(Lore) Main Timeline

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## **[-2106- (19BE)] The Beginning**

After decades of resource wars and a slow, unceasing destruction of the natural world that could never be fixed, desperation on Terra was at an all-time high, and for a glimmering few years, so was unity. That namely being the Unity Global Cooperative, or the UGC. The UGC's formation from the remaining spacefaring world governments in 2106 marked the beginning of the new age, the age of the stars. Within months of formation the UGC would begin producing a new line of ship for a very new line of duty. Built on extra-terrestrial planetside settlements, primarily on mars and its moons, and ferried into space to be pieced together for final assembly, these were sublight colony vessels, powered by solar sails and nuclear fission reactors, and slowly shoved towards other star systems by massive lasers, representing the UGC's main and only true binding force: the utter and inevitable need for another true home.

Designing the vehicles wasn't hard, as many governments had previously attempted similar projects, or were still in the process of at the UGC's formation, and once cooperative development was accelerated, it was a simple matter to finish satisfactory designs to begin prototyping. The problem was, Terra still supported a huge majority of the UGC's possible labor force, as there were barely two million people living offworld by the start of the century. The use of miniaturized nuclear weapons in the late 21st century had left significant portions of previously-farmable empty land inhospitable, and caused a massive surge in exotic viruses and contagions that medical science could simply not keep up with. People were hungry, weak, and crammed into the remaining safe areas in cities, and very few had anything to give to this new project. The UGC began to offer things like settling debt, clearing criminal charges, simply guaranteeing meal access, and other non-financial ways of gathering labor help, which did the project no help on the PR side, but the ships would be built, albeit slowly.

## **[-2113- (13BE)] The Second Wave**

Just after the first colony ships were heading out, the UGC began to roll out the second wave; a line of industry ships designed to help the newly-forming colonies stabilize and begin increasing population, using the additional gestation tanks on board the second wave ships and the DNA banks on the colony ships. However, the UGC immediately began to run into funding problems. With no one to source loans from or sell debt to, net production was based on labor, not on money. With an ever-sickening population with less and less to offer, and resources stretched thin, the cracks began to form in the UGC. They had already exploited every available opportunity at 'free' labor to set up contracts for the first wave, and now almost a decade later with the world's problems only worsening, Terra simply had nothing left to give.

Many second wave ships were eventually produced as cohesion splintered further and further, but less than a quarter of colony ships got theirs, and many of them were up to 15 years late; the colony ships were only rated to support their crew for 10 total after landing, which meant some colonies that had survived might have to face a few years with no fuel for their reactors, no food reserves, no water reserves, medical supplies, and almost no chance. There were hopes that improvements in the laser-sail propulsion methods would eliminate this gap, but too many things were being done hastily, with almost every possible corner being cut, so there was no good way to be sure.

## **[-2123- (4BE)] Bleak Future**

It had been projected initially that the first colony ships, carrying 100 passengers each and DNA banks with 50,000 more, would arrive 10 years after the start of production. However, due to the nature of space, the first ship didn't reach its destination until 2119. Although the information has been lost to time, this first ship was the UGC Solaris 7. Due to the UGC ultimately being entirely underprepared for the task at hand, the cosmic radiation shielding on the Solaris 7 had been entirely inadequate due to erroneous readings on initial habitability reports, and by the time the crew was able to shield themselves, 83 of the original passengers were dead, and every other living thing on the ship had been sickened and sterilized by exposure. Reports indicated that the remaining crew tried to establish a colony, still, benefitting initially from the extra resources, but physical conditions prevented long-term success and slow casualties caused the ultimate extinction of the crew less than three months after landing at their intended colony site.

In honor of when the UGC believed the first messages would be arriving from the Solaris 7 after its arrival at its destination, it had organized a global holiday, called Unity day. It was meant to be a celebration of the diversity of surviving culture, pride in coming together, and looking to a better future. Unity day 2120 was the first Unity day, a somewhat poorly-received attempt by the struggling world government. Facing ever-lower morale, each following Unity day involved more and more spectacle, which did begin to have a positive effect on society. Then, on Unity day 2123, the UGC got the first transmission from the Solaris 7. Learning of the damage and knowing that the rest of the crew was by now long dead, but with nearly 12 billion people waiting in anticipation for the promised transmission to be released, the UGC ordered an emergency session, summoning all members of the global senate to address the issue. With public backlash growing day by day as it became clear something was very wrong, the decision was made to simply tell the public that the ship had gone entirely missing in an unexplained gravitational disturbance. Public faith in the UGC reached an all-time low shortly after, although unfortunately, it would also be at its highest for the rest of the UGC's existence.

## **[-2127- (0AE)] Extinction**

As more and more reports of failing colonies came in, only to be swept under the rug by the UGC, tensions were at an all-time high, held in place only by the mutually-respected façade of a united world and the hope that good news might finally come though. However, in 2127, everything fell apart. A hacker group named Allegiance had been giving the UGC security trouble for years; they would use technology like AI deep-faking in combination with social engineering tactics, spoofing video calls 'from superiors' to gain backdoors that they could exploit, and similar extremely effective tactics. They would finally find a way to steal copies of every colony transmission that had been edited or hidden entirely from the public, and simply quietly released them onto the net. Within hours, the planet fell into chaos. Riots on the streets, UGC senators being attacked outright, and strikes by the vast majority of worker's unions. Another emergency senate session was called, but the conflict only worsened, until the capital had to be locked down less than three days later.

