Only a very tiny part of the galaxy is familiar territory to the Descendants. At its height the Nerakk Empire only spanned a fifth of the galaxy, its contemporary remnant constituting only a one-digit number of systems. Only a tiny part of this fallen empire's abandoned citadels has been taken over by Descendants, the rest having been absorbed by that gigantic unknown that is the vast, mysterious universe.
The Descendant Confederacy itself is only a loose confederation of stellar nations connected by wormhole generation technology and united very tenuously not by the vague community feeling denoted by shared ancestry and the memetic activities of the Veglyr as much as by two things: The unpredictability and near-omnipotence of extradimensional visitors and by the enigma of that great sea of stars in which they are nothing but a tiny archipelago. The Confederacy and its members states themselves have many fringes: Thinly populated and often more or less lawless regions of space where the formal authorities are either powerless and/or represented only by small outpost stations and their squadrons of patrol boats. Though in case things get too chaotic, a small flotilla of dedicated warships can swarm through the local system's wormhole gate - and this deterrent does sometimes not even, to use a particularly outré analogy, keep the mice from eating each other when there's no cats around.
Then, consider how easy play space pirates should have in the fringe areas, it should not surprise anyone that a common term in various languages for planets in these areas is "Swordworlds". In fact, the population of the fringes is usually rather evenly divided between following groups of people:
- Intrepid explorers with a heroic, if somewhat naïve, giddiness about the unknown.
- Administrative personnel and the military/law enforcement. ("The Fuzz")
- Cultural misfits of various sorts within their respective societies - eg. gendered Xril, Veglyr radical atheists, anarchists of any sort.
- Xril anthropologists, missionaries of the Way and other assorted do-gooders.
- Drunes, space pirates and other outlaws.
The Inanomalam Rim
This elongated collection of just under a dozen solar systems, stretching along one frontier of the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet's holdings, encompasses roughly eighty settled planets and moons and 300 habitats. The Inalomanam Rim, also known as the Rim of Fire, has become Swordworlds mostly for cultural/religions reasons: For some reason, the pantheistic religion of "The Way" never really caught on in the Rim anywhere as much it did among the rest of the Veglyr. Now, the leadership of the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet happens to be dominated by the warrior-mystic sect known as the Manizha Path, and with the fleet being the only unifying political power among the Veglyr in addition to the somewhat condescending view towards non-adherents the Way fosters in its followers, it should be no surprise that the mostly atheistic Inanomalir (or "Edgeworlders" as they also are called) not only hold the federal authorities in a very low regard, but are also quite proud of their atheism, which they often build most of their personal identity upon. Indeed, other religions are often equally as shunned in the Rim of Fire as the "hated oppressors who walk upon their accursed Way".
Economically, the Inanomalam rim is actually quite well off. The pragmatic reluctance of the military government to go there have led the Edgeworlders to maintain vital things for interstellar life themselves. The economy on the Rim is much more privatized and market-oriented in many parts, whereas in other systems, the system as a local community takes responsibilities for keeping habitats and wormhole gateways functioning to an even greater extent than the "Land of the Saved", as the Edgeworlders derisively call the other Veglyr-dominated territories. A combination of certain cultural developments and the resulting variedly disproportionately small and disproportionately big (depending on where you are) Fleet personnel here have created a vicious circle, however, where space piracy (especially those preying on government ships) is not only far more common than also more tolerated among the populace than in most other "civilized" parts of space. This, in turn, has led to a strong militia culture and a prosperous market for mercenaries on the Rim. While the Edgeworlder Mercenaries might not be able to match the training and equipment of the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet, or for that matter are they anywhere close to being seen as respectable people outside the "Rim of Fire" and other fringe areas, their "warrior culture" ironically manages to resemble the more militaristic Paths of the Way more than either believer nor atheist will aknowledge.
The sheer deterrent factor of what the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet can muster (both in terms of numerical and technological advantage), however, means that a Veglyr civil/holy war has not yet resulted between the mostly Way-following Veglyr (for whom the Edgeworlders have more derogatory terms than most 20th century languages singularly have perjorative nouns) and "those who kneel to no priests" has not yet erupted.
