Hammerstar Supernova
The supernova of the Hammerstar occurred in 53,250, and the kill-zone (KZ) reached its maximum size in 77,850. The collapse began in the next century and was caused by a number of combined factors, but the strain it placed on shipping is certainly one of the main factors. It took fifty years to get the collapse started. Once it started, it moved to trailing at a rapid pace. For purposes of the regrowth of population in the Collapse Zone (CZ), consider the date of the start of recovery from the collapse to be 83050. The population multiple for 92,411 is, by growth rate, 0.5%/x2, 1.0%/x2.8, 1.5%/x4, 2.0%'/x5.6.
The Collapse
Thousands of worlds were caught off guard by the ignition and propagation of the effects of the Hammerstar. Forty-five billion sentients in nearby star systems died soon after the the intial "flash". As the death wake of the explosion swept further out into the surrounding stars, some worlds' evacuations became more and more successful, but still more lives were lost usually those who could not afford a ticket off-world before the end. Another 120 billion lives were directly ended in the two centuries following the start of the disaster. Then, a new dynamic began to form. In the last fifty years of the expansion, another 400 billion sentient lives were lost as the tecno-collapse spread into more heavily populated areas of the lower Orion Arm spur as the disaster began to reach outside the initial kill-zone (KZ).
Sadly, untold trillions have died due to the Collapse. The Hammerstar took its toll beyond its immediate grasp. Civilization fell toward the tip of the lower Orion Arm. The Heller expedition of 88,050 reached a full two kiloparsecs to trailing and still did not find the far side of the devastation zone, if one existed. Macro Economists explained this phenomenon as a kind of anti-synergy; the opposite of the kind that has made the galaxy, overall, stable for 690+ centuries.
The Hammerstar was the 249th supernova since the first one discovered many millenia ago but what was different was the placement, the timing, and the surprise of the event. Predictions of the pre-cursor star's extinction model had given an estimate of a million years minimum before the Hammerstar was "scheduled" to go supernova. After the intial blast, four nearby star systems were caught off-guard, with scarcely two months before detection and the first wave of lethal radiation. Neighboring empires had already started a program to reduce the population of these systems, two of them with high population worlds, within a parsec of the former star. These worlds had taken the long view toward the prospect of a local supernova explosion, but the star had died too early for plans.
The disruption to regional shipping, and the lack of any jump conduits with endpoints within the KZ are the two most prominent factors blamed for the Collapse. There have been other regional collapses, but none involving this much territory, and none have been attributable directly to a supernova.
The Republik Scout Service (RSS) conducts operations in each of the CZ sectors adjacent to The Republik. The Area of Operations (AO) has the look and feel of a district under military rule. Check with the controlling RSS office before entering any AO. Intended flight plans are always a bonus toward gaining access into these places.