The Knights of St. Bix

By 2247 humanity inhabited a growing sphere encompassing many thousands of cubic light years. Civilization made up a much smaller volume. As might be expected the Church spread almost as fast as humanity. As had happened too many times in the past, beyond the power of courts and police and peace-keepers some took advantage of those too weak to resist.
Initially travelers, pilgrims and colonists outside the boundaries of the coalescing Grand Human Union turned to private security companies. Such companies often hired personnel of dubious character themselves, and more than one group found their hired guards untrustworthy collaborators of pirates or criminals themselves.
Bix Woodforde  was a retired soldier who decided that there was a better way. He realized that a mercenary group inspired by payment, in the absence of civil authority, could easily slip into piracy or outlawry itself. He studied the still existing Order of Hospitallers, otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, as well as the Teutonic Knights, and the lay orders of the Knights of Columbus and of course the original Catholic order of knighthood the Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar.
He became convinced that only a group of soldiers who worked for a higher purpose, who took vows of poverty, obedience and chastity, and were dedicated to the protection of those in their charge might avoid that fate. He saw in the strict rule of the failed Templars the seeds of their failure, as well as a possible hope for a future order.
So Bix Woodforde needed a rule. Rather than the basing it on the Rule of Benedict, as did St. Bernard of Clairvaux, he based it on the Rule of St. Francis of Assisi. That made his Knight Guardians, as he called them, mendicants, that is, they neither individually nor collectively own property.  All must be donated to their use. Even ships and weapons belong to the Church, or still to those who have donated their use. In this way Bix sought to avoid the accumulation of wealth which was the downfall of the Order of Knights Templar.
The brothers would observe the Hours in their ships and bases. They would treat their foes with Christian charity and those under their care with respect and in such a manner as to guard their souls as well as their mortal bodies, or so was Bix hope.
Bix sought out a group heading into the Wilds, and with the backing of a number of priests in that group recruited men to join the band that he was forming for the group's protection.
This was the start of his order. Bix profited through the fact that some twenty years later one of those priest became first a bishop, and then a cardinal. Some fifty years later, with his order grown into the most powerful non-governmental military force in the Wilds, Blessed Bix Woodforde was canonized and the order of Knight Guardians became the Knights of St, Bix.

The Great Compromise

The Great Compromise is a symbol of both the imperfection of the temporal universe and the consequences of demographics on history. Some would also say it is an indication that a Pope's decisions outside the area of faith and morals are not infallible and might even be detrimental to the short term good of the Church. Others would point out that the Church should never impose but merely propose.
The Great Compromise is a legacy of the failings of the Progressive Era and the vast demographic shift of parts of Europe from Christian to Muslim. As secularism was squeezed out Sharia law became the predominate legal system for areas not traditionally Muslim. This did not sit well with all of the non-Muslim population, especially when coupled with the violence against Christians, Jews and non-believers that seemed to follow the Islamitization of most places.
This resulted in a long series of sectarian violence as Christians and secularist started taking reprisals for Muslim violence against non-Muslims in Islamic nations. For every church firebombed a Mosque was set ablaze. The Church spoke out against these actions, but was a lone voice as a combination of fear and survival instinct took over.
The remaining Secular/Christian nations, seeing the result of allowing Islamic groups to engineer demographic shifts through a pattern of emigration without absorption and eventual political manipulation responded by  passing reciprocity laws. That is Muslim immigrants were prohibited from practising their faith publicly because Christians were prevented from public practice of their faith in nations under Sharia law.
Eventually The Christian East looked to the Pope as the one man in the Christian West who could speak for the Unifying Church. At Dover a group from what was left of the European Union, the Organization of American States and various non-aligned nations met with the Pan Islamic Union under the oversight of the Pope.  Under much pressure from the national governments, the media and the Church the resulting treaty became the Great Compromise.
Under the Great Compromise the participants agreed that the reciprocity laws would be codified into international law. Christians would neither  seek converts nor publicly worship in Islamic territories. Likewise Muslims would no longer be allowed to raise Mosques nor establish schools or attempt to convert in Christian territories. A policy of ethnic cleansing would for all intents and purposes be allow by which groups would be "induced" to emigrate out of their homes and into the respective sectarian territories.
As might be imagined many Christians saw this as a betrayal of the Great Commission placed upon the Church by Christ. The Church's position was that Christianity should not be imposed at the point of a spear and rational argument was not possible with a philosophy which rejected rational theological discourse. Time was on the side of the Church, it was argued, and the problem should be left in the hands of the Lord.
While the Compromised reduced, indeed almost eliminated the violence in the First World, Africa continued to be a battleground right up until the beginning of the twenty third century and the invention of the Barnes-Gutierrez Hyperspace Engine and the diaspora.

