To all those people that say: This makes no sense.
Let me just point you towards things that do 'make sense' according to Discovery:
Outcasts and Corsairs have fleets of ships larger, stronger than entire House governments. 17 years after just having fighters and not one capital ship visible.
Zoners have risen up as an economic powerhouse and now have a planet or two to hold onto, something the Outcasts and Corsairs (in their might) have never been able to do.
Those are just two small points.
Is it needed to point out some of the silly alliances, silly expansions and generally silly actions of the past 17 years?
All done by the players somehow.
The faction leaders affected were actively involved in this storyline, there's a thread about it on these forums even. If you weren't involved, it was probably you're own fault.
Storyline wise, I'm looking forward to it. Disco is disturbingly static at the best of times, this will be a nice big change.