Why do members–and pretty reliably descendents of those members–of the losing side in a war so often decamp, hide out for a time, grow in number and animus, then resurface cycles later as various troublesome cultures or paramilitary outfits. Yes. We’re talking Xychromozonians. A bit of history: After the downfall of the Dread Dictator, former IER-CO allies still loyal to PAHM Bajar fell back to the Xychromo Zone to lick their wounds, burnish their grudges, and soak in a soup of resentment and ill-repressed rage. Not so many cycles later, at the end of the Droid Wars, remnants of the cyberphobic hate group, Boys in the Belt, joined their fellow losers in the Xy-Zone, adding bigotry and ignorance to the toxic mix. Suffice it to say that, from the standpoint of any humanoid raised in, say, the Griivarr Worlds, there is no more different–one might easily say repugnant–place in the known Multiverse than the system and any one of its several inhabited planets known as the Xychromo Zone. As an exercise, close your eyes and imagine an entire section of the Multiverse run by the worst of schoolyard bullies. No, really… go ahead. Close your eyes and imagine. Good…Feel that tightening knot of fear and loathing in your churning gut? You will never have to hop a transport to the Xychromo Zone, because you’ve just been there. Military service in the Zone is compulsory, though the paranoia that runs rampant among its citizens is such that the military has decentralized. There are many crazy militias scattered about the Zone, all with their own rules and bylaws, but all financed and supplied by the Zone’s very small government.
