The Lost Generation
Where were you in the war?
It was always the same question, asked to weary-eyed men and women in run-down taverns and seedy space stations across the galaxy. They had gone to war, most of them in their twenties, a few individuals even younger, in their late teens, as Marines, manning space stations or on starships. They came from hundreds of worlds and dozens of states, yet they had more in common with those that stayed behind on the home fronts. They were soldiers, warriors, brothers and sisters to each their comrades more than they were citizens or subjects of any power.
Two and a half billion of them served in the Great War, and three hundred million of them had died, along with about five hundred million civilians on various worlds. When the war was over, where did they go? They may have gone home, to mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, children, or perhaps to promising careers in the civilian sector. About a third of them remained in peacetime militaries, many decorated with medals and promoted far past their current rank. But for many millions of them, there was nothing to go back to. Perhaps their homeworlds were on the front lines and were devastated, or perhaps they simply could not face civilian life after ten years of warfare.
For some of them, the flags they fought under were for countries that no longer existed. Many of the soldiers had no love for the successor states that followed, or any desire to forge one out of the areas which remained in chaos. So they took to the outer systems or to mercenary activities, or perhaps they signed up with massive criminal organizations, looking for a steady paycheque and the ability to escape a life they no longer recognized.
They were the Lost Generation, wandering the spaceways.