Provincial Capitals
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Provincial Capitals |
Beyond the Inner Sphere, throughout the Hinteregions and even the Outer Volumes, the Sephirotic linelayers have established outposts and loci by which they could completely dominate all surrounding space. Some of these were created from the beginning as vast and iso-dense megascale projects; entire archailect nodes springing up from a newly constructed dyson or matrioshka. Others were simply little micro-gauge nexus stations, scientific observation posts, remote garrisons, homesteads, or missionary outposts, that over the centuries became small local centers of activity, that became larger regional centers, that became, finally, huge Provincial Capitals. Others again simply resulted from large hinterworld polities or non-affiliated ISOs that were successfully subverted, and turned all their resources to the service of the Sephirotic empire of their choice.
However they came about, the Provincial Capitals are an important part of Sephirotic civilization, extending the reach of the great Inner Sphere powers a hundred-fold. After centuries and millennia of development, they may be as huge and highly industrialised as any of the Inner Sphere and extended sephirotic zone Main Centers, and very often are themselves also nodes for distributed archailects, their populace god-dwellers and enthusiastic proponents of galactic civilization.
If the Main Centers are diverse, the Provincial Capitals are even more so, and it is impossible to summarize their characteristics in a formulaic manner. There is no typical "Provincial Capital"; each reflects its origin, its history, its surroundings, and the sephirotic which it represents.
If the Provincial Centers are more likely to one characteristic predominant it is that they tend to be active, energetic high traffic places, way stations which mediate between the Inner Sphere and Regional Centers. They are full of movement and excitement regarding new projects and new developments in the Hinteregions and Outer Volumes. New Nexus links are established, the surrounding volumes of interstellar space further consolidated, and as development proceeds and civilization grows and spreads, the Provincial Capitals themselves become new Main Centers in the ever growing entity that is galactic civilization.
