That’s fine, but I reserve the right to suddenly appear 10 years from now, when you’re a bestselling author, and sue you for using my intellectual properties. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything if you’re not successful.
Well, then it’s a good thing I already have an impressive streak of failures behind me. At this rate, I won’t have to pay you a dime! 
Which is why this whole bit would be set up as a Wiki under a Creative Commons License. 
Also easiest to sort stuff that way. With Topic ownership being traceable and such.
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Suggestion Time:
Humanity had had a good run there for a while. By the end of the 21st century it had turned Earth’s moon into a space dock and zero g factory and established its first foothold on Mars. Another century and a half later, the Human Commonwealth spanned the entire Sol system. Its neighbours however seemed well out of humanity’s reach. Without faster than light travel any expansion beyond Sol seemed far from sensible for the time being.
Then, explorers found something on Pluto. Or rather in Pluto. Or more precisely they found that what everyone thought was a stellar body was little more than a thick crust of ice and dirt which had formed around an object of unknown origin, not unlike scar tissue. The Geodesic Driver (also known as Candlemass Driver for the scientist who theorized its use; also known as Black Shield (a translation error); most commonly simply called the Crucible) turned out to be an accelerator which could speed objects travelling through it to move faster than light. It took decades to figure it all out but eventually, true space exploration beyond Sol was a reality.
Thus began the Golden Age of the Commonwealth of Humanity. They spread to the stars, settled on hospitable Exoplanets and set up science stations near phenomena of interest. Industries followed, eager to exploit the resources of space. And then, soldiers and war. For humanity had quickly learned that it was not alone, and while most alien races had at least seemed civil, not all were all that civilized. Still, humanity prospered.
Until it did no more. Today, historians and storytellers and priests and prophets argue what happened exactly. Whether there was civil war or an Artificial Intelligence slipped its leash, whether the Devil himself claimed the planet as his due or the Crucible’s Creators (or whether they are the same thing)… Earth, the entire Sol system, is but a memory to the humanity of today. The Crucible was destroyed in humanity’s retreat from its home, sealing the enemy in while abandoning billions of people. A loss made more painful by Earth having been the seat of the Commonwealth’s centralized government, its communications infrastructure and much more. If the Commonwealth had been an organism, Earth had been its head.
Some colonies weathered this better than others. Those with a pronounced military presence kept in contact, along with those further developed. Most of these eventually fell under military rulership which then became hereditary, devolving into plain feudal societies while cooperating as a loose coalition of systems. Others fell under the sway of aliens or plain sought their protection. Some simply fell. To enemies, to anarchy or barbarism. Some were lost. Very few thrived on their own.
But all of them still out there in whatever form are disparate now, centuries later again, sharing only their memories of Earth.
Humanity is fractured. It’s each system for itself out there, sometimes each planet. While a few systems interact with one another it’s as often with shipboard weapons as not.
Knowledge is fractured, too. Earth was the central repository of all knowledge. While the colonies had libraries they weren’t usually filled with expert knowledge needed to train people of highly specialized trades. Unless they were needed on that planet anyway. Some planets might have retained the knowledge necessary to build, say, advanced computers but wouldn’t know the first thing about building star drives or vice versa. And to build a spaceship you’d need both. But the planets might not be on speaking terms or even unaware of each other’s existence.
Society is devolving. At least two thirds of Earth’s surviving colonies have fallen back on some kind of caste system. Some divide by skill, some by birth and some by force of arms. Of the remaining, half have no government (or society) to speak of or follow some other form of governance with very few true democracies in the mix.
Superstition is a thing. Which is probably normal where knowledge is lacking. There is a widespread belief that there is something sinister about the Crucibles. That man was not meant to sail the stars and these devices are a test. Not that people who hold such beliefs are usually in any danger of getting on a spacecraft. There are as many doomsday prophecies out there as there are tales of a coming saviour.
Space IS trying to kill you. While Cthulhu is probably not sleeping out there, there does seem to be something sinister out there. Space adventures rarely end well.
TL;DR
I cobbled this together on my phone so I apologize for any grievous spelling errors, missing passages etc. This proposal takes inspiration from various existing sources and tries to roll them into a homogeneous whole. Which is in turn compartmentalized to allow individual contributors to just slot in a concept for a planet they would like to create or an alien race or what have you.
In fact I like this enough to just want to keep it for myself (in my head it’s obviously a bit more colourful than typed out on a bloody touchscreen.) But if anyone thinks they could work with it do pipe up. Also pipe up if you think it’s crap or have a better spin on a canvas.
Seriously.
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This actually sounds really cool! It kind of has a Mass Effect feel to it, albeit with a darker spin.
The question that sparks to my mind is, if there are alien races out there, have they made contact with any of the colonies yet? If society has regressed and superstition is growing, how would they have been met? With fear? Hostility? Is there some sort of grander galactic society out there, made up of dozens of races (akin to the Council races in mass effect) or are the other species just as isolated as humanity?
I’m hesitant to offer answers right now, since I figure it would be best to kick around the answers with a few other people, but I thought I’d at least pose the questions.
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It’s got a bit of Mass Effect for sure. Also a bit of Babylon 5 and a lot of Fading Suns which in turn takes inspiration from Dune a lot. ME hardly invented jump points. And only Earth’s is gone. Mostly cause I wanted a disaster to force planets to develop individually.
As for the Aliens, I’m sure there’s some that are met with superstition. Especially angelic or demonic seeming ones (Vorlons from B5, Devoronians from Star Wars). It’s a colony by colony thing. Some have alien neighbours and view them as just another species. Some even subjugate themselves to alien rulers in exchange for protection or support. Planets with no alien visitors for generations will of course be more likely to react with superstition.
