Thesis

You approach the well-worn and slightly grubby controls of your school-issued desktop holo and begin the night's entertainment by setting up search parameters. The vast majority of worlds disappear from the star-studded display in an instant due to being devoid of sapient life. A great many others fall off due to all reports indicating that their civilizations have only existed for a few centuries, and are on a rise rather than a decline. At last you winnow it down to a few dozen possibles, and get to work picking them off one by one. Erythrium Prime has three factions vying for control of the planet's few remaining power plants, the fourth planet orbiting Malakashka has descended into roving cannibal gangs that will likely die out in the next few decades, and a blue-green planet with some awful muddy-sounding name hung on it by the locals looks to be heading downhill fast, though it may not yet be past the point of no return.