GLOBAL. ~~~~~~~ * Catastrophic event (pre-hyperspace and long-range communication - englobe under some type of technology) * Destruction of earth and nearby stuff - big crater or something as a symbol. * Massive fleeing (entire civilizations/cultures) design gigantic exploration ships that flee in different directions. * Establishment of multiple parallel human civilizations far from each other as a sort of "dark age" where everything is isolated and progress is very slow. -- * Now it would branch off as each evolve differently, some ideas: * Humans that discover friendly aliens, form conjoint society and evolve together. * Maybe a good place to introduce hybrid biological ships. * Humans that discover hostile aliens, kill each other in long feudal war. * Humans killed off by.. { plague, end of supplies, aliens }, find derelict ship or annihilated systems (partially destroyed stations and whatnot). * Humans hit technological singularity then: * Robots proceed to exterminate humans creating a hostile robotic faction. * Humans evolve into cyborgs and/or "living robotic ships" * Discovery of hyperspace and the consequent acquiration by all/almost all factions would then make it easier to communicate and travel, increasing friendships (and enemies) * A couple civilizations fuse together forming "The Empire" which will be a strong faction with importance in the early game (you will start in Empire terratory). * Player would come into an unstable world few years after hyperspace with every increasing technological advancement and such, making it all more intersting. TRAVEL AND HYPERSPACE. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Hyperspace will be the latest version of travel that actually makes it spread out, older versions (more primitive) would be the huge "guild highliners" (Need to get rid of dune plagerism) and jump gates. * Need some fancy name for it.