It's unclear what exactly happened next, but when fighting inevitably broke out inside the locked-down senate as countries turned on each other once more, armed guards would serve as pawns in a bloody brawl that swept the capital. In the chaos, Allegiance claims to have sent an operative into the control room for the UGC's entire capital power grid, to overload the main reactors. Many argue this would be impossible with the level of security around such controls, requiring two, or likely three isolated people with biometric locks to even access the controls with that kind of potential, but no matter who or what caused it, the next thing anyone knew, the UGC capital, and the city around it, was forming into a mushroom cloud that reached into space. The surface of the planet froze over days later as nuclear winter set in. A few months later, the last planetside holdouts went dark, despite the efforts of those struggling offworld to do anything, and Terra, along with over 12 billion souls, died. An extremely uneasy quiet fell over the few million still remaining, scattered in self-sustaining mining settlements, large stations orbiting in the outer solar system, and the half-dozen or so known colony ships that arrived at their destinations and survived.

## **[-2141- (13AE)] A Voice In The Dark**

One of the most advanced holdouts of civilization and science after the Extinction was the biggest extra-terrestrial settlement to date; the Grand Lunar University. Designed before the rise of the UGC as a self-sustaining center for the sciences, and aimed at preparing for the dangers of the unknown. By the point of Extinction, it would grow to house almost 500,000 people; researchers and their families, support staff, and a significant number of people focused on keeping the towers of life; the four massive hydroponic farming skyscrapers that fed everyone, running and producing enough food for a massive population, theoretically upwards of 5 million with added floors. Close proximity to several major mining settlements on other planets gave it reliable access to materials, and the university would actually go on to survive and thrive after the Extinction, although not without catastrophic initial damage and forays into near anarchy of their own.

In 2141, they would finally see results on a project started over a century ago; machines known as Subspace Transmitters, that were able to bend spacetime to the point that singularity-sized wormholes were formed. These wormholes acted as bridges to places across the universe through which energy, in the form of a signal of some kind, could be easily sent. Without a matching Subspace Transmitter at the other end to form a stable link, however, signals simply had to be projected into empty space, sometimes missing their targets by thousands of kilometers, in the hopes sensors in the scattered colonies could pick them up.

## **[-2144- (16AE)] A People Re-United**

After 3 long, quiet years of transmissions, most of them containing only the blueprints for the transmitter and simplified warnings about the collapse of the UGC, one colony suddenly lit up out of the dark, and the first subspace relay was formed. That first colony was the children of the UGC Vigil 4 crewmembers, all adult now, and vat-grown children from DNA banks, most of whom were in their teens. They had been able to form a stable colony on the rocky slopes of a moon they named Genesis, living mostly underground and exploiting an abundance of geothermal energy, and were unaware of the collapse of the UGC and fall of civilization. This first linking became the spark in a flame that would soon roar to life, as the transmitters were able to be rapidly refined and further targeting attempts became easier. In total, there were 5 systems capable of linking by this point, with almost 20 others unaccounted for.

## **[-2150- (21AE)] Together Against the Void**

Access to subspace transmitters allowed the scattered peoples to unite again, but it wasn't so simple. There were still lightyears between groups, with no way to build more colony ships big enough to make a real difference. Since there were no longer demands on production, people started to collect in bigger groups and sharing resources and labor wherever they could. The massive old mining sectors, used to having to support upwards of 20 billion people, saw a drop in sustaining settlements from nearly 50, to just over a dozen, as demand hit an all-time floor. Many of the corporate trade stations at the outer rim of the system were taken back by the people, and with the help of the remaining operational production facilities, were able to be tethered together into cities of patchwork, holding tens of thousands of souls.

In a short six years after that first successful interstellar transmission, a small board formed, a new senate of sorts, with the aim of guiding society into a brighter future. Represented by a single member on the board were a total of eight groups. Each of the known surviving colonies was granted a seat, for a total of five. The Grand Lunar University had a member on the board, but was primarily focused on development of more advanced Subspace Transmitters and other technology. The mining settlements eventually settled into their own rough, self-governed conglomerate known as the Free Peoples Guild, also represented by one board member. They acted as a form of union for the mining and production workers of the system. Finally, the largest space stations at the outer edges of the system formed into the Democratic Convergence of Stations, or frequently just the Convergence, which was represented by a single member. This board would form as a rough guide for the cooperation of the peoples represented and their production abilities, in terms of prioritizing the overall survival of society. Lacking any actual enforceable authority, the board became a force for a peaceful, cooperative future, and was generally well received, if not particularly productive, in the end.

## **[-2168- (37AE)] One Giant Leap**

The nearly two decades that followed the formation of the board were peaceful, hopeful, and busy. One of the first major actions of the board was to coordinate efforts between the Free Peoples Guild, and the Convergence, in a project to hopefully assist the struggling colonies. The former was capable of producing new, smaller, faster solar sail ships that could allow travelers to move to the colonies, bolstering their chances of prosperity, but lacked the ability to produce consumer goods necessary for modern standards of living. The latter had access to consumer goods produced by the citizens of the stations, but those in charge, mostly old pre-extinction CEO's and corporate higher-ups that worked their way back in to the new power structure, wanted opportunities to expand and lay dominance over the inevitably-reforming economy.

