Vega Concern

The Vega Concern was a colony effort put together by surviving members of Aristocracy of Europe after the cease fire ending WWIII.
Forming their organization in 2060, attempting to escape the horror, and meeting in secret in Bilbao, a city in the Pyrenees mountains that was relatively unscathed in the fighting. Aristocracy from all over the European continent were at odds, while a number formed power bases which would grow to become the European Hegemony a century later, a certain faction had declared life on Earth to be untenable and worked to free themselves of it.
The faction grew to a support network of half a million members, who worked in secret to avoid being openly attacked by the Optimum forces. They suffered significant losses, both of assets and followers during the years of the unrest and struggle to survive. The leaders of the Vega Concern got themselves off of Earth within a year, and used their wealth to develop stellar assets and form business agreements to lead to their group being the first to launch three DY-245 colony ships, beginning the end of 2077 and the last in early 2071, going to establish the Vega Colony. It would take take them until the 2130s to arrive to establish New London, and New Barcelona.
The initial Colonial foothold was named New Paris, and was established officially as the Vega Concern capital in 2113, almost two decades earlier due to the leadership of the Vega Concern deciding to accelerate their timetable. They were under threat from Optimum forces, and were forced to evacuate to a research station in the Asteroid field. 
A representative of the leadership outbid other colony groups to gain the hull of the SS Agata, a long disused Akula submarine raised from the continental shelf and repaired for repurposed for use in space. The intent was to construct a Y-500 class colony ship, but people were bribed to connect an experimental super-impeller which was projected to reduce the travel time from 50-60 years to as little as 10 years. The builders declared it an XY-500. The craft was redesigned again after initial launch in 2095, to add triple the cargo capacity through extension, and based on the Captain's best judgement speed was reduced to take 18 years, still arriving first.
The Vega Concern continued to expand with multiple additional DY-500, Y-500, and J-Class colony ships that would arrive d join the colony over the next century. By the 2260s, the Vega Concern was well established in the North West continent, having developed New Paris into a city of roughly 2.8 million souls. By 2400, it was a very large megaplex of 20 million.
Members of the society elite who had remained behind to guide the rest in crossing, eventually joined with the European Hegemony and had a hand in creating the United Earth Government.