The effects of the four-year war on the infrastructure of the Empires were devastating.  Ninety percent of all Class-A and Class-B starports had been destroyed.  The interstellar communications network lay in ruins; orbital and ground stations were systematically destroyed by Imperial Marines in an attempt to cut the spread of the Eristicon.  The few facilities that did survive were demolished by technology-fearing mobs of people, later to become the foundation for the Luddites.  The
Imperial Navy lost over sixty percent of it's capital ships to Eristicon takeover, the majority during the first week of the war, before tactics for dealing with the Eristicon had been discovered.  The result of these losses left the Empire as collection of shattered worlds.  Regular trade between worlds virtually ceased, with the exception of a small band of contract traders that would eventually become the powerful Mercantile Guild.

The Empires tried to recover.  Several futile attempts to organize and distribute a set of provisional governers on major worlds failed.  Most were assassinated, and the few who managed to consolidate power on their worlds quickly turned their backs on the Imperial system in favor of individual rule, creating a series of dictatorships.  In several cases, planets with simmering fueds from the past, now unchecked by the Empire, entered into interstellar conflicts.  More commonly, civil wars erupted on the former Empire worlds.  Power struggles for planetary control, or at least control over the remaining resources of the world were commonplace.  In many, many cases, drop in the standard of living for former Imperial Citizens was due to conflicts that took place after the Eristicon War, not due to the war itself.

In 3051, twenty six years after the outbreak of war, the first lasting interstellar alliance was reformed.  Three worlds, Terek, Burath, and Pondii created an alliance called the Terek Federation, which later would become the Byler Republic.  These three worlds were spared many of the worst effects of the war, most notably full-scale nuclear conflicts.  Terek retained enough of it's manufacturing and technology infrastructure to keep a minimal orbital and down starport running, and thus became an early center of trade and commerce, and even today retains the title of technology center of the Republic.

But there is still much work to be done.  Even today, many worlds within the boundaries of the Republic have only begun to lift themselves from the ashes.  Lurking in the midst of the Republic's fragile network of civilized worlds are ghostly Cemetery Worlds, places that are toxic and ghostly mausoleums for billions of former Imperial citizens.  And outside of the boundaries of patrolled space, there are worlds that are still subject to brutal dictatorships, held by those who have seized the technological high ground.   For all these worlds, the Chaos Years continue.