02-08-2020, 12:38 AM
So, after a nice hot AM shower (I do some of my best thinking in the shower 
) some ideas have come to mind that might potentially address the issue of how your civ might get out on its own given the Terragen expansion wave.
Speaking on general principles, I would suggest moving the starting point for your civ forward by some thousands of years so that they leave Terragen civ closer to the 'present day' and having them relocate to a location that is on the edge of Terragen civ - where archai writ runs thin - but also sufficiently connected to it that the founders of the civ can take advantage of 'modern' transport infrastructure to get there.
In terms of possible locations for this, some idea are:
a) The Perseus Arm - We currently have this as being on the very edge of Terragen expansion and a place where new archai - the Perseus Princes are rising, possibly to one day challenge the old guard of archai and the dominance of the Sephirotic Empires. Your civilization and its ruling archailect could be one of these. We have almost nothing written up on these so in many respects it would be a blank canvas for you to create on.
b) The Carina Rush - Again this is an area where circumstances (and an alien wormhole) have created a frontier region far from the center of the main archailect powers. Your empire's ancestors could head out through the wormhole into the Rush and go on to found a new civilization. We might or might not need to tweak the current Carina Rush article(s) a bit to accommodate that, but that could be doable. Again, little has been written about this region so there is likely lots of room for you to create as you wish without running afoul of existing canon and articles.
c) The Hellfire Expansion - This is a bit different in that it is a 'frontier' region that is surrounded on all sides by the existing civilization. But frontiers might be seen as as much about ideas as territory. In this instance your empire founders could be a group that got into the Expansion early and took over a cluster or other group of stars to found a new empire. This would definitely be a smaller empire, but as Rynn has pointed out, there is a huge amount of room to create in that general conceptual space in OA since we haven't done a lot with it.
d) The Middle and Outer Volumes - While these are not on the edge of Terragen civilization per se, they were at one time and (depending on where you go) there are significant to large regions that have little contact with/influence from the Sephirotic empires. From an editorial perspective, there are vast regions that have had little written up about them which leaves them open for anyone who wants to grab a small to medium size chunk of space and start using it as a sandbox. In this case, rather than a founding group being outside the Terragen Sphere it would be more a matter of 'Around such and such a date Group X founded a civilization in location Y and rapidly expanded to control a volume of Z light years across. They have been rather isolationist and maintain relatively little contact with the wider Terragen civilization. etc etc.' Such an empire need not be anywhere near as large as a Sephirotic to host a huge amount of places to play. For example, a bit of googling turns up that there are nearly 14,000 stars within 100 light-years of the Sun and between 200 and 300 thousand within 250ly. So even a pretty modest empire can have more places to create then any one person (or likely group of people) could manage in a singe life-time.
Likely there are other potential 'blank spots on the map' where you could set an empire, but hopefully this gives you the general idea.
Starting out your empire a bit later and/or in a way that doesn't require being 'outside' the entire Terragen Bubble purely in spacial terms removes one of the single biggest challenges I see with your proposal at a single stroke.
In terms of how unique your empire might be, and what it might contain. Partly that's going to depend on what sort of 'foundation' and 'framework' you build for it such that you and others (based on our experience a group effort on an ongoing basis is definitely something you want) can add to it over time with more specific article entries. In terms of a recommendation - I wouldn't try to create the entire thing in all details all in one go.
Ok - need to get back to work.
Hope this helps, and if you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the above or anything else, please don't hesitate to ask.
Todd
) some ideas have come to mind that might potentially address the issue of how your civ might get out on its own given the Terragen expansion wave.Speaking on general principles, I would suggest moving the starting point for your civ forward by some thousands of years so that they leave Terragen civ closer to the 'present day' and having them relocate to a location that is on the edge of Terragen civ - where archai writ runs thin - but also sufficiently connected to it that the founders of the civ can take advantage of 'modern' transport infrastructure to get there.
In terms of possible locations for this, some idea are:
a) The Perseus Arm - We currently have this as being on the very edge of Terragen expansion and a place where new archai - the Perseus Princes are rising, possibly to one day challenge the old guard of archai and the dominance of the Sephirotic Empires. Your civilization and its ruling archailect could be one of these. We have almost nothing written up on these so in many respects it would be a blank canvas for you to create on.
b) The Carina Rush - Again this is an area where circumstances (and an alien wormhole) have created a frontier region far from the center of the main archailect powers. Your empire's ancestors could head out through the wormhole into the Rush and go on to found a new civilization. We might or might not need to tweak the current Carina Rush article(s) a bit to accommodate that, but that could be doable. Again, little has been written about this region so there is likely lots of room for you to create as you wish without running afoul of existing canon and articles.
c) The Hellfire Expansion - This is a bit different in that it is a 'frontier' region that is surrounded on all sides by the existing civilization. But frontiers might be seen as as much about ideas as territory. In this instance your empire founders could be a group that got into the Expansion early and took over a cluster or other group of stars to found a new empire. This would definitely be a smaller empire, but as Rynn has pointed out, there is a huge amount of room to create in that general conceptual space in OA since we haven't done a lot with it.
d) The Middle and Outer Volumes - While these are not on the edge of Terragen civilization per se, they were at one time and (depending on where you go) there are significant to large regions that have little contact with/influence from the Sephirotic empires. From an editorial perspective, there are vast regions that have had little written up about them which leaves them open for anyone who wants to grab a small to medium size chunk of space and start using it as a sandbox. In this case, rather than a founding group being outside the Terragen Sphere it would be more a matter of 'Around such and such a date Group X founded a civilization in location Y and rapidly expanded to control a volume of Z light years across. They have been rather isolationist and maintain relatively little contact with the wider Terragen civilization. etc etc.' Such an empire need not be anywhere near as large as a Sephirotic to host a huge amount of places to play. For example, a bit of googling turns up that there are nearly 14,000 stars within 100 light-years of the Sun and between 200 and 300 thousand within 250ly. So even a pretty modest empire can have more places to create then any one person (or likely group of people) could manage in a singe life-time.
Likely there are other potential 'blank spots on the map' where you could set an empire, but hopefully this gives you the general idea.
Starting out your empire a bit later and/or in a way that doesn't require being 'outside' the entire Terragen Bubble purely in spacial terms removes one of the single biggest challenges I see with your proposal at a single stroke.
In terms of how unique your empire might be, and what it might contain. Partly that's going to depend on what sort of 'foundation' and 'framework' you build for it such that you and others (based on our experience a group effort on an ongoing basis is definitely something you want) can add to it over time with more specific article entries. In terms of a recommendation - I wouldn't try to create the entire thing in all details all in one go.
Ok - need to get back to work.
Hope this helps, and if you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the above or anything else, please don't hesitate to ask.
Todd