The Inanomalam Rim is actually an outwards-expanding region: With their mercenary retinues, explorer-minded Edgeworlders gladly move outwards into the unexplored systems to build habitats and asteroid farms. This entrepreneurial spirit of the Edgeworlders is culturally unique among Veglyr, but means that Imperial Jardra often find more to relate to among the Edgeworlders than the missionaries they know the "Believer Veglyr" as.
The Thzaxian Exodite Autonomy
Known under various other names, this area of space comprising 3 solar systems, 24 inhabited planets and moons and 18 habitats is in practice completely lawless, save for the innermost 3 planets (and connected habitats) of the Vlurn system united under the Independent Society of Vrlurn. Believe it or not, this fringe actually has a somewhat respectable history, which is why its very existence actually has gathered a lot of popular admiration - though just as many think quite lowly of it. It traces its history back to Thzax, the Xholnra system's outermost world which during the Zxavorian era became a self-governing world as its inhabitants tired of the draconian authoritorial presence. The technocracy which replaced it was not met enthusiastically either, but at least the Thzaxians were now afforded the resources to settle their own systems to claim as their own. A stroke of luck even led to Eisenhans terraforming a few planets for them.
Culturally, the Exodite Autonomy could not be more different from the Xhatrr Dominion. The Exodite Xril are nowhere as 'borged-out, and except for the Independent Society of Vlurn there are no unified political entities above the scale of an individual habitat - and sometimes not even then. Nonetheless, the Autonomy is a very sprawling area of space and definitely not without its charm, what with its often under-repair wormhole gateways and the ambience being very different depending on as much as which corner of the same habitat you happen to be in. The original Thzax Autonomy people's utopian vision of direct democracies has indeed come true in many places here, most notably the Independent Society of Vlurn... but there is no Eden without at least one snake. For each anarchist utopia, there is at least two or three decaying and half-abandoned habitats (a few of which have even been converted into "space hulks") whose habitable parts are battlegrounds between tribes of bored malcontents led by warlords, fighting over the control of power generation, what little food there is left and whatnot.
Of course, most of these people have taken to space piracy, and it is indeed rare to find an Exodite Xril willing to as much as enter an unarmed ship for travel - for behind almost every moon and planet, you can count on finding a lurking flotilla of pirates... if you're really unfortunate the ramshackle gunboats ambushing your ship might be manned by a pack of Drunes, though their raiding activity is rather rare.
In short - the Autonomy contains both Heaven and Hell, often amidst each other. You'll find the same place containing both the best and the worst... and it can easily be argued that Autonomy Xril are much more genuinely alive than the technocrats of the Xhatrr Dominion, even if they objectively speaking probably lead worse lives.
Bodharaktam (the Rush-Stones)
A strange chain of events regarding the Jardra post-war has led to the existence of the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam being perhaps the single most culturally and economically vibrant of all Descendant nations. It is definitely the one which strangely enough is the most optimistic about their uncertain future, though - and it is ever expanding into the unknown frontiers of space, but the adventurousness the Avarni Imperials has means that this is a final frontier constantly expanding as ambitious entrepeneurs (spearheaded by Varanor Bodharakt, this frontier's namesake), utopian dreamers, modernity-weary traditionalists, Xril anthropologists and Wayist pilgrims/missionaries populate the increasing number of systems slowly but surely becoming entangled in the Postnational Empire's spiderweb of wormhole gateways. (Bodharaktam Drunes tend to be quasi-nomadic, as the frontier is constantly moving)
For this very reason, the interstellar gold rush frontier of Bodharaktam is possibly the "safest" fringe, as it resembles not as much the distant edges of settled space but rather a sea of a strange recombinant culture expanding through waves washing over a a rocky beach of worlds that, if they ever have seen civilization before, have not done so for many millennia. As such, where the law's presence is practically nonexistant, there are always Edgeworlders willing to make a quick buck, sometimes resorting to small-scale space piracy to stay alive.