The first ships went out quickly, becoming the first models to fly with integrated transmitters. One by one, a 'chaser' ship was sent after each of the original colony ships launched by the UGC, drone ships bearing supplies for the hopeful survivors and with advanced arrays of scanning equipment to report on the situation; then, if not needed, they were to continue on to the next closest star system within a certain angle of course deflection. Three more colonies were in a condition to be able to join the board, with all others bearing no locatable survivors. There were some tensions with new arrivals in the colonies after decades of closed-off culture, but for the most part, things went smoothly, with most people just interested in living their own lives through, after all the chaos a lot of survivors had been through.

Those decades of relative calm and peace were never fated to last, however; for better or worse, the biggest changes were yet to come. In 2168 the Grand Lunar University hit upon another marvel of modern science: the blind-punch hyperdrive. By utilizing the same idea of wormhole-based spatial compression, but trading off the ratio of compression for wormhole stability, they were able to create something that had seemed impossible. A ship, capable of forming a bubble of compressed space around it and driven with its primary sublight engines, could travel several times the speed of light, turning 5 year trips into 6 months. The full repercussions could only be guessed at, at the time, but this invention would change the fate of intelligent life forever.

## **[-2185- (53AE)] Separation**

There were two groups that had the most to gain from FTL travel. Colonists, seeking to support the efforts of the UGC many years ago, and looking to expand to even more new worlds. People began to slowly crawl across the galaxy, small groups moving around with their own goals instead of just following the great prerogative of survival of the species. The other group was the Convergence. The invention of the hyperdrive had nearly sealed the fate of the Convergence, which had been growing seeds of capitalism and the idea of universal currency since its formation. To many, the galaxy was an untapped wealth of resources, now very much within reach.

Unfortunately, to others, it was home. The Convergence began to push for their new currency as the standard for all peoples in all systems, pressuring the board to try to make it official. Known as the energy credit, or usually just credits, initially it was backed by the most valuable commodity in existence; power. The more power that people produced, the better civilization ultimately would do, they claimed. To that end, a small group of entrepreneurs travelled to the planet of Genesis, the same colony that had 41 years ago became the first to construct a subspace transmitter. They began to aggressively exploit the geothermal energy production sector that the colonists had spent decades building from the ground up, and tensions flared very quickly.

The board, unable to do anything as a largely humanitarian group, watched helplessly as the conflict grew the the point of disaster. Extremist voices hyped the colonists into striking back, killing everyone working for the corporation in a violent, unprompted attack. The colony immediately withdrew from the board, warning that any incoming vessels would be subject to local law, not the authority of the board. The Convergence pushed for justice, faith in the board failed, and within three months another colony withdrew, then another a month later. By the end of 2186, there were only two colonies left, and the board officially dissolved, as there was little left for it to gain. A long, long period of isolation, darkness, and fear would creep over the galaxy after that, and some say, the peace would never truly return.

## **[-2200- (67AE)] Adrift I**

Blind punch hyperdrives reach a spatial compression ratio of 90% for the first time, allowing ships to travel faster than ever between systems.

The colonists of Genesis spread to a second world in their system, naming the new colony Primea. Intended to be a hub of civilization, it is built on the backs of the geothermal power taken back by revolutionaries in the Separation.

## **[-2223- (88AE)] Adrift II**

Fragments of a precursor data relay are found scattered across an asteroid ring with a high concentration of valuable metals. The absolute confirmation of intelligent life in the cosmos shakes society for a few years, before the quiet sinks in again. Researchers make no meaningful headway on understanding the technology discovered. The asteroid ring becomes a hotly contested mining site.

## **[-2247- (110AE)] Adrift III**

The colonists of Genesis and Primea, with populations bolstered from decades of successful accelerating population growth using the original UGC Vigil 4 DNA banks, carefully stored for a century, form the Second Celestial Confederation. The SCC, a militaristic, imperialistic, xenophobic group who considered themselves to be more fit to head the new galactic community than the residents of Sol, make bold claims of striking out and taking control of the galaxy, by force if necessary. No one takes the claims very seriously, and years pass with no significant actions taken.

## **[-2258- (120AE)] Adrift IV**

A lone exploration ship lands on a strange, barren world, occupied only by small, red, flower-like fungi. Its crew are never heard from again, but send several distress signals. Several ships follow up to investigate, bringing back samples of the fungi for study at more advanced facilities. Once again, the ships arrive with no crew, but ship cameras and logs reveal a horrifying scene as the crew begin to be taken over by the alien lifeforms, randomly one by one after a few weeks on board, turned to a breeding hive that eats away everything until, in most cases, the fungi run out of food and dry up, crumbling to dust. By the time the true danger is realized, the fungi have escaped quarantine already, and within months, will be killing thousands. Victims feel fine for usually almost three weeks, making it difficult to track without advanced tests that most systems aren't equipped to apply wide-scale. The pandemic is named the First-Contact Xenovirus, and while treatment is possible after infection, and relatively cheap, it takes the better part of a decade for quarantine to no longer be necessary in larger hubs of civilization, and society is left hollowed, stripped of a considerable portion of its citizens.

## **[-2273- (133AE)] Adrift V**

With the F-Xe virus contained to laboratories and populations recovering, a landmark 30th star system is successfully colonized. The SCC, reported to have be slowly building a sizeable fleet for some time, suddenly cuts off all contact and traffic into or out of the system without any warning. Once again, political outrage surges, but little can be done with military forces all but nonexistent. Concerns are raised about the threats made almost 30 years prior, but most consider the internal stability of the SCC to be more at fault.

