Markup View

Author: zarpaulus

Feb 24th 2013 at 8:03:58 AM

^ The empire-cycle section is not space-specific and I think more detailed than what you have.

Examples mined from the page:

[[AC: Literature]]
* The ''Literature/CoDominium'' was an alliance between the United States of America and the Soviet Union that took over earth and colonized most of known space, it collapsed when the founding states finally sterilized earth in a nuclear war.  Then the former American colony Sparta decided that humanity must be united under a single rule and conquered the other surviving colonies forming the Empire of Man, some centuries later this Empire falls thanks to a rebellion by the Sauron supermen.  After a few more centuries of dark age a Second Empire emerges.
** In ''TheMoteInGodsEye'' the Second Empire contacts an alien race that due to their ridiculous breeding rate experiences the empire cycle frequently, so much so that they've depleted their system's supply of fissionable material.  However they're restricted to one system because the only [[HyperspaceLanes Alderson Point]] in their system of origin leads into a red supergiant.

[[AC: Live Action TV]]
* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' takes place in the Interregnum of the Systems Commonwealth, with the titular ship's crew trying to establish a new Commonwealth.

[[AC: Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' is set during an Interregnum following the demise of the Star League.  Each of the four Inner Sphere Successor States and the Crusader Clans have ambitions of becoming the next Empire.
* ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'' has gone through two corporatocratic Republics and is slowly emerging from a dark age as a feudal Empire.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}}'': The first human and Eldar empires were torn apart by the birth of Slaanesh, the Eldar because their homeworlds were consumed by the Eye of Terror and the humans because the resulting warp storms made interstellar travel difficult.  Humanity was re-united under the GodEmperor but the Eldar are still scattered.

[[AC: Video Games]]
* The ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' has gone through The Cycle of Empire twice. In both cases, the Decline and Fall was due to somebody creating artificial general intelligence. The first time around, the Terrans nearly destroyed themselves, only surviving because the commander of their space navy lured the terraformers through the Earth jumpgate, which was destroyed behind them. The survivors of said commander's fleet created a new civilization in the X-Universe, the Argon Federation. In the 2940s, threatened by Earth's superior military, the Argon created AGI warships and unleashed them on the Terrans, sparking an interstellar war that forced the Community of Planets the Argon were a part of to divert the military forces holding the terraformers (now called the Xenon) at bay. The Xenon went out of control, forcing the Old Ones to shut down the jumpgate system. This caused Galactic/Societal Collapse. X Rebirth is set during the Interregnum about a thousand years later.

[[AC: Web Original]]
* ''OrionsArm'' has gone through the empire cycle at least once, after the fall of the First Federation Terragen space was divided into several "sephirotic empires".  And it's indicated that the Sephirotics are fragmenting.