The elections of the year 3000 indicated that the Central Democrats would maintain power with the Social Democrats also with pretty strong support. The fringe Imperial Party, though, hearkening back to a glory age of the British Empire, is the third largest party although significant losses would have to be inflicted on both Democrat parties before they might take office. The rest of Parliament is populated by a few separatist parties, who hold seats in New Guernsey, New Avalon and--most worryingly, in New Exeter, who have a full third of the councils in the system.The Hyperspace Collapse, which has puzzled many scientists over the last hundred years, seems finally to be resolving itself. The apparently random breaks of hyperspace lanes, which some hyperspace scientists theorise may have left some systems alone while keeping some systems in groups of up to ten or more, seem to be healing. But it appears that they are not healing in the same way, and it might be the reason why massive and advanced empires are not as frequent as they should be.
The United Star Kingdom has, it appears, been quite lucky. Prior to the Hyperspace Collapse, the three colonies of New Avalon, New Edinburgh and New London were chosen to be the hubs for colonial expansion in the region and the USK, formed shortly after the Collapse, has expanded to six systems--one, New Guernsey, that was discovered by early hyperspace exploration five years prior to the current date.
Now, at the eve of the new millenium, the USK seems ready to take the first tentative steps out into the universe to discover who else--if anyone--has survived
Meanwhile, the Royal Navy has a very potent fleet, centred around the eight Nelson-class DN and six Hermes CVL, and containing twenty Cornwall CA. A healthy defence squadron of three Apollo CL orbits every planet and, unknown to raiders, a trio of Q-Ships supports each civilian fleet formation.
Less comforting to some flag officers is the two Triumphant strike cruisers. Both are cloak cruisers also operating scout abilities, and seem to be purely for offensive operations. Attempts to diffuse the dissenting voices in the Admiralty have so far not worked.
However, the three Habbakuk repair tenders and six Beagle exploration cruisers are less controversial, and the two three-cruiser exploration squadrons both succeeded in finding new systems.
The one exception seems to be if I have more than one starting empire... then I end up just tripping over new empires to generate!
