When the Dominion broke, it did not vanish—it splintered. Its ruins became prizes. City-states rose like barnacles on imperial bones, fighting not for ideology but for junctions, valves, bridges, and the rights to claim ancient law. This era is remembered for the Aqueduct Wars and for the strange profession that emerged from them: the ruin-lawyers and charter-scribes, who fought with ink as fiercely as soldiers fought with steel. Where the Dominion built unity, the Shattered Crowns weaponized inheritance.