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So we essentially have a situation where there are who-knows how many colonies scattered throughout space, each on different planets with different wildlife, each likely with a different culture or belief system, and each with potentially different alien species as neighbors, associates, friends, and even enemies?
… Yeah. I think we can make this work. 
Addendum: Without being overly-dramatic though, this seems pretty cool. It might be easiest if we started by having anyone that’s interested in doing so design their own colony. That would be a good starting point, methinks. Or we could start with a single colony and build that up, come to think of it…
Really, there’s a lot of ways we could take this… Hrm. I need to put my thinking cap on. 
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The former was pretty much the reason I wanted Human space so fractured. Anyone could make a planet and not have to make sure their lore fits with everyone else’s 100%.
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Seems like a really good start.
I love the Mass Effect games as well.
I’m not so fond of angelic or demonic aliens, though. But there definitely should be aliens.
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Ooh, I like where this is going! I find the intersection between sci-fi and superstition really interesting why does ‘interesting’ seem to be the only compliment I give out around here? and the idea of a setting spread through multiple planets where travel between them is feared. It’s close enough to my Seventeenth Spy world (which is kind of a recolonization of space after a dark age) I’ll let the rest of you work out the big picture details, but I might jump in later to work on a colony…
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Is anyone already handling our beloved original planet Earth itself?
I’ll take it!
Muehehehehe 
It has been centuries since The Crucible was destroyed, and it has been centuries since the last contact of the origin-planet with the outer colonies. Countless attempts have been executed since then to recreate the lost Crucible as well as contacting the billion light-years-far colonies by the Central Government. Perhaps, the Central gained full knowledge about the Crucible, but without adequate materials, recreating it is far from possible.
There is a popular saying among the scientists and tech-guys of the Earth, “We might create it, but will it be the same?”
Reverse engineering will never give human perfect understanding of how a contraption works nor how it’s made, especially for an object as alien as the Crucible. To compensate these little holes, scientists and engineers of Central Government must implement their own innovations to create the concept of the operational New Crucible.
But then, it seems they have to wait for another century, or at least for a mine-able asteroid pockets pass by the Sol, until the construction of the New Crucible can even be started.
You know, now that I think about it, there’s a custom alien species I’ve been tinkering with for a while, mostly as a hobby/side project…
Furiously scribbles notes
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Same, I have an idea for an alien race that should be pretty fun and interesting
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I’d like to add to this
In the waning years shortly before the “event” the Commonwealth military came up with a contingency plan called operation resurgence; in which a whole battle group would go into cyrostasis and awaken years later to re-establish order to what’s left of the Commonwealth. Led by the carrier Odessey, the battle group is consisted of two battleships, four cruisers, eight destroyers, two annihlators ( vessels filled with and capable of launching space nukes), and 10 troop ships. When the crucible blew up it messed with the cyrostasis allowing the crew to wake up hundreds of years later only bc they happened to receive a distress signal from a small three planet system…
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The Odessy is the last true carrier (with the other two in existence going down with Earth ) and hope for mankind for stored in its system is most of Earth’s knowledge, not to mention the sailors, marines, and pilots were the Commonwealth’s finest when they departed making her battle group the best human military in the universe.
The human system that sent the distress signal is called the Triumvirate Republic (TR) consisting of three planets; a mining planet, industrial (the capital planet) and an agricultural planet, and is one of the last democracies out there. Years ago the TR allied with a feline species called the Kataphraks a mostly peaceful theological warrior race who were at war with an aggressive reptilian race called the Rage who mercilessly slaughtered and destroyed any planet they visited, already annihilating several of the more militaristic human colonies. The TR and the Kataphraks were about to make their last stand when they sent their distress signal.
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Wow the more I think about it the more I like my idea. Is it ok with you @Spire if I put this in the works?
I have faith that @Cataphrak will approve. 
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This is intended to be a free for all and a bit of an experiment so I have no intention of telling anyone what to do or not do.
That said I’d suggest that your setup covers almost everything most average people would consider ‘desirable’ in this setup. An entire battlegroup of high tech warships and crack soldiers, democracy, benign alien overlords… If it wasn’t for that pesky war it’d be as close to paradise as you could get in that setting. As a human anyway. None of which bothers me personally, just pointing it out. As long as you leave something for other people to make their planet cool to them, why not?
Just for your consideration, I’d love to know how an entire fleet of ships full of cryochambers managed to stay hidden for centuries and not run afoul of anything. Their power signature must have been massive.
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First of all thank you for the compliments and I will say I was inspired by the TV show Andromeda and a book called The Last Brigade
To answer your question
It was a number of things from the chaos of the “fall”, drifting off in the outskirts of an asteroid field, a skeleton crew taking thawing every 20 to maintenance the ships, to the ships’ AIs maintaining auto security bc a stray star ship would happen upon the fleet most would scramble away, and while a couple of Alien civilizations did happen upon the fleet they thought it was just abandoned and that with the security still operating it wasn’t worth the risk, plus it was probably dumb luck.
Now while I was going to have the story told thru the Admiral’s POV I don’t necessarily like the thought of that not to mention I don’t like giving the MC the power to control everything so instead the pov will be that of a Commonwealth Marine NCO
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Not to tell you how to write your story but the Admiral’s point of view would be pretty cool actually. If the armada enters an alliance with the human settlers and the aliens then the Admiral still wouldn’t be in charge of everything anyway.
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