Commonwealth Universe, Age 1, Volume 9: The Hero’s Mask by Michelle Levigne
Before the Commonwealth existed, there was an expanding, multi-galaxy civilization. Due to the combined effects of a too-aggressive policy of expansion, civil unrest, the inequality and abuse of the classes, and the categorizing of augmented humans as a slave class, the Central Allied Worlds (CAW) disintegrated. The period of darkness and barbarism that followed is referred to as the Downfall. Various groups of people fled the Central Allied Worlds (referred to by its descendants/survivors simply as "First Civ") as…