Fiction:Silvan Megastructural Culture

The Silvan Megastructural Culture was a civilisation in the Quadrant Galaxies that existed between 15 000 BQF before its abrupt collapse in 2100 BQF. Enigmatic, very little was known of the culture up until recently, when a small vestige of the civilisation known as the Silvan Ascendency revealed itself in 2820. What is known of the civilisation, however, is that it was an isolated one, that dedicated itself to cultured living and regal grace, and filled its collective consciousness with a sort of hubris that did not die out even in the modern day.

Historic Silvan Civilisation, 15 000-2100 BQF
The Silvan Megastructural Culture emerged in its modern form at around 15 000 BQF, around the time the Atlantica collapsed. The Neutrality Zone, by this point, was less inhabited, and thus less dangerous, so this allowed the Silvan to rebuild their home system into a massive Dyson Sphere on which to live on. The reconstitution of their homesystem into such a vast megastructure provided the new society near-infinite energy and space upon which to expand, and thus a post-scarcity society, held together by a form of hivemind, emerged. Stability and consensus was afforded by this hivemind, and idle lives dedicated to the arts and pleasure were led by most. External threats were nonexistent, due to near-unhabited nature of the Quadrants at the time. Early into this period emerged large-scale and consistent genetic engineering of the Silvan race. Most of these were to increase Silvan mental power and dexterity, though they came at the expense of other organs-- namely the respiratory system, which atrophied significantly due to the increased energy demand from the brain and the existence of robust lungs and filtration becoming unnecessary in a world where the air is filtered and pure. The Silvan civilisation existed in an eternal cycle, as it competed against its own population growth. Silvan bred rapidly by their nature, and any attempts to reduce Silvan fertility were met with a divided populace and a scientific quandry-- there were simply too many complications involved in such a genetic procedure. This meant that, even if only over the course of centuries, Silvan eventually spread to every corner of their megastructures and a Malthusian crisis ensued. These crisis eras were comparatively short-- less than a century-- but they were also marked by a painful return to scarcity, social and cultural upheaval, and the forced mass-mobilisation of a usually very passive population to undertake the Herculean task of building yet more megastructures around yet more star systems in the interests of spreading out the Silvan population, and returning to another few millenia of peace.

Thousands of years would pass until at about 2100 BQF, where the Silvan civilisation suddenly and rapidly collapsed. This was due to the fragile cycle of stability and violent, unstable expansion being disrupted by the emergence of credible threats around its territories, meaning that the Silvan needed to divide its scarce resources among several problems during its crisis era-- something that had never had to have been done before. The civilisation couldn't adapt to this new paradigm, and thus destroyed itself. Almost all traces of the Silvan civilisation would then disappear over the ensuing millenia, any evidence of their existence coming in the form of the occasional world still inhabited by Silvan who've since forgotten their grand heritage and regressed to barbarism, and the occasional artifact or megastructural ruin which, while inspiring awe in its discoverers, are often too far gone to be even of serious archaeological value. In Drodo records, the Silvan civilisation is classified as "Civilisation Q3A" and little academic interest is, or was, taken in it.

The Silvan Ascendency, 2100 BQF-forward
There was, however, some hope. A small sector of Silvan space, by now only sparsely-populated, was able to rapidly close itself off to the rest of the collapsing civilisation and force itself to make the controversial decision to sterilise its new constitutents, then putting in a very strict cloning program for an extremely gradual population growth. This civilisation rode out the collapse, unmolested by the rest of the society that would in more stable circumstances wish to reunite the separtists by force, and dedicated itself to the quiet, isolated existence of its ancestors.

This sector of the Neutrality Zone remained relatively unknown for most of its existence, and freak disappearances of the few vessels that crossed through this zone further discouraged passage through the area. Through history multiple nations have sent out travel advisories or zones of exclusion around the Silvan area and it has since become something of a spacer's legend in modern times.

This state of affairs would persist for over 2000 years until the modern day, where again the threat of population collapse has brought this civilisation to a panic. Looking back out to the gigaquadrant for the first time in centuries, they see a very different one indeed. The time may have just come for new leaders-- and new thinking.