The Empire Cracks

Though the Second Empire was founded on the promise of peace and order, time and fear twisted it into something harsher. What began as measured governance hardened into dictatorship. Child prisons filled with the young deemed “unfit,” pirates and cultists, hunted down with little distinction from innocent drifters, and purges swept entire districts under suspicion alone. The weight of such oppression stoked fires of resentment, smoldering beneath the surface of society.

Then came famine. The second great famine the Moon of Kenshi had ever endured, rivaled only by the devastation of The Great Dry. It began in The Grid, the Empire’s great marvel of vertical farming, when an immense explosion tore through its towers of life. The carefully maintained system collapsed, plunging thousands into hunger. Crops withered, stores ran empty, and for the first time the Empire could not feed its people. In the far north, starvation gave rise to madness, and the first cannibal tribes emerged from the wasted hinterlands.

With famine gnawing at its foundations, the Empire began to crack. Once loyal subjects now whispered rebellion, soldiers turned raider to survive, and provinces slipped away from Cat-Lon’s grasp. The promise of peace was buried under the growl of empty stomachs and the shadow of desperation, as the Second Empire inched ever closer to ruin.