the Persean Sector is near the border of the Domain, and we can safely assume that it lies somewhere within the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way. We can also assume that the Persean Sector is one of the first sectors established in the Perseus Arm, possibly the first. A name such as this would likely be chosen to commemorate the first definitive colonization efforts by the Domain of Man within the Perseus Arm. We need to determine which region of the Perseus Arm is most likely to be first encountered by the Domain.
The in-game description of the Cryosleeper is most helpful in this: “…from the core systems of the Domain out into the great frontiers stretching from the Sagittarius Arm across the Orion Spur.” This implies that the Domain expanded along the Orion Spur towards the Perseus Arm, rather than going in a straight line across the gap between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms. Given the Domain’s primary goal of finding more worlds/resources to conquer, this makes sense, as the density of stars (and therefore worlds and resources) is greater when travelling along this path.
With that, we can place the Persean Sector at the boundary between the Orion Spur and the Persean Arm, probably closer to the Orion Spur, as the marketing value of the name ‘Persean Sector’ is fairly high, and it would therefore be snapped up early by profit-focused Domain sector developers.
We know that the Persean Sector sits close to the border. To determine the dimensions of the rest of the territory of the Domain, we can simply expand along the Sagittarius Arm in both directions to a similar distance from the Sun. Given that the Scutum-Centaurus Arm is mentioned nowhere in the existing lore, we can assume that the Domain hasn’t made it there yet, or that it is as much of a backwater as the Perseus Arm.
Now that we have a rough idea of the territory of the Domain, we can also ask – how far have the automated exploration fleets progressed since the Collapse? The Gate Haulers in particular are no doubt still travelling onwards, laying Gates that no longer function in distant systems nobody can access.
I considered using the travel time of the in-game Gate Hauler, but that one is limited by a) being in very poor condition and b) gameplay considerations. Instead, we can find out how long it took for humankind to explore up to its current boundaries, and extrapolate from there. So, when did humans start exploring?
The only hints we get about this are in the blogpost “A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector”, which states that the first FTL autonomous ships emerged during the second wave of exploration, which in turn came about around the same time we stopped using current-era rocket propulsion (“crude explosives”). I’ve decided (arbitrarily) that a good time window for this is 2100 – 2200 CE. I’ve chosen 2120 CE as an official starting date, for reasons that will become clear in a moment.
If 2120 is the starting date, then what is the current date in Starsector? In the ancient blogpost “The State of Affairs”, it is revealed that the date c. 206 (the start date of the Starsector campaign) is equivalent to 3126 CE. Subtracting 206 years to the final year of the Domain, we get 2920. That gives us 800 years of exploration up to the pre-Collapse borders, followed by 206 years of post-Collapse autonomous exploration. Therefore, the distance from the Sun to the border plus ~20% of that distance gives us the ‘Exploration Boundary’. I’ve attempted to depict this on the map in green but I drew it freehand, so it’s not mathematically accurate.
There are, of course, many limitations to my diagram. The precise nature of Domain exploration efforts is unclear, so the Exploration Boundary is probably inaccurate. We also don’t know whether any polities existed outside of the Domain that would have been large enough to be visible on this map – after all, we only have the Domain’s word to go on that they’re the only game in town. What we do know about them suggests they spent a lot of time culling rebellious worlds, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a ‘breakaway province’ of sorts somewhere in the furthest regions of the Domain.
The in-game description of the Cryosleeper is most helpful in this: “…from the core systems of the Domain out into the great frontiers stretching from the Sagittarius Arm across the Orion Spur.” This implies that the Domain expanded along the Orion Spur towards the Perseus Arm, rather than going in a straight line across the gap between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms. Given the Domain’s primary goal of finding more worlds/resources to conquer, this makes sense, as the density of stars (and therefore worlds and resources) is greater when travelling along this path.
With that, we can place the Persean Sector at the boundary between the Orion Spur and the Persean Arm, probably closer to the Orion Spur, as the marketing value of the name ‘Persean Sector’ is fairly high, and it would therefore be snapped up early by profit-focused Domain sector developers.
We know that the Persean Sector sits close to the border. To determine the dimensions of the rest of the territory of the Domain, we can simply expand along the Sagittarius Arm in both directions to a similar distance from the Sun. Given that the Scutum-Centaurus Arm is mentioned nowhere in the existing lore, we can assume that the Domain hasn’t made it there yet, or that it is as much of a backwater as the Perseus Arm.
Now that we have a rough idea of the territory of the Domain, we can also ask – how far have the automated exploration fleets progressed since the Collapse? The Gate Haulers in particular are no doubt still travelling onwards, laying Gates that no longer function in distant systems nobody can access.
I considered using the travel time of the in-game Gate Hauler, but that one is limited by a) being in very poor condition and b) gameplay considerations. Instead, we can find out how long it took for humankind to explore up to its current boundaries, and extrapolate from there. So, when did humans start exploring?
The only hints we get about this are in the blogpost “A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector”, which states that the first FTL autonomous ships emerged during the second wave of exploration, which in turn came about around the same time we stopped using current-era rocket propulsion (“crude explosives”). I’ve decided (arbitrarily) that a good time window for this is 2100 – 2200 CE. I’ve chosen 2120 CE as an official starting date, for reasons that will become clear in a moment.
If 2120 is the starting date, then what is the current date in Starsector? In the ancient blogpost “The State of Affairs”, it is revealed that the date c. 206 (the start date of the Starsector campaign) is equivalent to 3126 CE. Subtracting 206 years to the final year of the Domain, we get 2920. That gives us 800 years of exploration up to the pre-Collapse borders, followed by 206 years of post-Collapse autonomous exploration. Therefore, the distance from the Sun to the border plus ~20% of that distance gives us the ‘Exploration Boundary’. I’ve attempted to depict this on the map in green but I drew it freehand, so it’s not mathematically accurate.
There are, of course, many limitations to my diagram. The precise nature of Domain exploration efforts is unclear, so the Exploration Boundary is probably inaccurate. We also don’t know whether any polities existed outside of the Domain that would have been large enough to be visible on this map – after all, we only have the Domain’s word to go on that they’re the only game in town. What we do know about them suggests they spent a lot of time culling rebellious worlds, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a ‘breakaway province’ of sorts somewhere in the furthest regions of the Domain.
[close]
The rendition of the Milky Way I used was found on the Creative Commons search portal.
In any case, I hope you enjoy my little map. Praise Moloch.
- KMS
Large image download:
I did my best to figure out how to make text into a clickable link, but I couldn't do it.