## **[-2275- (135AE)] Adrift VI**

Exploration ships land on the surface of a planet that would later be named Giothia. This planet was a gaia world; relatively large, with huge water oceans, oxygen-rich atmosphere, 10% land mass coverage, and more importantly, it contained carbon-based fauna and flora, although incredibly exotic. Several factions and systems send colony ships, and in an attempt to avert a coming political disaster, more diplomatic voices suggest making the system neutral, as a center of the newly-forming galactic civilization. It could be a trade hub, be a center for arts and sciences, host representatives for political work, and support a massive farming sector. This was, in light of the F-Xe virus, received both relatively positively in the spirit of unity against the void, and with hesitation, for such a world would surely be vulnerable. It would need police with significant strength, a governing body capable of keeping tensions between groups low, and top-of-the-line medical facilities. Debate would continue for years as the colonies slowly grew, making no real headway.

## **[-2281- (141AE)] Adrift VII**

After nearly a decade of near-complete silence from the SCC, they re-open political channels. Learning of the talks of a hub world on Giothia, SCC representatives immediately begin making demands to be made head of the project, or otherwise in a controlling position over the planet. When their demands were unsurprisingly met with ridicule, they threaten consequences for the disrespect, before going silent. Six months later, a fleet of 50 bomber-type spacecraft, 10 dropships, 10 support ships, and 30 cargo ships, bearing SCC identification, drop out of hyperspace at the edge of the Sol system, on a course for the inner system. The galactic community is thrown into a panic, but the short and simple answer is that there is no force capable of meeting them in combat, as it would take months to even produce ships, train pilots, and months more to send them to Sol.

They resume making demands about controlling authority over Giothia, but years of contempt and arrogance among other galactic leaders cause them to call the demands as bluffs. The fleet splits; all but the bombers and dropships moving into LEO above the still-radioactive remains of the UGC capital, and the military portion of fleet hovering over the Grand Lunar University. Starting to sense the reality of the situation, the galaxy is locked in a stalemate. The SCC reveals that their original gene banks have failed, and they have come to recover as much technology and genetic diversity from the remaining fragments of the UGC as possible, in a hopes of becoming both a technological superpower, and staying 'pure'. Reports begin coming in of ground units in full armour covering every inch of skin, and whispers of mal-formed, undeveloped clone soldiers showing obviously-modified genetic abilities, throwing doubt on the idea of the SCC chasing 'purity'.

After months of tense negotiations, the SCC makes a final offer. 10% of the entirety of the population of the Sol system over age 60, un-restricted and exclusive access to the remains of the UGC capital, as well as controlling authority over research at the Grand Lunar University. Once again, the demands are so extreme that many voices treat it as a joke, but the situation is very clear. Galaxy-wide technological progress relies heavily on the Grand Lunar University, and the SCC stands to be able to wipe it out and take what they want by force. Sides begin to form as tensions rise and rise; not many takes the side of the SCC, but their promises of a secure future, and technological and biological ascendency, are appealing to some. Those in apposition remind the SCC that they cannot afford to slow down progress any more than the rest of civilization, and that the SCC can't stand to risk a united galaxy in opposition. The SCC, apparently sick of negotiations and inaction, disagrees. Within days, their bombers have taken out every major defense in the university, as well as all critical life-support locations, and dropships full of soldiers have taken nearly all members of the population they consider 'useful' offworld, leaving the rest to flee and find safety on their own, killing all active resistance with advanced, gene-virus laced bullets. The galaxy unites again in opposition of the multitude of war crimes, and the first of the Colony Wars begin.

## **[-2287- (146AE)] Colony Wars I**

The first action of the Allies after the fall of the Grand Lunar University had to be to replace the central data servers containing the only surviving copy of most historical, scientific, and numerous other fields, data. Much of it had been spread across a thousand ship and colony servers across the galaxy, but it needed to be centralized again, and there were millions of blueprints that would soon be needed that were currently lost. Immediate full-scale action was taken on a capital city on Giothia, specifically a data archives building. It would be useable at a basic level within two years, equipped with 1ZB of storage space, and 99 similar banks that would come online slowly over the next 50 years. Servers everywhere had been hoarding and duplicating everything they could collect, and in 2284, began the slow process of transmitting it.

The other major buildings in the ally capital would be completed to a useable point by 2286. The whole city is designed to be modular so it can be functional as soon as possible, but still have great capacity for expansion. In 2287 the first Senate of The Allies convenes, christening the city Exarus. Their next action, as agreed previously by representatives of the Alliance colonies, was to put into writing the constitution of the Alliance. It would include, in ten years time and every ten years after that, the democratic election of a president by the people, to serve in balance to the senate, and as a singular guiding force for the military actions that would soon need to be taken.

The SCC saw no real threat in any of the actions of the allies, surging in power after their control of, and subsequent unrelenting and destructive exploitation of, the Sol system. They claim to have gained enough original UGC-era DNA to stabilize their citizens, and have created a new breed of genetically-enhanced supersoldier. Spy reports suggest that the words 'stabilize' and 'supersoldier' might be overzealous, but the claims do stir up fear and further support for the efforts of the senate.

## **[-2295- (153AE)] Colony Wars II**

Nearly 14 years after The Fall, as it was now simply known, and in honor of those lost to gene weapons used by the SCC and the millions killed by the F-Xe Virus, the city of Exarus officially makes a donation for the construction of a privately-controlled but publicly owned medical university and hospital, in the hopes of protecting future generations from untold threats in the new age, and to replicate what work they could that had been lost. It helped usher in a new age of basic medical care, helping make advanced medicine and treatment available to all, and teaching thousands of new galaxy-class doctors.

