Editing Stars Without Number: Back in Black (section)

=== History of the State ===
A long time ago, the Terran Mandate ruled a civilization vast beyond comprehension. They had legions of master psychics, impossible science, and Jump Gates that could throw a ship scores of light years in an instant.<br/><br/>

Then The Scream came. A psychic shockwave echoed from one end of the galaxy to the other, and it killed the vast majority of psychics (of every sapient species.) It also wrecked the Jump Gates, not that they could have been operated without the Master Teleportationists anyway, and burned out most of the Spike Drives as well. <br/><br/>

Whole worlds starved, descended into savagery, or were destroyed. The network of trade and communication collapsed. Without the guidance and expertise of the Psychic Authority, many worlds lost the capacity to reliably train those with psychic talent, and they were left unable to use their abilities safely or reliably. 
<br/><br/>

Centuries passed. Much was forgotten. The location of Lost Terra is unknown. In the midst of the sleeping wreckage of the empire, a spark of light has risen again. A century ago, a highly advanced cluster of worlds known as the Nyx Federation rediscovered Spike Drive technology. Their Primus was a woman who is either brilliantly forward-thinking or merely psychotically ambitious, depending on who you ask. The Primus bent the strength of her whole civilization to regaining mastery over the wilds of space. They found other human colonies that had survived, and using their technological advantages they soon crafted a sort of hegemony, or federation. With the discovery of a long-dead psychic academy, they reconstructed the training regimens that allowed psychics to use their powers without dying or going mad. There is now a healthy and buzzing psychic academy, reconstituted fifty years ago and with growing enrollment every year. <br/><br/>

The Nyx Cluster has now become the core of what is referred to as the State. Thirteen systems claim membership, with a varying number of worlds or colonies within each system. For those human colonies that are rediscovered, joining the State is nominally optional, but so far no one has refused too bitterly. <br/><br/>

The great ships of years past are still unattainable. But the Nyx Cluster can churn out fighter and frigate-class vessels equipped with spike drives, and they are plentiful enough. A few of the more powerful worlds have a cruiser or three, and Nyx itself has a single Battleship which is widely considered invincible. Not that there is any great need so far for military vessels; no alien powers have been encountered that can stand up to a Human expeditionary force, even if it does only consist of a few cruisers and a double handful of frigates. <br/><br/>

The State exists on a model far different from that of the Terran Mandate. Where the Mandate required control and centralization, the State is quietly fearful of a second Scream. No one knows what caused the first, and the risk of a second cannot be assessed. Every system is required to either be self-sufficient in the absence of spike drives, or to be working toward that goal. This requires at a minimum the agricultural capacity to support its population and the ability to manufacture and maintain in-system vessels that could serve any asteroid bases or similar. <br/><br/>

There is only a single functioning psi-academy, the Black House. At unbelievable expense, the State is slowly equipping it with psi-shielding that might allow the teachers and students that reside there to survive a second Scream. <br/><br/>

The term 'The Black House' actually refers to both the artificial world it is built on and the academy itself. The academy itself is "merely" the size of a large university, and is dominated by a central building that is like a cross between a medieval cathedral and Angkor Wat. The artificial world is a ring approximately three million kilometers in diameter, with an inner surface approximately two thousand kilometers wide. High walls at the edges keep the atmosphere in, and the rotation of the ring provides a normal day-night cycle and 1G worth of centripetal force. The habitable inner area has a surface area approximately 40 times that of Earth, with a normal mix of land and ocean area. However, it does not have tides.<br/><br/>

The Black House could not possibly be constructed by State technology, and there is a healthy debate about whether even the Terran Mandate could have built it. The expert consensus is 'no.' It is assumed to be a pre-human relic. It is currently open for colonization, as the human population now consists solely of the Black House and its surrounding community, probably less than two hundred thousand people. <br/><br/>