In Book 4's Adventure Background, it is stated: "Though dominant for thousands of years after the war with the sivv, the kishalee civilization eventually deteriorated. For unknown reasons, its government slowly collapsed..."
My players have been looking forward to finding out what happened to the Kish(alee), but I think they would be pretty disappointed if I told them that the Kish(alee) civilization who created things that could last for millions of years collapsed "For unknown reasons".
So, I would like to ask... In your mind/game,
What happened to the Kishalee Empire?
Social media.
Just a slow (hundreds of thousands of years slow) cultural degradation. Overextended themselves in their wars against enemy empires and gradually collapsed into materialistic pampering and deepening authoritarianism as their technological development plateaued.
Activating the sivv's superweapon to commit genocide, although never common knowledge within the empire, planted a fatal wound in the heart of the elite ruling structures who did know. Ethical schisms; internal factions forming, splintering, stamping each other out. As the empire turned on itself, supply lines collapsed, particularly since they were heavily dependent on kishalee space-folding tech that not all could understand or maintain. Remote colonies were abandoned while formerly insignificant enemy states finally started pushing across their interstellar borders to bring the war to their exhausted core worlds.
If there was any one cause for the final collapse, no one the Dead Suns PCs could possibly meet would know about it. The discovery that the ancient kishalee's empire at the height of its decadence was actually a lot like modern Pact Worlds pop culture should hit a disturbing note.
The end came much faster for the sivv. They exhausted their empire's resources to create the stellar degenerator (as well as a few other projects), and then when unhappy fate robbed them of their prizes before they could pay off, the sunk costs left them hungry and scrambling as the vengeful armies of their surviving enemies--the kishalee foremost among them--washed over their empire like a tsunami.
By the modern era, the sivv and the kishalee are remembered as a common motif in archeological ruins on a smattering of worlds scattered across the Vast. These ruins aren't just from fallen civilizations; in many cases, they're the ruins of civilizations that rose and fell before the current species now dominating those worlds developed the first civilizations of their own. While the legends don't agree from world to world, often reduced to a pair of recurring phenomes, the two mythic antagonists are often depicted as gods, divine heroes, or demons (fiends) who wiped out whole mortal realms to wage a war of the heavens against each other.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just a slow (hundreds of thousands of years slow) cultural degradation. Overextended themselves in their wars against enemy empires and gradually collapsed into materialistic pampering and deepening authoritarianism as their technological development plateaued.
Activating the sivv's superweapon to commit genocide, although never common knowledge within the empire, planted a fatal wound in the heart of the elite ruling structures who did know. Ethical schisms; internal factions forming, splintering, stamping each other out. As the empire turned on itself, supply lines collapsed, particularly since they were heavily dependent on kishalee space-folding tech that not all could understand or maintain. Remote colonies were abandoned while formerly insignificant enemy states finally started pushing across their interstellar borders to bring the war to their exhausted core worlds.
If there was any one cause for the final collapse, no one the Dead Suns PCs could possibly meet would know about it. The discovery that the ancient kishalee's empire at the height of its decadence was actually a lot like modern Pact Worlds pop culture should hit a disturbing note.
The end came much faster for the sivv. They exhausted their empire's resources to create the stellar degenerator (as well as a few other projects), and then when unhappy fate robbed them of their prizes before they could pay off, the sunk costs left them hungry and scrambling as the vengeful armies of their surviving enemies--the kishalee foremost among them--washed over their empire like a tsunami.
By the modern era, the sivv and the kishalee are remembered as a common motif in archeological ruins on a smattering of worlds scattered across the Vast. These ruins aren't just from fallen civilizations; in many cases, they're the ruins of civilizations that rose and fell before the current species now dominating those worlds developed the first civilizations of their own. While the legends don't agree from world to world, often reduced to a...
This is beautiful and gives me happy stellaris feelings