It did not, however, have a significant effect figuring out how to counter the gene weapons used by the SCC. The differences between the two sides, genetically, wasn't much, but SCC scientists had made sure it was enough. The Allies could respond with gene weapons of their own, but their constituents really believed in the heroism in the Allies' cause, and that would do no good for public image, especially in an age where it was just standard practice to record everything one saw, since most were living through the first serious information scarcity of their lives.

More importantly, many argued, was that 2295 was the year that construction would begin on the biggest-ever shipyard of the alliance fleet, ready to go into production in 2297 when the president was to be elected. Complied technological documents had resulted in 4 major combat vessels, organized more distinctly for the first time. Small Gunboats, using airlocked internal ballistic canons to strike at enemy hulls. Carriers, designed with several large airlocked bays for gunboats; heavily armoured on a long side to act as a shield. Bombers, little more than flying boxes with drop doors, the smallest vessel. Dropships, filled with volunteer and occasionally conscripted soldiers. The ships were relatively cutting-edge, borrowing from a lot of innovations by a lot of diverse peoples, and there was hope that they were good enough to stand up to the SCC, finally.

## **[-2297- (155AE)] Colony Wars III**

In 2297, three years before the beginning of one of the most chaotic and war-torn centuries in recorded history, a woman named Haiyma Yensen was elected President of the Alliance with almost 73% of the total vote. Born just before the F-Xe virus in 2254, her colony was wiped away by it and she was saved by a mining team. After growing up on one of the most advanced stations in the galaxy, pre-Alliance at least, she learned politics and law, and was well liked by all she met; a bold, championing personality and convincing words. She supported the industrialization and full interconnection of the galaxy, vowing to research technologies to speed up travel and improve the lives of the billions who support the alliance.

Her first hour on the job was an eventful one; broadcast to billions of people on dozens of systems, live, thanks to the subspace transmitters now at the core of society. Among other things in her fiery inaugural speech, President Yensen vowed to produce a fleet of 1,000 ships by the end of the year, with 2,000 more each year until the SCC was crushed. The fleet would then be reworked into an Alliance Police Fleet, to provide law and security to all. It was met with very mixed remarks, from quite a number who praised the bold action, to others who claimed she would cripple the economy trying to produce so many, to others that said the numbers were a joke, and would be nowhere sufficient for taking on the SCC. Only time would truly tell.

## **[-2305- (162AE)] Colony Wars IV**

Nearing the end of her first term, with another looking pretty likely, President Yensen had done things no one could have expected. Mining production was up so much, they say a billion tons of ore were mined in a single day for the first time. Her Fleet of The Alliance was some 10,000 of the 15,000+ she promised, but it was still a significant portion and few were keen to criticize. In top secret labs, the first trials were coming back successful on a synthetic virus that can give a soldier immunity to any known kind of gene weapon employed by the SCC, but causes large-scale cell breakdown, crippling users within about five years. At first, only volunteers, these were to be the front line offensive in a surgical strike that would occur at the start of her second term.

One by one, however, the pieces on the board changed. An Alliance spy that never returns from their mission. A lone vial of the gene-immunity virus, stolen from a case of thirty out of a vault that was never opened. The main reactor of a major SCC shipyard going critical with no warning, rending the structure in half. President Yensen... Falling ill? She was otherwise in excellent health at the comfortable age of 51, but a very slow, deadly contagion was taking hold of her. Doctors described it as a sort of parasitic cancerous cell mutation, spreading without regard for tissue variation through the body. A year before she was to be re-elected, she became bedridden, and her vice-president stepped in, vowing to continue on the plans that had been laid. Vice president would become president, and now ex-president would continue to get weaker, only a shadow of her former self. In another two years, she would be dead, potential gone like dust in the wind. No other cases of the illness are ever reported, and conspiracy is abound on the cause, the majority pointing to the SCC. Nothing is ever confirmed.

## **[-2325- (181AE)] Emergence**

In 2322, an un-imaginable fleet, at the time at least, of 40,000 Alliance ships drop out of hyperspace in Sol. The aim is to push as far into the system as possible, establishing a foothold at the forwardmost reachable defensive point. The husks of the old Convergence stations at the outer solar system, already nearly empty when the SCC showed up, were almost entirely gone, scrapped for resources. Battlegroups of 50 gunships patrolled the asteroid belt, forming a very loose net around the inner system, at least if invaders were looking for cover. The Alliance ships tear through SCC defenses, noting that the crews of the ships seemed to be suffering heavily from gene-degeneration, and were un-equipped for the jobs. The SCC gunships, firing their standard variety of gene canon, were no match against more advanced and versatile mass-driver turrets employed by Alliance destroyers. It seemed truly too good to be true. And it was.

The gene-weapon immunity virus, refined to a far less harmful and more efficient form known as the SymBio Gene-Cure, was a marvel of bioengineering and medical science. Completely non-transmissible, it provided massive protection against all matter of cell-attacking contagions. Including the modified strains of the F-Xe virus, intended as a last-ditch effort, that had been on the ancient weapons of the SCC in Sol. Lying very dormant thanks to the SymBio, which kept it invisible to medical scans, it was very slowly spread around unknowingly to the front-line soldiers. Eventually, however, the troops arrived home. What should have been a 1 month period before hive formation turned into years, until the first case. Patient Zero. The modified F-Xe virus had found a way to absorb the SymBio and evolve, beginning to spread in the host, becoming transmissible, and then suddenly, the Alliance is in chaos.

