Space Pirates

After the development of the hyperdrive, humanity spread out from Earth for several hundred years, before the major colonies rebelled against control from Earth, the resulting war resulted in the destruction of Earth, but not before the earth fleet struct back destroying the majority of space-based industry throughout the colonies. Finally, the two fleets nearly destroyed each other, leaving only a dozen surviving warships throughout human space, and the alliance between the major colonies fell apart. With the loss of the space-based industry, the major colonies lost the ability to support large freighters. This reduced interstellar trade to a trickle only sustained by the few independent traders with smaller cargo ships able to land on planets and carrying their own fuel scope, removing their reliance on the space-based industry.

While the major colonies were fully self-sufficient and able to maintain their technology and begin the centuries-long rebuilding progress, the smaller colonies had only essential self-sufficiently. They depended on imports to provide spare parts for their more advanced systems; lacking the expertise to establish local manufacturing for computer chips and other specialised electronics, their more advanced devices quickly fell into disrepair and failed. Leaving them depending on cobbled together replacements such as hand build generators driven by old-style windmills for power generations and sterling engined powered by hydrogen (from electrolysis) or ethanol for powering mechanical machines and providing electrical backup. While these colonies still have radios, they are expensive devices based on handcrafted vacuum tubes. And while they have repositories of knowledge, they lack both the expertise and resources to use it to rebuild their technology base. As a result, many household technologies have regressed to technologies similar to the renaissance era. The people on these worlds live hard lives, with most children expected to work alongside their parents.

On the other hand, the advanced colonies make for easy lives, with most menial jobs being performed by bots. But the collapse of the economic ties has resulted in social regression, with the democracies collapsing to be replaced by a mix of Oligarchy's and Autocracy's made up of Corporate States, Monarchy's, Plutocracy Republic's, and several Pirate Empires. While these states have concentrated power over the privileged few, their advanced technologies ensure that everyone has food, shelter and access to computers and entertainment, leaving the majority of their citizenship indifferent to their form of government. As a result, the majority of these worlds have developed into more or less Patriarchy societies, with most positions of power being held by man but lacking actual requirements. This has led to an increased demand for female pleasure workers, which most states have solved by legalising slavery by restricting the enslavement of their own citizens to criminals as a sentencing option for their courts, allowing them to maintain a sufficient supply of female pleasure slaves. However, with the return of interstellar trade, many states preferred to import pleasure slaves to avoid backlash from their citizenship over the enslavement of young women for minor crimes as they had done in the past. A resource the pirate empires are happy to provide.

While most advanced states are relatively stable, the pirate empires are dominated by strength, structured on the premise that the strong do what they want and the weak submit; this has created a society where males often females if they lack a male to defend them. However, few females have the strength to prove themselves and take their place alongside the males. Some are even crazy enough to manage to join pirate crews where they run the risk of becoming some of the loot and sold as a pleasure if they show weakness and can't stand up for themselves, and they can expect to to service their male crewmates even if they don't show weakness.