#just realized that phrygian would have loved the Chimeric Cadent

[egg-tats]

re: @fourteenfishteen

#was there a bit where the branched had to face stellar combustors? i thought the stakes were that like#the branched were fighting a defensive war until recently when they decided to start taking systems of their own#(and we worry that the branched are. through fighting an empire. coming to resemble it in shape)#ANYWAYS i love u branched man.

I don't know if Austin ever explicitly said the golden branch was ringed with stellar combustors, but it's safe to assume it was just because of what they were, and what the branched were. remember that the Golden Branch star system has Apostolos and Kesh, and the branched are the people who were already there.

the stels know that if the Branched starts pushing out past the Golden Branch principality citizens will start to want to become Branched. likewise, some of the Branched came from kesh, so they know what a Stellar Combustor is for.

thinking about how phrygian was out here, being a soldier instead of a scientist, in order to stop the war on his home

thinking about how the war raged for millenia because while the branched are extremely powerful, the principality was endless.

thinking about how the branched could never make any gains on the principality, because to take one star system would be to risk the murder of 24 entire star systems.

thinking about how that's not true anymore