Humanity has long held dear the idea that though a disaster might obliterate a planet or a small intersteller community, humanity as a whole is ubiquitous enough to be invincible. When a society falls out of communion with the greater galactic milieu, however, this feeling of security can be replaced by fear; the society is now one, singular, and thus inherently at risk of extinction. Some societies so afflicted begin to expend a disproportionate share of their energy on the construction of self-contained, high-density urban environments (arcologies), having become obsessed with the ideas of self-sufficiency, modularity, and redundancy embodied by the constructs. The disorder is self-limiting, as the immediacy of starvation and economic collapse unfailingly forces a realignment of societal priorities.

Arcological Mania gripped Viridia Prime only once, throughout (as might be expected) the Lesser Stillness, during which sufficient facilities were constructed to house three times the planetary population. Most structures fell into disuse after the return to normalcy (though the pace of construction slowed sharply after the loss of the Duskstar Citadel oribital), leaving only the more inspired (such as the Elsoni Starsnare, long effectively the intellectual capitol of the planet) in operation.

—Heichner Kzolknov