In any case, the cultural landscape of Bodharaktam has, aside from the few traditionalists there, managed to somehow become even more chaotic and fragmented than the rest of the Avarni Empire. This is probably what separates Bodharaktam the most from other "Swordworlds" - here, the conflict is mostly cultural and often memetic rather than physical, as distinguished from the specific form of chaos which reigns in most other fringes. A close of comparison could be the Inanomalam Rim, where a holy (unholy?) war is constantly lurking under the surface to arise like a demon from the depths, not the least due to the Way-centric attitudes dominating the rest of the Veglyr-held worlds. Avarni Imperials tend to see things in less black-and-white matters, except for the traditionalists who mostly stick to themselves in their occasionally expanding isolated communities.
Necropolises
This universe is not millions but billions year old, and from the era where a species acquired enough intelligence to eventually taken to the stars, interstellar empires have arisen only to eventually vanish before the scythe of entropy. Finding clear evidence of previous, vanished spacefaring civilizations is no unknown occurrence, if still rather rare.
Nonetheless, it seems like the longer out the Descendants have expanded their reach into the vast not-that-much-a-void of their galaxy, the more likely they are to find entire regions of space wherein ancient high-technological (if either incomprehensible or no longer working) artefacts and remnants of past galactic civilizations are highly concentrated - sometimes even with neither rhyme nor reason.
Many spacefarers fear these necropolises, or at least the most concentrated ones, on a seeming instinct perhaps growing out of sheer intuition or in others acquired through how it reminds them of their own mortality. It might as well be in the nature of creatures past a certain threshold of intelligence to react with mythmaking as soon as they are confronted with such testaments to the craftsmanship of long-dead intelligences possibly beyond their own comprehension due to their sheer strangeness. Of course, what these necropolises ultimately are to the vanished civilizations which made them are shadows upon the walls of a dimly illuminated cave, cast by cardboard reconstructions of the full splendour (or degeneracy) of starfarers so ancient that very few among the Faeries (sentinels of the omniverse of such age) remember more than a few of their cultures, though neither them nor the Nerakk are without their fanciful speculations which might have more credibility.
Due to the often tenuous legends arising from a combination of these factors and somewhat legitimate concerns, spiralling totally out of reasonable proportions (or is it really so?), these are probably the thinnest populated of all fringes. All Descendant presence there consists of archeologists, the obligatory naval outposts with their wormhole generators and the occasional pirates/grave-robbers out for a quick fortune, crossing both the law and spacer superstitions.
For obvious reasons, parts of the stretches of tomb-space that consist the Necropolises have already become common knowledge: A gas giant called the Great Spaceship Graveyard due to the thousands of colossal derelicts orbiting it, and the Siinirak system whose subterranean cities have been completely abandoned by its robotic inhabitants, of whom not a single specimen remains.
In the shadows of the Necropolises, many Descendants wonder at the sort of intelligences they by accident could find themselves at war with if they go too far into the unknown. Indeed, many respectable thinkers speculate that the entire Descendant Confederation and Nerakk Enclave exist within a somewhat small portion of the galaxy currently unclaimed by some greater, hitherto-unknown galactic empire. It is not only statistically possible, but there are also the still-unknown of the ancient nemesis of the Nerakk and scourge of the Ncha (who were wiped out in the three-front war that reduced the Nerakk Empire to its current state) and the Valvyza-Nerulai Incident, where two Veglyr Cosmic Fleet voidfish disappeared in a fringe system mysteriously, only to later reveal cryosleeping survivor who upon awakening babbled incoherently about hostile demonic creatures of untold age sleeping deep beneath the surface of many settled planets, which in the future would awaken to throw the omniverse into a cataclysmic war between the forces of Order and the slavering hordes of Chaos.
Recently, military presence in the various necropolis regions at the edges of various Descendant nations (indeed, some overlap with the Inanomalam Rim and Bodharaktam) has increased, at least in the more important and... interesting... Necropolises, where habitat-sized research stations and fleet bases are under construction. In turn, this is another sign of how the fringe regions of space are often constantly changing and expanding, though the extent depends on where you are.
The future is uncertain, and nowhere is this clearer than on the fringes.