The new strain of the virus was unlike anything medical protocols had been prepared for. Intelligently designed by SCC scientists in a culmination of every bit of lethal science their engines of war could devise, it had multiple stages of life; a non-invasive phase were it simply spread through a host, becoming invisibly transmissible for a short period. After a month, it suddenly takes off, taking the victim over and flooding hormone and adrenaline levels, causing aggression and unstable tendencies. They are fully contagious this whole time, and usually take about four hours to die. At this point, feeding off the remaining tissue, the virus becomes mature, turning the body into a spore-cloud producing factory that can carry along the wind, in air vents, or through water, for upwards of a week. In 2325 they simply named it the Emergence Xenovirus, and it was unstoppable.

## **[-2342- (196AE)] The Fall I**

After a decade of fighting, the Alliance can't support their fleet with the Emergence striking down colonies left and right, and Sol is lost again. The SymBio is the only line of defense, capable of buying a victim time to sort out their affairs before the inevitable. With exposure to more and more lifeforms and genetic sequences, the Emergence rapidly mutates and grows ever more deadly, and eventually the Alliance bomber fleet is repurposed for razing infected areas on planets. Civilization continues to crumble, and in 2342, the first SCC fleets begin arriving in Alliance systems. SCC ships are still inferior, but overall the war is a slaughter. The initial SCC attack fleet alone is reported as responsible for the ends of almost 10 billion lives.

## **[-2349- (203AE)] The Fall II**

A giant globe of high-strength clear sapphire panels, ten meters thick, sits around the city of Exarus. Inside is a full quarantine zone, with no passage in or out of the city. One of the last lights in the dark, the remainder of the Alliance fleet sits in orbit around the planet, protecting the last bastion of civilization. As many look to the sky and wonder which day will be their last, news comes unexpected from the last remaining spies in the SCC home system: chaos. Overnight, seemingly, the power structure of the SCC had finally collapsed under its own weight. Factions were forming and warring over resources, tearing each other apart. Small fleets crewed by determined generals-turned-marauders rushed towards Exarus, determined to deny the Alliance victory. They are met, defeated, and scatter, forming roving pirate bands that pick on the parts of civilization that the Emergence had left behind.

## **[-2356- (209AE)] The Fall III**

As the tremendously-unpopular process of burning to a fine ash every city and colony that the Emergence takes hold in chips away morale, and a billion humanitarian crisis' rage across the fragments of what remains, riots fill the streets of Exarus. Many liken it to the evens of 2127, when the UGC fell. It was assumed that the final days of the Alliance, whatever that even meant anymore, were at the doorstep. But hope was not gone. For years, the Alliance had been constructing the largest ship ever; a mobile hospital, refinery, database, and passenger ship, for use in helping the remains of the colonies start to recover. There was more than that, however. Scientists at the Medical University of Exarus had found a way to modify some of the genetic material of a crustacean-like creature found on a far-off world and splice it into the SymBio, making it capable of fully repelling the Emergence; a true cure. This new ship would be used to save as many survivors as possible, even if the city collapses.

## **[-2379- (230AE)] Silence I**

The Alliance, now a name for the ship more than the collection of people, has made steady progress across the thousands of sites that needed aid. The new SymBio Gene-Cure was being carried by ships everywhere, but many places didn't have the means to produce anything complex to support any industry, and needed untold other help. The galactic community is quiet, interconnection is mostly gone. Dark, dangerous voids begin to form, preying on those forced to make trips between clusters of safety. Even so, there are some advances; hyperdrive spatial compression ratio reaches 94% for the first time.

## **[-2392- (242AE)] Silence II**

As if by some, great, unseen signal, one by one colonies stop using official transmitter channels. Connections continue to fade, and pockets of the galaxy, tied together by close range travel, form into small interstellar communities. Travel between pockets is rare, and most think the universe has been giving signs: keep to yourselves. Innovations are made in mining, agriculture, and other colony trades, as worlds are finally taken and used for their full values for the first time. Chromus, a staple gaseous trade commodity in modern life, is refined for the first time, and cities, as they rebuild, as awash with glowing neon-style signs and bright lights of every colour, creating a somewhat ironic aesthetic movement for many years.

This would also be the year that the last flickering light of The Alliance went out. After nearly 40 years holding the galaxy together as best it could, The Alliance sent a single distress beacon from the middle of a long hyperspace jump, citing an extreme and unstable gravitational anomaly, and was never seen or heard from again. Not a single fragment was recovered, or any trace detected along its path of anything unusual. There was a brief period of respectful mourning by many of the worlds it was able to save, but so many others had never seen aid, and had nothing but bitterness to add.

## **[-2432- (278AE)] Silence III**

Over a century after the discovery of the first precursor data relay, another, significantly more intact relay is discovered. Making useful headway on any of the incomparably complex digital technology stored within would take untold decades, but the supports of the structure were made of an extremely advanced alloy. Making heavy use of Autodynum, which had thus far never been successfully refined or alloyed, it proved the great key to unlocking a massive boom in outer space engineering. Ships could be made lighter, sleeker, stronger, if vastly more expensive. Space stations could safely span distances never before possible, providing more space for residence that doesn't rely on colonizing planets. It would be only the first of many significant jumps in material sciences gleamed from the relays, but many argue it was one of the biggest.

