The Mass Panic
Galaxy-wide fear as a star system dies without warning, an embargo bites, and a former-crawler army declares war.
Story so far
By the epilogue the wider galaxy has stopped being an audience and started being frightened. The largest story on every feed is that a mantis system simply went boom - the destruction of the Mantis Colony at Hive Re-Population Center 51 - and the reason it terrifies people is that stars do not usually go nova without warning.
Everything else compounds it. A new Prime Minister. A The Dream cruiser crashed onto Earth over Australia, with other ships down alongside it. A mass suicide in one of the Nebular colonies. Ships shooting at each other in orbit again. And then Porthus on Breaking News, announcing a militant group moving against all Syndicate governmental properties and systems across the known universe. At Squirties, Zander watches nobody at all approach the tunnel gate - the reporters have stopped coming, the customers have stopped coming, and he knows from experience that war fleets do not buy fuel, they take it.
Role
The galaxy's collapse of confidence as the crawl's endgame spills outward.
Relationships
Sources — 2 recorded facts, by chapter
- The galaxy-wide terror already spreading after the AI breakout, which Orren begs Carl not to worsen.
- Galaxy-wide fear as a star system dies without warning, an embargo bites, and a former-crawler army declares war.