Strangely enough, this lore post makes the sector feel
less dystopian than before. Perhaps that's the intent, I don't know.
What I don't see is the contrast between the Domain "Golden Age" and the current Sector in terms of culture, technology, etc. I have nothing to gauge how far the Sector "fell" from the Collapse. If the Persean Sector was a "backwater system," how mighty were the core sectors of the Domain? The current sector still has FTL, hyperspace, planet-killers, advanced AI, vast manufacturing capability and terraforming tech (as far as I can tell). Beyond the gates themselves, the Domain doesn't appear to be all that superior (again, perhaps that's the intent?)
I do enjoy the multiple choice answer for why the Collapse happened, especially the conspiracy theories. The Collapse was an inside job...
I'm not envisioning Planet Killers being Death Stars or the like. There are two reports of their use in this blog and a few in-game (not sure if they're the same). There are also quite a named core planets that have been glassed but not destroyed. I'm curious if PK weaponry is prevalent enough that each side is abiding by mutually-assured-destruction cold wars or if they're hard enough to pull off that they're only used in desperate times. It would seem the destruction of Opis was completely by surprise. Surely only the major factions have access to PKs?
The wide-view history is necessary and welcome but so would a few smaller slice-of-life stories from the Sector. The Ship's Log of Salvage Dave was fantastic in this regard.
@ Megas
Influences I see:
Domain: Roman Empire under Trajan
Hegemony: Byzantium Empire
Tri-Tach: Weyland-Yutani
Sindrian Diktat: Colonel Kurtz taken to an extreme degree
Persean League: Mafia cabal
Luddic Church: Baha'i faith with monastic hierarchy. Really, more of a counter-culture movement and repudiation of Domain tech dressed in ritual.
- Knights of Ludd: Knights Templar
- Luddic Path: Zealots/Sicarii
Pirates: well...pirates
There are no "good guys," which is fitting but after this blog post, the Hegemony comes out looking a little cleaner, the Persean League is painted in a terrible light, Tri-Tach is still shrouded in mystery but are obviously misanthropic corporate overlords, and the Luddic Church are agrarian monks...with spaceships. The Diktat seems to be the result of the Hegemony being myopic in regards to Andrada and the admiral himself seems to have bought into his own own hype. That he's still around ruling the Diktat 50 years later (I presume he's still alive) is a testament to his charisma and loyalty.
By the way, due to tech, are average lifespans in the hundreds? Warlord Kanta was a colonel in C+160, so I'm assuming she was in her 40's at that point and if she's still kicking in current (C+206) time, that puts her over one hundred. Same with Admiral Andrada who is perhaps a bit younger.