There was apparently an interplanetary war lasting years between a fascist industrialized space society and checks notes 20-30 cowboys.
Isn’t that what happened in Firefly
You’re probably right that’s where they got it from, though I think it’s kept deliberately vague there because they didn’t care about the war itself and it was just a way to justify it being a western in space.
Perhaps part of it is that the writers at Bethesda thought they had to provide sufficient backstory because players would be interested. The colony war in Starfield is supposedly a peer-to-peer war of two stellar nations started over the dumbest shit imaginable: there was a law saying no nation could officially control more than 3 star systems. Also the cowboys won.
there was a law saying no nation could officially control more than 3 star systems
That’s honestly a very funny way to justify why there are only 6 cities in the game when humanity has supposedly explored like 200+ systems (many of which are habitable). Like its not that we are lazy or went way overboard with the procedurally generated planets, it’s becuase of space law.