Families

It should be no surprise that with the combination of thousands of worlds and faithful Christians and Muslims as the principle inhabitants of the universe of New Diasporia, that large families are the norm rather than the exception.
Family dynamics tend to be different from the historical trends. The Progressive Era tended to see the age at which couples initially married increase (as it also saw the duration of marriages decrease,  and eventually the total number of marriages diminish.) This was blamed on a variety of causes, but mostly on the requirement of increased education and economic factors. Historians agree that the real cause was a combination of unhealthy materialism and disordered self-absorption.
Modern Highland families tend to marry during their early twenties. This is made possible through the support of larger families which reduce the necessary economic burden of marriage. Marriages tend to last very long, since anagathic nanotech factories have extended human life far beyond earlier eras. Compatibility between prospective spouses is more readily assured by stringent Pre-Cana requirements for anyone contemplating marriage, as well as widespread moral support for the virtue of chastity.
Large Catholic families tend to include various members who choose not to marry, either for religious reasons or due to temperament. Not every man who chooses not to marry is suitable for the priesthood, monastery or hermitage.  Nor is every woman who chooses not to marry suitable for the cloister or religious life. Chaste single life apart from the formal orders of the Church is an honorable vocation, and one that carries no stigma. Some do eventually spend some time in discernment, but many return to the world to live on as ancillaries to their families as beloved aunts or cherished uncles or even to marry late in life.
Large families tend to accumulate greater wealth. They take better care of their older members, rather than pushing that duty off on the state or leaving it to the individual. Under Distributism many businesses are family businesses. A large number of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins tends to mean that there are always enough family members interested in the family business to allow some family members to choose the Church, military or government as viable alternatives without effecting the ability of the family business to survive.
From a game play point of view this means the the chances are the individual Player Character  has a large retinue of near and far relatives, the balance of which may be at their ancestral home, but many who might be in the bosom of the Church, military or government and stationed almost anywhere.
It also means the lone wolf, orphan or solitary character is likely to have an unusual background. Of course it is not unlikely that adventures are more apt than not to have come from such an unusual background.

Wild Campaigning

Now it should not be a surprise that the farther one gets into the Wilds the more bizarre and disordered the indigenous civilizations tend to become.
People at the rim do not tend to come from the Highlands. They are not typically orthodox in their religious beliefs, nor are they well educated in Natural Law and the consequences of ignoring its conclusions. Many have fled to the rim precisely because the consequences of poor societal decisions have caught up with the places of their origin, be it economic collapse, sociological instability or moral confusion.
In many places the Church has attempted to re-inject sanity, holiness and rationality in to civilizations which have strayed from reality, often facing persecution, martyrdom and other dangers. Often societal disorder is accompanied by loss of technological capability and industrial capacity, resulting in what in the Progressive Era was called a third world economy.
Amazingly there are oasis of high technology and spiritual orthodoxy in the Wilds. Unfortunately often such places are targets for their less enlightened, but more martial neighbors, who see them as little more than a treasure house of valuable booty.
Often the core of such a world is a vibrant reverent respect for the Church and a cadre of faithful clergy, religious and laity. Many have been faithful from the beginning, but more were saved through the actions of a particular Saint, order or Great Hero.
The endeavor to save such a world is a worthwhile goal of a campaign, and a party of PCs, requiring a range of skills and activities. These include proselytizing, evangelization, and often combat, against external foes and internal rivals. The Just War doctrine exists for a reason and no one is required to stand by and see people slaughtered when they have the power to prevent it.
There are certainly some kinds of characters who are best for this kind of game. Suggestions follow.