On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 9:01 AM, Michael McKinney <archangel620@gmail.com> wrote:

But quoting the Gettysburg Address? Was the event surrounding a Civil War that effectively sundered the Empire?

In a word, yes.

Except that it wasn't so much a Civil War as a multi-sided cultural self-destruction pact. There was nothing left of the Empire but scattered pockets of more-or-less war-scarred worlds. Then along came Virus and what little organization that was left crashed into oblivion.

If you want to be hopelessly depressed, then go ahead and read the New Era/Hard Times adventures. The best the PCs are supposed to be able to do is stave off total disaster . . . for a little while . . . in the local area . . . while the rest of the Imperial remnants keep on with the crazy.

If you want a sense of hope and rebirth instead, then skip ahead to the 1201 and especially the 1248 adventures. Or - at least - so I've been told. I haven't read those for myself, yet.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville (1843)

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester

"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.