## **[-2449- (294AE)] Flame Undying**

The scars left by the SCC and the Emergence Xenovirus would be visible on the galaxy for centuries. Countless worlds, at least fifty billion lives, and untold technological progress; lost in a few decades. As the rebuilding survivors, now starting to come into their own thanks to Autodynum alloys, looked back at a century since the fall, there were talks of what responsibilities the galaxy had to prevent further, potentially even more disastrous, events. Many argued that there was no possible way to regulate inter-stellar law effectively with current technology, believing that systems should function as largely separate, with their own border controls.

Others saw the potential for the economic and technological boons that come from interconnection, with more radical groups arguing that the galaxy should be re-collected, with a massive hub home system for the populations of the galaxy, with only low population or autonomous resource collection in other systems. Decades passed in a galaxy full of mistrust, with no meaningful progress being made towards any collective societal goal. Pockets of advancement slowly improved lives for a lucky few, but shortages of critical advanced consumer goods, or the means to produce them, was causing large-scale technological and societal regression, with some colonies established over a century ago having reportedly fallen to the point of abandoning electricity entirely, and others, older still, not accounted for.

## **[-2461- (305AE)] Echoes**

Years continue to pass quietly, with many systems going the way of closing their borders and trying for self-sufficiency. Systems over 100 light years from Sol are slowly explored, with discoveries of simplistic alien life becoming ever more common, but few express great interest; what did planets that couldn't be reached in under three years have to offer them? The rare new colony is formed, but few cities are so crowded that there is a need to colonize.

The time would not be without surprises, however. Hijacking a 200 year old, top-priority Grand Lunar University transmitter channel, despite dozens of very thorough searches showing the ruins to be completely barren, a very simple message is sent out, looping 7 times total with short pauses. "The Void Beckons. Adjust by [0.000741, -0.003491, -0.44601, 0.0000022] and converge." Absolutely no explanation can be offered by anyone in the short term, and no groups take provable claim over sourcing the message, although dozens try. As scientists turn the data over, trying to understand its purpose, theories begin to pop up about the message. What is the Void? Is this an attempt at uplifting by the precursors? Political groups form, cults promise fragments of 'the Void's power', and media has a field day with it all.

To the credit of scientists, it only takes about six months to make correct use of the information. When added as modifiers to a series of four variables in the gravitational field tuning equations used by the blind-punch hyperdrives of the time, the resulting improved triangulation accuracy helped increase the spatial compression ratio to 97%, offering what amounted to 33x lightspeed travel. While it is a significant improvement that is massively well-received galaxy wide, some argue that anyone capable of finding such data could have done more, and that some entity is playing games with the galaxy.

## **[-2474- (317AE)] The Spread I**

With cutting-edge ships made of Autodynum and powered by the most advanced hyperdrives ever, space travel entered a new age. It was faster, cleaner, more useful, and more expensive than ever. Elite businesspeople could now consider a trip to a nearby system to close a deal, something that never made sense before. The poorest and the underserved among the colonies, however, produce so little of 'value' to the corporate stations floating above, that affording even a single shuttle is out of the question. Many argue the gift given a decade ago was intended to improve the lives of all, not just the upper classes.

These complaints usually fell of deaf ears, however. The reality was that, post Alliance, there was no system of security that would allow large-scale traffic more than one or two systems in length. Too many desperate folks both preying on travelers, and becoming the prey. Here and there, the new tech allowed clusters of particularly close systems to reunite, forming dozens of independent small governments. Whispers, tales of foreign stations and cities with cultures beyond imagination, and the rare piece of imported media, were all that most would ever learn about other star systems. Thoughts of unity were non-existent; for many, colonies beyond one's own might as well be alien for all their familiarity.

## **[-2499- (339AE)] The Spread II**

In the boardroom of a mid-range office block in a city of rare comfort and economic success, the founding members of a small company, with a bold vision, voted unanimously to proceed with their plan. The company was Extess-Livium Transport Industries, and their plan was simple. Exploiting the locally refined and only somewhat recently discovered Arconite alloys that were in massive shortage in the rest of the galaxy, they would two things. Produce a line of ultra-durable shuttle, with new arconite plating to help against pirates and wear from space, and successfully sell them in dozens of systems.

Starting at the turn of the century, they began sending out small, cheap carriers, little more than boxes to wrap an FTL bubble around, filled with their new models. The expectation was that many would be attacked, stolen, or otherwise fail to produce profit, but by flooding the market with the only standardized model in existence, brand recognition power would be unstoppable. They shipped them out to where colonies were rumored to exist, without even knowing if there were still people living there. Hundreds to busy cities and systems. 'Accidently' abandoned them at a few stations primarily run by shady folks. They bought media deals, there were toys for kids, and they, in the span of only a few decades, would not only ignite a whole new age of commerce, but also be the first spark in causing the galaxy to finally come together for the long run.

## **[-2517- (356AE)] Fundamentals of Arcana I**

For thousands and thousands of years, claims have existed of people with the ability to cause the unexplainable. These reports never lead anywhere satisfying, until... New reports started coming in. People on long-forgotten colonies with incredible powers. Pilots who were reacting to things before they had happened. Bartenders who somehow *always* convince you to upgrade to top shelf. And.... Equally confusing, stories of fluke accidents. Some small, some large. Many in strangely close connection to people with reported abilities. The galaxy pauses, cautious. Something is clearly awakening in people, and governments rush to assure people not to panic or take to xenophobia; science will have an answer.

