Great Famine

The **Great Famine** is an ongoing state of resource depletion in the Tantalus Cluster. Brought about by a perfect storm of resource scarcity, bureaucratic negligence, and inadequate long term planning, the famine threatens the very existence of interstellar Human society in Tantalus.

## History

### Origins

The overwhelming majority of the Tantalus Cluster's 750 stars are old, Population III red dwarfs located at the centre of barren star systems. Very little star formation has occurred since the cluster's formation, since the cluster carries low concentrations of elements heavier then helium relative to the rest of the observable universe. This scarcity means that elements required for life are difficult to find in sufficient quantities within planetary bodies.

Following the colonisation of the Rialtis and Axius systems in the early decades of the Centrum Assembly, the population of the planet Centrum, where growth had long-stagnated, began to expand again. This prompted emigration to the new colony worlds, with increasing settlement of more systems over the next one hundred and fifty years. This expansion continued until it began to threaten the population capacities of many worlds.

This was compounded by the difficulty of a large-scale interstellar transport, which caused the development of the logistic support network to lag behind the ever-growing population. By 0270 PCU, demand began to exceed supply as the Cluster's population exceeded its carrying capacity, and Tantalus started to spiral into approaching disaster.

The Great Famine was seriously intensified by the Frontier War of 0290-0300 PCU, where in the face of food shortages caused by both the Famine and bureaucratic incompetence by the Centrum Assembly, the four worlds Frontier Union fought for independence. Ten years of fighting left the situation in Tantalus virtually irrecoverable.

### The Black Centenary

The year 0300 PCU became known as the Black Centenary, when the Famine combined with the effects of of the Frontier War to provoke a near-collapse of civilisation in the Tantalus Cluster. Food scarcity affected even the richest worlds of Tantalus, with scientists predicting that the Famine had escalated from a serious crisis to an extinction-level event. Many worlds were subject to pirate raids, and many government functions effectively ceased as politicians and bureaucrats gave into despair and chose to spend what they believed to be their final days with their families.

### Mitigation

The Great Famine has passed beyond the point that improved efficiency and sustainability can correct it. Technological solutions like increasing the efficiency of crop yields, minimising waste, and optimising recycling systems and logistic structures, would take too long to have an impact before the Tantalus Cluster cascaded into general societal collapse.

The Avalon Exploratory Initiative provides the only hope of stabilising the Great Famine: aimed at exploring and colonising the CDC-41-Gamma nebula, discovered in 0301 PCU, the Initiative is intended to provide a temporary injection of resources to Tantalus in order to maintain the population while local and national initiatives towards resource growth and sustainability can be implemented in full. The Avalon Expedition Fleet deployed through Edric's Gate in 0304 PCU, hoping to return with resources for humanity.

## Impact

The most direct impact of the Great Famine is the death of 35 million people as a direct result of food shortages, with at the very least twice as many dead due to adjacent effects of malnutrition, such as weakened immune systems. Scientists such as Professor Leticia Sandreen of the Henshall Institute for Higher Learning warned that in a worst-case scenario, the Cluster's logistics networks could be compromised by workforce shortages, leading to a spiral that would see the collapse of entire worlds and the potential death of fifty to eighty percent of the Cluster's total population.

In the face of the Great Famine, institutionalised rationing has become a fact of life in the Tantalus Cluster, with every citizen carrying a biometric ration card that tracks their legal monthly quotient of food and drink. Most food items distributed at stores and ration banks are designed for preservation and calorie content rather than taste. Traditional cuisine has given way to shaped bricks of vat-grown, viscous protein paste; canned pseudo-meat products; vacuum-pressed hardtack; and Glycosynthetic Colloidal Ethanol Solution replacing conventional alcohol. Traditional foods like meat, cheese, and eggs are considered a rare luxury.

Animals are now rarely kept except as food livestock. Owing to the food scarcity imposed by the Great Famine, live cattle have become one of the most valuable resources in the Tantalus Cluster.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 *The Sojourn Visual Dictionary - Edition One*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 *Centrum Broadcast Radio: 45th of Solstice, 304 PCU*
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 *The Cold Divide*
4. ↑ The Black Centenary | Official Lore Short | The Sojourn
5. ↑ *Dust and Shadow*
6. ↑ *The Promised Land*

 Systems

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Template created by XBrain130