Capital Worlds (Sol)

**The Capital Worlds** are the three oldest UNE worlds of Earth, Mars and Venus, with some being settled as early as 2042. They also have some of the largest populations in the Galaxy, with over 20 Billion citizens between them. They were the UNE’s last stronghold during the Compass Holocaust and The Exodus Wars, with the Chosen only penetrating the system in early 2619.

## History

### **First Colonies**

The first colony ever established was a small city on the surface of Earth’s moon. While this was groundbreaking, and ushered in a new era in readily available nuclear power and a massive explosion in technological innovation, the colony was entirely dependent on Earth for resources, financial support and a steady flow of new settlers. In 2034, the first ever child was born on the Moon. This event was historically seen as the moment when the seed of Humanity’s first colonial venture into Space finally and irreversibly took root, setting in stone our inevitable future among the stars, and transforming it into not just a place for science and testing, but a place for families and living. This highly boosted the morale of Earth’s population, impressing upon them that other colonies were entirely possible, and in November 2042, the first colonial mission to Mars launched, arriving April of the following year. Unlike the disastrous first attempt, the crew were now adequately equipped for the harsh Martian conditions. The EM Drive was discovered in 2044, effectively halving the transit time from Earth to Mars, and later advancing even further to allow a burn sustained for months, or even years. The engine operated by trapping electrons inside a long tube and directing their EM Emissions, similar to the operation of a traditional rocket. The electrons bouncing around within the engine accumulates in power, gradually speeding up to speeds far beyond anything a traditional rocket could achieve, however it would still take months or years to reach the outer edges of the Solar System, meaning that effective infrastructure could not operate at  long range. Following the invention of the EM Drive, an exploration mission departed in 2045 to set foot on the Dwarf Planet of Pluto on the outer edges of the Solar System. A later mission returning to the moons of the Gas Giants yielded the discovery of microbial life in the world of Titan’s dark oceans. The discovery of these creatures was declared the first discovery of an alien life-form. Unintelligent and trivial as it was, this further stoked the flame of space exploration, and now that Earth was borderline uninhabitable, this led millions more to emigrate to the offworld colonies and live on the frontier of advancement. The offworld population on the Moon and Mars reaches ten million, along with millions more living permanent in orbit of any one of the Colonies, mainly on vast facilities in Low Earth Orbit. In 2077, Venus, the last of the three capital worlds was finally explored by a manned vessel, an airship that hovered high in the atmosphere. The crew stayed for three weeks, monitoring the airship and deploying several navigation beacons. Humanity did not return to Venus for decades after this, with the most ambitious colonisation effort ever made by the United Nations being made in August of 2097. This effort was successful, and thousands of colonists moved to the outer reaches of Venus’ atmosphere in November of that same year. This was the last massive colonial effort of the age. In 2097, a small cloud settlement was dispatched to Venus, using similar technology to the Airship twenty years before. The vessel carried one thousand initial colonists, and arrived safely two months later, and Venus is declared a Human colony. Over the last years of the 21st Century, more colonists emigrated to the fledgling colony on Venus. The last major colonial development of the century was the Colonial Trading Corporation leasing both the minuscule moon of Mars, Phobos and a large area of the Asteroid Belt to support their Asteroid Mining ventures.  As CTC’s monopoly over the natural resource industry grew, many campaigned for acts restraining the power of the megacorps.

### **The Leavesden Act**

In response to the public outcry for the regulation of the activity of the expanding megacorporations, the United Nations (the United Nations of Earth’s forerunner) passed the Leavesden Act in 2100, which disallowed any corporate entity from owning assets with a combined value of over their home planet’s GDP. This act was passed with much resistance, mainly from the Colonial Trading Corporation and Ryujin corporation. The act was formally decommissioned in 2214 when United Nations of Earth Credits UNEcr became the universal currency of all Human colonies.

### **Asteroid Mining**

The third and final massive innovation of the First Age of Colonisation was the development of Asteroid Mining Technology. In June of 2081, the newly formed Colonial Trading Corporation dragged a Near Earth Asteroid into low orbit to be processed and refined into usable commodities. The asteroid (its exact name has been lost) was mainly comprised of Gold, Nickel and Terbium. These, at the time, were the primary materials necessary for circuit fabrication. Once CTC had demonstrated its effectiveness, many other large corporations began to develop their own asteroid mining programmes. This field would later be dominated almost solely by CTC and Ryujin Industries. CTC leased a large area of the Asteroid belt, and constructed infra-structure on Mars’ tiny moon of Phobos. Many of CTC’s records of this time period are redacted. The only released information is that over 20,000,000,000,000 tonnes of resources were sold and processed, making large scale surface mining redundant.

### **Effects of the First Age of Colonisation**

The most notable effect of the First Age of Colonisation is obviously the settlement of the three Capital Worlds. Mars, Mercury and Venus. Beyond this, asteroid mining became almost entirely ubiquitous over surface mining. Several critical technological and scientific developments also took place, the most notable being the invention of the now universally utilised EM Drive. Many of today’s megacorporations originated in this time period, most notably the Colonial Trading Corporation, Ryujin Industries and the Infinitech corporation.