Thank you, I was wondering whether the Empress Wave was included in the detested canon.

And thanks for characterising why: the “catastrophic change” makes for impressive reading, and feels like the kind of big deal that an epic saga will deal with; but, as you say, it robs the individual characters (who, in Traveller, tend not to be ultra-powerful but more quotidian) of agency, with a transformation of the setting they can't do anything about.

Do I gather correctly that the Interstellar Wars canon (ignoring the RPG system) is better accepted by the community?