Galaxy-wide political collapses

[Battlehymn Republic]

For this thread, I'm referring to humanocentric settings, where humans basically rule the Milky Way, and sentient species (if any) live elsewhere or maybe in servitude on border worlds. They can include Foundation series, Dune, the Emperor of the Fading Suns, and other similar settings. I guess the CoDominimum series might apply to, but I'm not too familar with it.

1. I've noticed that these settings have kind of dwindled away in recent years, possible partly because the notion of "neo-feudalism in space" was already perfected as a historical parallel idea by Asimov and as a weird futuristic mystic religious thing by Frank Herbert.

Partially, it's probably because we've realized that galaxy-wide communications such as an interstellar internet knits humanity together.

But could there be a scenario where without relying on some handwaving (warp storms or whatever prevent hyperspace travel and subspace transmissions!) what could lead to the collapse of a galaxy-wide sci-fi communications network?

2. Are there any series where it's a non-empire that collapses? Maybe a galaxy wide human federation or democracy that can't sustain itself anymore?

[Uraniun235]

How long does the collapse have to last?

The reason I ask is that in 1990... well, here, let me just quote for you:

(link)

On January 15, 1990, 114 switching nodes of the AT&T long distance system went down. The published cause of the crash was a bug in the failure recovery code of the switches. When a node crashed, it sent "out of service" message to the neighboring nodes, which are supposed to re-route traffic around it. However, the bug (a misplaced "break" statement in C code) caused the neighboring nodes to crash themselves upon receiving the "out of service" message, and further propagate the fault by sending an "out of service" message to nodes further out in the network.

The crash lasted 9 hours, while programmers searched for the cause of the bug. An estimated 60 thousand people were left without telephone service, and 70 million phone calls went uncompleted. AT&T estimates at least $60 million in lost revenue and damage to its reputation; reliability was a central point in AT&T's marketing campaign against other long distance providers at the time. The incidental damage to businesses that were unable to operate due to lack of telephone service is hard to estimate, but is presumably much larger. The public safety and national security implications of such a large telephone system outage are distressing as well.

You could easily lift that idea for your own story, but it'd be temporary.

Alternatively, you could write your universe such that the only form of FTL communication is messages carried on FTL starships.

2. Are there any series where it's a non-empire that collapses? Maybe a galaxy wide human federation or democracy that can't sustain itself anymore?

I believe Jerry Pournelle and someone else wrote a story (series of stories?) which included a democracy falling apart, to be replaced by an empire. Not sure.

[Beowulf]

The CoDominum is a structure put in place between the USSR and the US as a stabilizing force. It runs all the colonization of other planets and so forth. When the situation on Earth collapses, it brings down the CoDominum as well, and with it, the only real interstellar force (which is also the only interstellar communications medium). Later on, a world called Sparta developed a large enough interstellar capability to begin subjugating the nearby worlds, and created the first interstellar empire. Later on, it falls as well.

[Srynerson]

But could there be a scenario where without relying on some handwaving (warp storms or whatever prevent hyperspace travel and subspace transmissions!) what could lead to the collapse of a galaxy-wide sci-fi communications network?

The answer to this depends in some ways on how long range, elaborate, and/or energy intensive your FTL communication/transportation system is, along with whether your civilization has FTL sensors (since it is possible to imagine FTL communications methods that can't function as sensors).

[SirNitram]

How did the Roman Empire fall?

It was repeatedly invaded after a decline of complacency, and it's infrastructure trashed.

Ergo, you can precipitate a collapse by a technologically inferior enemy smashing your communications network and navigational beacons.

[CoyoteNature]

I don't think a interstellar communications network would help to necessarily knit together a truly galactic humanity, there's simply to much galaxy and in the case of humanity to many variant branches of them to reach a kind of natural accord.

Which is why I think most stories aren't really about galactic humanity but more about a few stars, and they just call it galactic to make it seem grandiose.


But to answer 1 there is the idea of the meme, that is a really nasty idea infects galaxy wide civilization causing chaos in the communications network, you know memes like certain religious ideas, etc. Think of computer virus but with humans being the infected.

And in a galaxy wide civilization there is bound to be many such memes.


Then there's the overextension premise, where a empire expands to fast to far, and as a consequence its various regions rebel disrupting communications, etc.

