Prime Universe Timeline

This is a timeline of events in the Prime Universe, based on a timeline included in Poor Man's Iliad.

2120: First domed city is built on Mars.

2187: Centro Systems is formed by Shiori Nakatomi, dissolving all governments on Earth.

2190: Heirum J. Whitehead and Alton Dragonet at Talinata Softworks create the revolutionary WeN-D AI system, eventually resulting in a hostile takeover by Centro Systems. Heirum flees to Mars, Alton stays on Earth.

2210: Grigori Tarkanovsky mounts his revolution against Centro Systems. The revolution is violently put down. The mass exodus of dissidents to Mars begins as Centro sees using the survivors as labor as a way to kill two birds with one stone.

2227: An expedition is mounted to Triton (the moon of Neptune) to investigate strange reports from there. The ensuing report is kept secret.

2250: With Earth and Mars successfully colonized, settlers begin to move out to the Rim without Centro clearance. Some do so for independence, some to start their own businesses without Centro interference. Some of these settlers build their own dwellings, others take over abandoned mining facilities. The Rimward tradition of taking over abandoned facilities becomes common, and continues throughout the timeline.

2296: Construction on the main body of the Wright Brothers Shipyards over Venus is completed.

2320: Inspired by the successful colonization and push towards the Rim, AxiCom Consolidated anticipates more expeditions and colonization movements. AxiCom draws up plans and begins construction of a station called Frontier Gate.

Workers are hired from skilled craftsmen and workers that already inhabit the Rim. A transport ship of Engineers and Project Leads is brought in from earth. A bond is formed between these workers both from earth and the Rim.

2350: Reports of piracy on the rim begin. Investors begin pulling support from Project Frontier Gate. AxiCom is forced to postpone the project, despite being near completion, to avoid bankruptcy. The station is shut down and locked up, many workers from earth are abandoned to the Rim. The workers disperse through the Rim

2355: AxiCom Consolidated declares bankruptcy and is absorbed by other companies.

2360: Danger on the Rim is increasing. Those who had been employed on Project Frontier Gate begin to grow fearful. Some join the coalescing gangs. Many, remembering those they worked and lived with on the project begin to contact each other. The decision is made that they will return to Frontier Gate and reclaim it as their own.

2361: The station is reclaimed, major systems were brought back online. Frontier Gate is rechristened The Hold.

2362: Those who worked on Project Frontier Gate decide to form a Union. They were some of the most skilled repairmen, engineers and craftsmen in the Rim and now they had a home base. The Riggers were born.

2380: The Rimward gangs and governments start becoming organized and powerful enough in the open that Centro begins to attempt to police them.

2381: One of these forces attempts to police The Hold. The Riggers allow them on the station and the Centro police find hard-working peaceful people. Three of the officers are found dead and Centro suspects murder. The Hold is attacked but the Centro Ship is repelled, suffering heavy damages and is unable to make the return trip to Earth. The Riggers patch the ship and send it back to Earth, saving Centro a fortune and establishing a strained relationship with earth. From here on it is not uncommon to find an Earth ship docked for repairs, though the Earth folks tend to keep to themselves.

2386: The Hold is well established as the place to go for ship repairs and custom orders. Trade with Earth keeps the Riggers well stocked and and the Hold's reputation as being a strange place keep the inhabitants safe. Those seeking a safe place to live or asylum from pursuers travel to The Hold. The Riggers begin expanding through the system, establishing Union Houses in each planetary Orbit and the Asteroid Belt.

2420: Mars wins a petition for limited home rule, as well as to form a home guard military, as the distant governance of Centro was unwieldy and Mars needed an ability to react against the Pirate threat. Forming a Congress, and electing a President, Mars begins a new era.

2423: Cornelia Carthage is born.

2425: Mars signs the Rimward Accord with the largest Rimward groups and governments, making its first independent move. The Rimward Accord is widely considered a joke, and is barely followed.

2430: Zhang Han is Born.

2433: Centro attempts to start a permanent city on the ground on Venus. It is a dramatic failure. Future Centro Head of the Board, Sentinel St. John, is among the refugees.

2434: The Vigilance attempts a raid on Mars, the most brazen assault on a directly ruled Centro colony by a Rim power. Commodore Melinda Talon scrambles a fleet of ships still under repair, with skeleton crews, and saves the planet from slavers in an act of heroism. Talon is promoted to Admiral.

2445: Eric Silva is sent by Centro to locate Panjaka Singh on the derelict extra-solar “Magellan”. The resulting report, titled “Mud Nostalgia”, is filled with grotesque horrors, and is quietly shoved under the table. Unfortunately, the report leaks and causes widespread public demand for Centro interference in the Rimward territories to “bring them civilization”.

