Irreversible cataclysmic economy collapse

[stumason]

I would hate to think that was the cause. As I said, I went to enemy territory to fight, I may have gotten caught up in that for a time, but where did my ECO go? Before the war I was not required to BUY stuff as my ECO was working, ships paid for, and being out of Dock may have been an added strain but Holy Hanna... if that kills an economy that fast.

As I alluded to, I reckon it must have had something to do with consumer goods, as so many of the other resource producing jobs depend on them. Run out of consumer goods and everyone gets upset, some jobs will shut down entirely, making people more upset - so on and so forth, a la death spiral

You can have all the minerals, energy, alloys or strategic resources in the galaxy, but those consumer goods, if you forget them, will kill you dead (Admittedly, this does somewhat depend on how your Empire is set up - slaves don't care much for consumer goods so wouldn't complain, but those pops making your alloys etc will)