Or the resource premise, say for example your empire is dependent upon a certain quantity of resource X to maintain its FTL network, then disruptions in that supply would cause disruptions in the communications network etc.

There's lots more ideas, it also depends to a certain extent how your hypothetical empire is set up.

To examples of series perhaps Drakes Empire from the Ashes series, where there have been a whole series of empires from 1st all the way to what was it fourth or fifth? hmm anyway in that there communications network in some ways was the problem as it allowed for the communication of a massive plague which caused that empire to collapse.

Perhaps the Xeelee Humans as well, they've pretty much wiped out all sentient species in the galaxy, and as of Exultant era were predominant, their empire collapses because they enventually end up kicking the Xeelee out of the galaxy, thus removing the central idea which had unified them up to that point.


So the removal of a idea might be applicable if it is suitably important.


Of course then they formed a democratic government, but with the removal of the whole transcendant idea, it left them open to the Xeelee eventually wiping the floor with them later on.

So any outside threat would also be applicable.

Also collapse by neglect, by the plateauing of technological progression, or the overexpansion of technology, basically anything which caused previous human empires to collapse except writ large.

[Omega18]

2. Are there any series where it's a non-empire that collapses? Maybe a galaxy wide human federation or democracy that can't sustain itself anymore?

Christopher Stasheff wrote a series where a Democracy (mostly a representative republic technically) collapses in his universe first created with the book The Warlock in Spite of Himself. Admitedly the only book actually mostly set prior to the fall is essentially a prequel Escape Velocity, with most of the books set during a rebuilding period in which Democracy had been restored through most of the advanced planets and was being spread to the previously abandoned colonies. (An element of this was the colonies had to reach a certain level mostly on thier own and democracy couldn't simply be imposed on these planets out of the blue.) Basically after a dictatorial regime had undermined the government and seized power, it abandoned most of the colonies who were left to themselves as it looked inward.

A key plot element is the in the initial Democracy which covers a large portion of the galaxy, there is no FTL communication method and they have to rely upon whatever FTL ships stop by for information. This relatively poor state of communications between planets plays a key role in undermining Democracy and spread of a second Democratic movement does not occur until an FTL communication method is invented.[/u]

[Coyote]

In my own series of stories I've been developing over the years I had a human empire that expanded primarily because they were the first ones to gain FTL travel. They ruled for hundreds of years but gradually the ruling classes got complacent, corrupt, and things like wealth, fashions, bloodline and political connections mattered more than actual competency-- that and the fact that they were very heavy-handed and tended to engage in institutional racism against aliens gave the non-humans no reason to be loyal or supportive and every reason to sit back and watch as things unraveled.

When the collapse happened, it was mostly regional in nature, it wasn't a complete breakdown... trade and things became inefficient, corruption was rife, and smaller factions fought for dominance and engaged in piracy or whatnot. So it wasn't totally chaotic, but it sure was messy. I figured it was about as much of a 'collapse' that could realistically be expected, since I asked myself why, if all the resources and institutions were still in place, would people just walk away from the clear and obvious benefits of FTL commo and trade?

So IMO any such collapse would be brought about by incompentence / complacency, economic mismanagement, and possibly "ethnic" (alien) blocs feeling disenfranchised and rebelling actively or passively.

[Shadowtraveler]

2. Are there any series where it's a non-empire that collapses? Maybe a galaxy wide human federation or democracy that can't sustain itself anymore?

Dark Age of Technology humanity from 40k ruled millions of independant worlds with advanced technology.

Then their robot servants turn against them, warp storms seperate everything, human psykers start appearing, their advanced technology is destroyed, and someone loses their hat.

[Lord Zentei]

How did the Roman Empire fall?

It was repeatedly invaded after a decline of complacency, and it's infrastructure trashed.

Ergo, you can precipitate a collapse by a technologically inferior enemy smashing your communications network and navigational beacons.

Long-term economic stagnation and infighting did not help much either, as it left the empire enervated and non-dynamic so it responded to the invasions far less effectively than before. Also, according to my Atlas of World Population History (Colin McEverdy and Richard Jones), the population of the empire had been consistently declining since the heyday in c 200 AD, whereas in the Barbaricum the opposite had been the case. The technology gap had been reduced over that time as well.