2450: Centro forces mount a futile attempt to retake Rimward overrun territory. While a few stations and mines are recovered for Earth, the assaults on Europa, Olympia, and Magellan's Rat Maze are such brutal defeats that the entire operation is shoved under the rug, with most participants being sworn to secrecy. Admiral Talon is given a desk job, while Admiral Ng is killed trying to take Olympia Station above Titan. Centro begins funding larger and more risky military programs, some publicly such as new battleships and expanding the Wright Brother's Shipyard, and some secret and shuddersome.

A secret expedition is sent to Venus to scout the either ruined or secluded city, led by Zhang Han. It returns reporting that Col. Benedict Gillen has gone power mad and has taken the city as his private kingdom. Centro quietly scrubs many details of the Venus colony from the public record, while leaving enough that anyone who searches finds a boring but tragic disaster and a dead end.

The Rim campaign is handed to the young Commodore Cornelia Carthage, a woman who holds the rank only because of the need for competent commanders to fill ranks after heavy losses of officers during the campaign. Carthage is expected to be a sacrificial lamb to buy time and stir up more funds for the higher ups to mount an all-out Rim campaign.

2451: Now Admiral Cornelia Carthage, along with her rapidly promoted ground commander Colonel Zhang Han, succeed in not just taking the moon of Uranus Titania for Centro, but utterly breaking the most powerful gang on the Rim: the slave trading group called the Vigilance. The victory is complete enough to serve as a potent reminder of Centro’s true power to the Rim, and gives Centro a massive foothold around Uranus. Carthage leverages the victory to make the rest of the Rim bend the knee and resume paying tribute to Centro. Zhang Han takes an honorable discharge, and begins a career in politics on Mars.

2453: The Congressional Representatives of Erkh Choloo begin broaching publicly the topic of Martian Independence. This is largely discounted at first, but begins to gain ground.

2465: MIA agent Zavian Chor begins to secretly build a Martian Space Navy over Io..

2466: A vote by the Martian Congress is taken on increased home rule  to Centro. While not unanimous, a majority of each City's Delegation votes yes. Congresswoman Zhang Han is elected President of Mars after an assassination attempt during the signing that kills sitting president Maka Keno and injures Zhang. The identity of the assassin, a Centro soldier who served alongside Han, makes anti-Centro sentiment bubble up. Centro brings it down to a simmer by allowing Mars to try and imprison the assassin without interfering, but rumors abound.

2467: Cornelia Carthage crushes the Three Sisters “pirate” ring run by a trio of (unrelated) female pirates, at whose head is the pirate queen Juniper Calisto. This is the first use of Centro’s new Praetorian class dreadnoughts in battle—the largest ships built for combat ever, and the second largest after the exo-solar ships. The Three Sisters sought to unite the Rim against Centro, and didn’t consider themselves pirates. Juniper Calisto escapes, and descends into drink at the Spinneret.

2470: Zhang is elected in a landslide for a second term as president, despite a brutal propaganda campaign against her.

2470: Centro Systems receives an upcoming bill that Zhang Han and her allies are floating around congress, granting Mars more power to make decisions on local policy without consulting Centro, as well as granting them the power to build their own space defense fleet. The bill is meant to resolve the Martian problem once and for all, as the bill enshrines Centro control to all ships and future ground structures built by the Martian government, and requiring those who man the ships be Centro personnel. Essentially, a compromise.

With the bill leaked in an early state (by an Index Agent within DIRC) and without Han being able to pitch the bill for what it is, Centro sees the bill as an act of Revolution and the Board of Directors votes to disband the “rogue” government by force. Admiral Cornelia Carthage, feeling betrayed by her friend Zhang Han, wins the right to lead the assault on Mars, and bargains for the position of Fleet Admiral—a rank never held before, giving her command of all Centro fleets and military during the operation.

In secret, Centro moves forces it knows will be loyal into the garrisons in and around the Martian capital of Tarkanograd. The same Index agent leaks Centro’s plan at the last minute to the Martians, and Zhang Han and the congress escape the city in a bloody flight. Civilian casualties in Tarkanograd are high.

The city is completely overrun by Centro forces, who hold the city but are unable to leave it due to artillery and orbital satellite positions over and around the city. A stalemate begins as both sides prepare for full scale war, with Centro’s symbolic taking of the Capitol weakening their overall hold of the mega-cities, with their forces concentrated there. Zhang and Congress reconvene in Erkh Choloo, and then later the more neutral meeting ground of Trung. Boi Huu Toan is appointed Vice President, as the previous one died in the escape from Tarkanograd. Centro blockades the planet, surrounding it with ships and a network of drones and satellites that allow it to intercept nearly everything coming or going from the planet. In Tarkanograd, Centro Party leader Lyle Yongtu is appointed by Centro as the planet’s “true” president, though he governs only the city. The “Siege of Tarkanograd” as it’s called, begins.

Former pirate Juniper Callisto is recruited to be Admiral of the Martian Space Navy, in a controversial decision, as all of the original options remain trapped on Mars.

The Martian Revolution, or the Centro Civil War, begins…