Little is known of the early history of the Deep. It is fairly certain that the Ancients visited several planets in the region; artifacts found at various sites in the Deep have indicated this to be the case.

Near the end of the Pax Vilanica, as the First Imperium began suffering from internal dissension and civil wars among ambitious provincial governors, the Saie culture was first discovered in the Deep. One provincial governor, seeking possible allies in support of his planned revolt in the Daibei Sector, sent explorers out to the uncivilised regions beyond the frontiers. The Saie were the most sophisticated race discovered, with a thriving Tech 7 culture. The governor sent technical aid to the Saie homeworld to help them develope interstellar travel. Unfortunately, his plot was uncovered, and he was deposed and executed. The technical mission remained on the Saie homeworld, cut off from support and forgotten.

The agressive, militant Saie used their newly acquired technology to carve out a small empire in the Caledon, Riftrim, and Nightrim subsectors. They became rather thinly spread in the process; when a major civil war erupted, their empire collapsed, and the culture vanished almost without a trace. Even the identity of their homeworld and all records of their appearance were lost, buried amid confused legends among the peoples they had conquered.

It was during the period of the Interstellar Wars between the Vilani and the young, vigorous Terran Confederation that humans of Solomani extraction first settled the Deep. Settlers seeking to escape the wartorn worlds near Terra set out on an epic journey which ultimately ended with the settlement of Caledon in the Caledon Subsector. Other Terrans followed later, during the period of the Second Imperium (also known as the Rule of Man), exploring parts of the Deep; by and large, however, the region remained mostly unsettled.

The Second Imperium did not last long; the inherited problems of the Vilani regime could not be overcome by their Terran successors in time to prevent a complete collapse. The Long Night ensued, at first a slow decline of interstellar civilisation which at last ended in a chaos of petty states and individual strong men attempting to cling to power in the absence of unified government or consistent interstellar communication.

It was during the latter part of the Long Night that the Reavers first appeared in the Deep. The Reavers were petty warlords or outright pirates who parlayed a few handsful of spaceworthy starships into an opportunity to sieze local power bases and loot backward worlds. This was common outside the Deep as well as within, but Reavers' Deep remained a haven for these freebooters long after the rise of new interstellar states extinguished their breed elsewhere.

Eventually, the arrival of the Aslan to spinward and the Third Imperium to trailing, and the ensuing Aslan border wars fought within the Deep itself by these two powers, put an end to the Reavers, though the name lingered in romance and fiction - and is still frequently applied to contemporary freebooters operating out of the independent worlds of the Deep.

Today, the Deep is a divided region, established as a neutral zone between the Imperium and the Hierate many centuries ago. Aslan - and Aslan client states - are present on the spinward and rimward edges of the Deep. The Imperium is to coreward-trailing. Territory belonging to the Solomani Confederation extends through part of the Fahinar subsector. But the core of the Deep is independent, or under the influence of the two largest political entities in the region, the Principality of Caledon, and the Carrillian Assembly. Although influence from the larger realms ecircling the Deep is pervasive, the Deep has a deeply ingrained tradition of freedom from outside interference that makes it an interesting - and often dangerous - sector of the frontier.

-- A Pilot's Guide to the Drexilthar Subsector
© 1984 by Gamelords LTD
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