In the earliest years of Elytria’s settlement following humanity’s expansion into the Elytrian Ecliptic, around 6,500 years before the birth of Riot McMann,  there were two dominant factions that had come to define the civilization’s social and geopolitical dynamic.

                  Following the settlement of Elytria, the birth rate would nearly triple in the decades that followed. With the tools and resources of the colony ships at their disposal, industry boomed and the small colony that had served as humanity’s first, Dawnspire, exploded into a massive and thriving metropolis in less than two generations.

                  Meanwhile, as the population grew, so did the need for effective governance. When humanity first touched down on Elytria and founded Dawnspire, it was deemed necessary to temporarily allow a military command structure to keep the expedition safe and productive. Once Dawnspire grew into a thriving settlement, the military’s role was reduced to law enforcement and governance morphed into a Technocracy. With growth and expansion depending more on experience and technical expertise, it was determined that the new world should be led by individuals who were the top experts in their fields to oversee all operations, from mining to agriculture. Technocracy would morph into Council Rule which would then evolve into a system of rotating leadership in order to avoid power consolidation.

                  Power consolidation was inevitable, however, and it was at this point where disagreement over governance became the civilization’s most prominent issue.  Though there were a number of political factions that had coalesced in the decades that followed humanity’s landing on Elytria, two had emerged as the most powerful and influential. It was this schism that would mark humanity’s first existential crisis within the Elytrian Ecliptic though the true extent of its consequences wouldn’t become evident for another 6000 years.

As the new human civilization on Elytria flourished, its politics had come to be dominated by two groups with conflicting ideologies.

One of these groups, the Coalitionists, wanted to establish a democracy so that everybody could have a say in the way that their government was run. The other group, the Meritocrats, were staunchly opposed to this. It was their belief that democracy, while meaning well, intrinsically devolves into populism and demagoguery. Furthermore, though they consisted mostly of blue collar workers such as miners and metallurgists,  the Meritocrats were staunch capitalists.  In their opinion, mixing capitalism with democracy would create a toxic mixture whereby governance would devolve into a veiled plutocracy: the wealthy would control the politicians which would, in turn, serve the needs of the wealthy. This cycle would continue until the general population became nothing more than cogs within a machine, placated by politicians and the cultural elite.

                 The Meritocrats believed in the decentralization of power and economy with leadership being established around the idea that their name would suggest: meritocracy. With individual liberty being one of their core beliefs, the Meritocrats would have incorporated elements of democracy in the selection of leaders.

Disagreement led to a power struggle, but the Meritocrats ultimately stepped away from the issue, averting a civil war that would have undoubtedly ravaged the new civilization beyond repair.

Rumors, unsubstantiated as they are, persist to this day that the Meritocrats also took a comprehensive copy of human history with them which is currently held in the most secure strongrooms in the vaults beneath the Halls of Asterius. With Elytrians rarely being allowed to cross the border into the Grommash Stronghold and the Hynr emphatically denying the claims, society at large has no choice but to accept the fact that the bulk of human history has been lost.

After a year’s worth of negotiations, the Meritocrats took two colony ships that had carried humanity into the Ecliptic and set off in the direction that would one day be known as Ecliptic Major West. In addition to the resources and industrial assets that they would need to settle a new world of their own, the Meritocrats carried a complete facsimile of all documents and resources associated with the two most important developing technologies, the Rift Network and the Nova Array.

                  55 years later, after traveling dozens of lightyears and nearly exhausting their Rift Splitters, the Meritocrats would locate a planet that had a higher density of valuable resources and ore than any known oxygenated planet, including a newly discovered ore that contained a metal stronger than even the most robust known alloys by orders of magnitude. Most importantly, though, its subsurface  was rife with freshwater oceans and an abundance of subterranean wildlife.

                  After dozens of expeditions to the surface of this planet in search of a place to break ground on their first colony, the Meritocrats deliberated on each of the explored sites and reached agreement on one. Upon landing, a prominent expedition leader whose name is lost in history- though not his words- stood upon a rocky precipice overlooking the valley below, and said “we have reached the end of the stars and it is here where we’ll dig”.

                 Thus was the city of Star’s End born and, with it, a resilient and meritocratic society that would come to be known as the Confederated Clans of Hynron.