Near Miss at Alpha Xymeria

Like many orange stars in the Sealed Kingdoms Region - and all stars in the Xymeria Cluster - Alpha Xymeria played host to a sentient species even before its 'discovery' by the Iron Talon Mining Concern. The human-descended Karstineans lived on Karst, the third planet from Alpha Xymeria. The Karstineans lived across several nation states that had finally conquered their desire for conflict, constructed an Information Age international society, and had even explored other worlds within the star system with a well-developed (if primitive by Sealed Kingdoms standards) space program.
Unfortunately, all of this progress the Karstineans had made towards a debut on the interstellar stage was torn apart over the course of three generations by an event wholly out of their control: the close transit of the Alpha Xymeria system by a black hole. The orbits of Alpha Xymeria's planets and asteroids were perturbed, causing impact events, failures in ongoing space missions' navigation, and - most dire of all for the Karstineans - a significant shift in Karst's climate. Wholly unprepared for this event, Karstinean society fell to infighting and despair. Now scattered remnants of this once-great Information Age society eke out a sad, meager existence on their cold homeworld while other species fight over scrap and mineral resources which rightly belong to the locals.

Manifestation

Karstinean astronomers noticed the first signs of trouble when the outer planets they were observing changed their courses through the night sky. Changes in gravity propagate at the speed of light, and observing orbital changes take time, so these astronomers didn't necessarily understand what was going on at first. The black hole that had passed within a half-lightyear of the system was undetected at the time, only later being observed by Evermornan HLAI-crewed vessels on the way to visit Beta Xymeria.
Over time, as Karst's own orbit grew and shifted as a result of the black hole's tug, the climate began to noticeably cool. Though the Karstineans could offset this for a time by increasing their industrial output, many large population centers and growing regions suffered destructive meteor strikes as the paths of previously redirectable asteroids and comets were shifted in unpredictable ways, setting back long-term efforts at geoengineering. Deep-space missions that were underway at the time found themselves poorly-equipped to return, as their budgeted resources assumed the previous orbital periods, inclinations, and apsis. The planet's rising albedo as the polar ice caps grew amplified the climate cooling effect by reflecting more sunlight back out into space.
Though still at the outer edge of its home star's habitable zone, life on Karst was evolved for a much warmer existence. As such, widespread crop failures provoked famine which, in turn, provoked civil upheaval. Old geopolitical rivalries flared, culminating in an all-consuming war over the slightly more hospitable equatorial zones. In the aftermath of that war, life on Karst still continues, albeit in a greatly-changed state. Scattered urban holdouts and roaming bands of refugees became small city-states and nomadic tribes, respectively, each scavenging what they can of old technology while keeping one another at an arms' distance. Several attempts at unity have come and gone, most notably the Initiative to Restore Karst led by the alien artificial intelligence Lufthaus. In more recent times, ITMC had been exploiting the system's asteroid belts in the Karstineans' absence, but the chitiquish corporation was pushed out by White-Star Union in 1974 CE. The Union is now in talks with various remaining Karstinean powers to either help them adapt to what their world has become or, if the death of the Karst ecosystem is inevitable, help them become spacefaring so that a new homeworld can be found

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Type

Natural