[Lord of the Abyss]

To examples of series perhaps Drakes Empire from the Ashes series, where there have been a whole series of empires from 1st all the way to what was it fourth or fifth? hmm anyway in that there communications network in some ways was the problem as it allowed for the communication of a massive plague which caused that empire to collapse.

I think you are referring to David Weber's Empire from the Ashes Trilogy. Also, neither it nor the CoDominion were anywhere near galactic in scope.

I can think of some collapsing interstellar human empires/governments, but not that many galactic ones that haven't been mentioned. The only 2 that I recall offhand are Mike Resnick's Democracy/Republic, and all I remember is that it did collapse, to the point that humanity devolved. The other is the human-dominated intergalactic Empire of Allan Cole & Chris Bunch's Sten series. It collapsed because because the linchpins holding it together ( the human Eternal Emperor and his Antimatter Two monopoly ) were destroyed.

[000]

Toward the end of the Vong war the Holonet was all but destroyed. Of course, the GA still hung in there, but communications had to be relayed by couriers, message drones, and so forth.

[Nyrath]

An interstellar empire can have scalability problems.
Go to
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html
and scroll down to the section that starts with

"From "Galactic Empires" by Dr. Robert A. Freitas Jr. Ares Magazine No. 16, Winter 1983"

and the section that starts with

"From Space Skimmer by David Gerrold (1972)"

[CoyoteNature]

Thanks for the correction, been a while since I read the series.




For the Roman Empire, might also have been the wee bit of lead poisoning in their drinking water, not the causative factor but a factor nonetheless

[Patrick Degan]

Doctor Who has had several of them, either depicted or implied. The Earth Empire of the middle third millenium is definitely seen in a state of decline in "The Mutants". The Federation is a later creation about a thousand years later but it too eventually vanishes from the scene. Earth and humanity go into a long decline but eventually rise back into the GalSec organisation which spread throughout the galaxy ("The Sontaran Experiment") and perhaps into the neighbouring one as well.

The Daleks lose their empire after their defeat by the Movellans ("Resurrection Of The Daleks") in a collapse so catastrophic that they had become a scattered "people"; leading to their desperation to seek out Davros again, which in turn leads to a split in the Dalek race. And of course they get annihilated in the Time War.

[Argosh]

How about Hyperion by Dan Simmons? They have problems after collapse of their Hegemony of Man - fatline/datasphere (FTL communications) and travel by farcasters (permanent two-way stargates) stop working.

[Typhonis 1]

Traveller had three emipires fall.

First Imperium fell because of wasrs between it and the humans of Terra espeically after a farther ftl drive was discovered by the Terrans.

Second Imperium fell due to a collpse of the loca bank system that grew out of control.

Third Imperium went to Hell when the Emperor and his direct succesor were murdered by a maan that then claimed the throne. Soon the Empire was split between 10 warring factions and there were invasions from outside the borders...local space then collapsed when a militarised AI computer viruswith suicidal tendencies was released.

[Stofsk]

First Imperium fell because of wasrs between it and the humans of Terra espeically after a farther ftl drive was discovered by the Terrans.

The Ziru Sirka fell because of internal instability (due to the Vilani society more than anything, and also because they had subjugated many human worlds), and the Terrans took advantage of this in their fight.

Second Imperium fell due to a collpse of the loca bank system that grew out of control.

The Rule of Man or the Ramshackle Empire fells because the Ziru Sirka didn't it just had a sign saying "Under New Management." If the Terrans had lost the Ziru Sirka would have still fallen, it may have simply taken a bit longer but it would have happened.

Third Imperium went to Hell when the Emperor and his direct succesor were murdered by a maan that then claimed the throne. Soon the Empire was split between 10 warring factions and there were invasions from outside the borders...local space then collapsed when a militarised AI computer viruswith suicidal tendencies was released.

Ah yes... the Virus. Also know as "FRANCHISE RESET! FRANCHISE RESET!"

[Lord of the Abyss]

This Fortress World by James Gunn is set long after the fall of a galactic ( I think ) human culture, into a sort of hi-tech dark age. There's still plenty of technology around, but little of it is understood and it's slowly falling apart ( yes, like Warhammer 40k, but a much older book I believe ). The original human culture fell apart in a massive holy war/witch hunt against telepaths, and the remaining worlds are isolated and paranoid of offworld contamination/attack, thus the title. Note : I haven't read it in years, so I may have made errors here.