Go and read the interview with Dave Nilsen, you used to have a copy of it in condensed form I think, if not I have it all as a word document.
I say this because we can infer stuff from it that didn't appear in MJD's stuff.
First, it is a game about exploration and rebuilding, with plenty of opportunities for the ethically challenged merchant...
Hivers - they make contact with the group that will become the Reformation Coalition and assist in them returning to interstellar travel. Dave's notes show there is a lot more to the Hivers than we find out in the published works, he was going to write a trilogy of adventures where we would learn a lot more about the Hiver motivations and actions plus some rather unsavory revelations. This includes the overt manipulation of human polities and the complete eradication of a human settlement/experiment within the Federation.
As to the RC they go out and smash and grab, foster alliances and end up in conflict with a polity that could wipe the floor with them.
Again from Dave we learn that the RC are saved thanks to the adventure in Vampire Fleets and the discovery of a 'sane' Virus entity.
The Guilded Lily adventure was also the start of a trilogy, and again from Dave we learn that the finally would have been the discovery of a TL15/16 Imperial ship construction facility.
Meanwhile the retconned wave has obliterated the Spinward Marches so forget about everything connected to the Regency unless the retcon is retconned.
Assuming the wave is still nowhere near the Spinward Marches then the Regency begins exploring beyond the quarantine zones. They have to find out what has spooked the Zhodani so much and the state of the Imperium...
At some point the Regency would have run into the RC and they would have come into conflict - especially since the RC ships now have a viral crew member.
But a bigger threat looms.
Merchants and explorers, both Guild and independent, have long since learned not to get too close to the sector around core. Ships that risk it never return hence it is referred to as the Black Curtain.
Again from Dave - the curtain begins to expand. The various polities now have to find common ground to defeat the horror that has befallen Lucan's Imperium.
TL15,16 and even 17 industrial high population worlds churning out machines of war, with cyborg populations manning the factories, vehicles, and warships. Amongst the cyborg troops are cybernetically augmented K'kree, the hideous remnants of experiments performed on the defeated Lords of Thunder.
To defeat this threat the Star Vikings commit an atrocity, and those that survive, while initially hailed as heors, soon become caste out due to the guilt of what they did.
Meanwhile the wave is still approaching the Regency...
