The highest tech levels are in the inner provinces...see, empires never die, they just slumber and wait for a master that can unite them. The outer provinves have the middle tech levels, with only the wealthiest able to import the higher tech levels. The outer provinces, the badlands or outlands, are the lowest tech, even farmers in a near middle ages tech level, just better sanitary and social conditions...until the alien fungi awakes the Goveneros latent psychic abilities, which he has enhanced through embezzlement, rises to become a psionic overlord. Enter the PC's. Beyond this is the frountier, wildspace, the deep dark.
Just think along real life economical lines and it all falls together easily.