Rim Province
Administrative division of the Second Empire comprising most of the defunct Terran Confederation. It is, depending on what historian you ask either one of the first or one of the last parts of the Rule of Man to succumb to the Long Night. It was one of the first areas to loose contact with Hub; in -1854 the second new governor sent out from Hub failed to reach the province's capital, Dingir, and Acting Governor Ayara Twofeathers instituted the custom of Governor-appointed successors, a system that was kept to the end of the provincial government.
The lessening flow of commerce between the rim and the core was already rendering taxes more and more meaningless, and 16 years later the province ceased to remit taxes to Hub except on an intermittent basis. For a while Dingir tried to keep up payments in the form of precious metals and gems, but when the third of the treasure fleets carrying these payments failed to return, these too were discontinued.
On the other hand, the government at Dingir kept ruling "in the name of the Emperor" for another century and a half, keeping the peace and enforcing Rule of Man regulations. It collapsed finally in -1690, when a huge budget deficit forced the government to decommission two thirds of the already decimated provincial fleets and turn over the rest to various individual planets and the Terran Mercantile Community.
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