(2100 to the 2200s)

By the early 2200s mankind had taken to the stars albeit confined to the cradle of our solar system. Immense efforts divided along national boundaries who by this point were mostly along either geographic lines (See United Americas) or socio-political ones (imagine an Anglo Commonwealth Superstate). Earth was no longer a patchwork of smaller nations but a handful of superstates driven by the ever present need to acquire ever dwindling raw materials, all driving to acquire the resources the solar system offered.

This resulted in a divided solar system, firm borders and claims drawn by the mightiest often leaving the lesser or lower tech powers to scramble for whatever was left. Fertile ground for disputes, brushfire wars, and proxy conflicts often led by the various private enterprises that made up the bedrock of any given faction’s economy. These always seemed to settle, never blowing up beyond any one gravity well.

(June 2252)

Spurred on by the discovery of an exotic element on a remote Oort Cloud Object, a small consortium of Scientists with factional and corporate support have journeyed out and established a mining operation for it. Through modeling and testing they’ve discovered it doesn’t quite behave like it should according to the standard model, further delving into its properties revealing it has the potential to enable the creation of an FTL drive. Earlier efforts in working with the mineral having enabled a form of FTL communications albeit with a low bandwidth. However their efforts are overshadowed by a growing crisis further within the Sol gravity well.

(August 2253)

An off and on conflict over the settlement and exploitation of Saturn’s largest moon. The petrochemicals that soak its surface and atmosphere are valuable for countless industrial applications throughout the solar system. As a result those that dwell within its gravity well have often found themselves at odds with one another, the conflict fanned by the larger entities to gain greater footholds on the cold moon’s surface.

Either driven by an urge for finality or simply bluster, the larger corporate entities had taken a more direct hand in the more recent brush up of the conflict. Calling in more and more of their assets until finally the powers that be themselves stepped in, unwilling to stand down. Finally the war spilled beyond Titan’s and ultimately Saturn’s gravity well as official military forces became involved and began striking their opposite number’s assets and then finally industry.

(August 2253)
A successful test at the end of the world.

It didn’t take things long to spiral, an errant guided weapon, a nuclear warhead too close to a habitat. Accidents leading to escalation leading to more targets being hit as nearly a century of military industrial progress and lethality was expended against the targets it was created to destroy.

From Mercury to Pluto infrastructure was hit, habitats and cities destroyed by nuclear, kinetic, or even chemical attacks. Even Earth wasn’t spared, its surface ravaged by nuclear and kinetic bombardment, the final nail for its biosphere being a redirected resource satellite impacting mainland Asia.

In all it would take a week for the strikes and counterstrikes to conclude, arsenals expended or destroyed, or simply abandoned in case a counterstroke was on the way. Those minding them realizing the war was already over.

In a world which is armed to its teeth with nuclear weapons, every quarrel or difference of opinion may lead to violence of a kind quite different from what is possible today.
- Herman Kahn

(December 2253)
Thirty billion dead and counting.

Ninety-nine point eight percent of humanity died during those seven days, either directly by strikes or by the consequence of living in the artificial environment of space and terrestrial habitats as life support systems failed. Another four fifths would perish in the following months as the other consequence, the total destruction of all trade and nearly all production especially in foodstuffs. Earth by now nothing more than a brown and gray marble as it entered a new ice age brought on by man.

Those that remained gathered wherever there was fuel, air, or resources to survive. One of those places was the remote FTL research facility, who on the eve of the war had a breakthrough and tested their first prototype drive. Still slow by the scheme of galactic distances it nonetheless gave humanity a bridge to the stars when they most needed it.

(Jan 2254-Dec 2254)
Cooperative but Divisive

It was a rather simple and AI derived equation, either cooperate or the species would die. Something which in the past had acted as a powerful motivator for all kinds to simply tuck aside previous issues and prejudices in the name of common survival and this time was no different. A modest fleet of survivors had collected out at the edge of Sol, all around the experimental FTL facility as the consortium of interests that ran it more or less laid out what they’d need to save all of humanity or rather the scraps of it.

Those who couldn’t contribute to the effort were put into cryogenic storage for the duration and those that could soon found themselves working non-stop. Picking over the remains of human civilization for anything that could be useful toward the creation of several arks. Built from jerry rigged and closed Island-3 space colony cylinders the effort took years but soon enough to carry humanity to a new home had been fabricated from the corpse of Sol. With final checks, hopes, and dreams, the improvised craft departed, their primitive warp type FTL drives ensuring a long slow journey toward what mankind hoped would be a cluster of habitable worlds far below the galactic elliptic.

Named for the astronomer that discovered the region during a freak gravitational lensing event, it had been assumed that it had simply been a freak of nature. An unusual set of circumstances during stellar formation that allowed numerous hospitable terrestrial worlds to form out of the ether. This assumption ended the moment the fleet arrived in the center of the region.

(2351 to 2752)
New Home, Same Politics

The construct the ‘up’ crew discovered would soon be identified as a Marii Translight Gate, one of many pieces of technology the named aliens seemingly left behind. As humanity slowly spun back up into a waking state and spread out into their new home certain realities were discovered.

The first being that this place was built, all of the worlds terraformed to a specific specification that was perfect for their creators and oddly enough humanity. Linking this cache of habitable systems where the gates, whos technology, seemingly imbued with Callenite in such a way that is still beyond human understanding, allows for rapid travel across the lightyears to the next gate. Even with centuries of study mankind can only manage a pale imitation of the technology. Other caches of technology encountered as humanity colonized their new home included working and practical plasma based shielding, more effective superluminal communications, and several leaps in materials science.

(4.May.2380 A.D.)

A binding agreement signed between the proto-states that would become the major human players within the Sundala Starzone, it effectively set the standards for territorial claims based on the level of development within a system by any particular power. Arguably the first set of international laws set after the Intersolar War mostly in an attempt to avert another conflict of such scale in humanity’s future.

(2752)
South China Sea Syndrome

Due to the presence of Callenite ore both on it's surface and in its asteroid belt a dispute begins over a world initially settled by UAS interests..