The social implications of having 2 star systems (FedSys and UniSys) that exclusively control FTL are:

  • They don't care about what happens to partner trading star systems.
  • All the sentient stable-ish star systems are dependent on FedSys and UniSys for FTL trade.
  • Basically imagine a unified UK (no Jacobite war of independence, etc.) or having exclusive transportation and access to India or a unified EU having exclusive access to the Philippines with no way for any person or good in the PH to go to the EU.
  • Basically, these people can make a mess and simply exit the star system with no repercussions.
  • It just so happens to be more expensive to strip mine a star system than it is

The lone difference between FedSys and UniSys is one of cyborgs (AI-enhanced pilots) vs psychics. UniSys exclusively uses psychics to plot a course through hyperspace w/o any relays. FedSys requires relays to send information back to their cyborgs so that the AI can plot a course based on known data. Because of this FedSys is less inclined to totally destroy their partner traders because they need their partner systems to keep the lights on the relays/beacons. UniSys's main resource is its psychic talent pool + the raw hallucinogenic substances needed to induce the piloting state. The psychic talent pool is dependent on mutations in the human genome. For this reason, some partner star systems are more important than others, because those systems produce more psychic talent. Same thing with the hallucinogenic materials.

What if someone doesn't want to be a psychic? Or what if they get away? Where would they go? Etc.

Edited to add, May 14, 2023:

I'm starting to create objects in my games using Crockford-style initialization. Reference: https://gist.github.com/benpriebe/55b7e950b5e9d056b47e