The Hammerstar Supernova

The Hammerstar was a hypergiant star located in the Orion Arm spur. It went supernova in the year 53,250 AD and directly killed over 400 billion people within its blast zone. In its wake, a destructive anti-technology "wave" or "collapse" began to move across the surrounding areas. Regional shipping, planetary governments and organizations, all suffered serious damage as the Collapse swept outwards. Over its 20,000+ year expansion, it killed untold trillions of humans and aliens in the lower Orion Arm. One of the most critical aspects of the terrible destruction caused by the Hammerstar was the sudden and abrupt failure of every jump conduit within 5000 parsecs, and the isolation of the Jerlea Ringworld with its 12 trillion population. Civilization fell toward the tip of the lower Orion Arm. The Heller expedition of 88,050 AD reached a full two kiloparsecs to trailing and still did not find the far side of the devastation zone, if one existed. Macro Economists explained this phenomenon as a kind of anti-synergy; the opposite of the kind that has made the galaxy, overall, stable for 690+ centuries. To this day recovery in the region has been sparse at best, although some high-tech micro-empires were able to withstand the Collapse and remain viable. There have been other regional collapses across the galaxy but none involving this much territory, and none have been attributable directly to a supernova.