Interstellar Dark Ages

The time following (and to some extent overlapping) the Age of Strife ending the Second Interstellar Period, the Interstellar Dark Ages were a harsh time characterized by technological regression in many societies devastated by warfare and a collapse in interstellar trade and travel.

Its end is generally marked by the formation of the Stellar Compact, which started out as a union of the least-damaged or fastest-recovering powers. Elsewhere, the Interstellar Dark Ages did not end in most systems for decades or longer, and even in the modern times it is not unheard-of for a long-lost inhabited world, the result of some forgotten colonization effort, to be discovered again.