This doesn't stop tensions from flaring massively, with the rare individual who possesses overt abilities and isn't trapped on a back-worlds colony suddenly finding themselves shut out far more often than before. However, arcane-gifted individuals are quite rare, at first, so it never quite erupts into violence. There are questions as to how such a thing could possibly be regulated, and if this meant a whole new nightmarish level of warfare soon to be stricken upon the unwilling, or if it was some great universal shift that would soon pass.

## **[-2529- (367AE)] Fundamentals of Arcana II**

At first, there were relatively few willing to take seriously the idea of research into the Arcane events that had been occurring in ever-increasing number. There were enough, however, especially as those trusted to explore their powers began to show incredible results, and the booming markets began to see a potential resource to exploit. Within a decade, there were crude scanners to measure fluctuations of magic, ways of watching simulated echoes through the leylines into the world around them. The paired Entropy-Magic theory was first proposed, and although it would take decades more for the math to be worked out, it would be exploited for the first time to isolate the fundamental forces and energies that made magic work.

The basics turned out to be very simple: Events of magical and entropic significance were directly linked, although that link was exceptionally hard to precisely understand. The use of magic, with force of will or technology, would always cause an acceleration of entropy, usually in the broad form and sense of something breaking that had no plans of breaking otherwise. Acceleration of entropy through non-magical means, such as planetary scales of industry breaking down a small moon worth of ore every year, cause manifestations of magic; the most obvious of which being the awakening of arcane-inclined individuals.

When it became clear that there was simply nothing to be done but embrace the inevitable presence of the arcane in everyday life, most people gave up the fight, and quickly the first technological advances thanks to arcanotech began to hit the shelves. They were, of course, a fortune, but the luxury of storing your drinks in an arcanotech refrigerator, or fresh water for showers without a pipe in sight, all at the expense of a steady stream of synthetic diamonds, was to some a price worth paying. To a degree, this helped many shrug and move even further on without a care, as becoming the domain of only the wealthy was inevitably the fate of everything new, which also made it just not the layman's problem.

## **[-2538- (375AE)] The Corporation Wars I**

Extess-Livium T.I. had, without knowing it, started far more than simply a new age in commerce. By 2510 they had already seen success without compare, and every single person with money in the galaxy wanted in. A hundred other corporations formed around the same idea, many of them dying and being bought by larger ones before their first model even hit the streets. Even still, hundreds more would try to pop up, and by 2530 the market was a mess. Nothing was standardized, so people could only repair their ships with parts from the corp that made it. Which, when that made it hard for an area to support more than one corp, they started forming monopolies and claiming swaths of the galaxy as their territory.

In a more sane galaxy, governments would have put a stop to things before they got further, but many of these corporations produced more than the entire governments that were supposed to regulate them, and played very hard and fast with the rules. Everyone but those at the head of the corps seemed to realize a great mistake had been made once again, but there was nothing that could be done. In 2538, two corps were both trying for the markets on a very busy world, and without warning, a dirty bomb planted at a distribution facility left 30,000 dead and a radioactive crater where the facility was, in the middle of the city.

Many suspect it was an act, or even an inside job, however, because the speed with which almost all of the leading corporations readied for war was both alarming, and suspicious. In the span of weeks, 50 different planets and stations became the sites of small-scale ground and air battles, with more erupting every day, and within a few months, space battles began as well, all for the sake of holding profit control over as much of the galaxy as possible. The only positive that the battles quickly shifted to fights over resources, more than customers, as the scale increased and more and more destruction was caused, largely sparing civilians in the long run. Contracted soldiers fought and killed each other for no more than pay, hoping to simply be able to survive their deployment and live comfortably. Everyone else was subjected to constant propaganda through the formation of media conglomerates by the corporations, further driving tensions.

## **[-2546- (382AE)] The Corporation Wars II**

It didn't take long for the soldiers on the front lines to start to get sick of pointless wars over what often amounted to literally nothing when there was a galaxy of opportunity waiting instead, and recruitment began to drop off. The solution was a technology that had barely been looked at for centuries, as it served no purpose to the people of colonies with ample time to raise families organically; cloning. At first only a few of the larger corps, but quickly almost all, began research into ways to create the cheapest artificial soldier.

The solution was crude, expensive, and taken to with relentless enthusiasm. Accelerated growth allowed adult bodies to be produced in five years, with every moment from birth to death some 12 to 15 years later being focused on combat training, or battlefield practice. Incapable of complex language, sterile, genderless, they were linked with short-range transmitter chips, and higher ranks were fitted with other implants to bolster their capabilities. Organic troops still provided an edge when available, however, and the promise of leading a squad of guilt-free killing toys gathered a new generation of volunteers, another generation taught to revel in pointless bloodshed.

Not that it would have lasted, but eventually the corps started making the same mistakes the SCC did many years prior; when odd clones were produced with exceptional or useful mutations, they were used as blueprints for further batches. They began to suffer from neurological and physiological breakdown, becoming more unstable and shorter-lived. The costs went up as it became necessary to train more and more units, and as less value came of each one; but the arms race couldn't be reversed, as the newest 'models' were always out-performing each other with every new batch. Organic soldiers became more desirable again for the ability to adapt and exploit more complex situations, as well as keep that learning over their entire careers, and slowly the use of clones dropped off; a shameful mark of excess and waste in the lengthy record of the wars.

## **[-2573- (407AE)] The Corporation Wars III**

As a thousand revolutionaries beforehand had discovered; once you're at the top and there's no one left to exploit, money starts to get a bit tight. So, too, did the boardrooms behind the warring corporate states learn this lesson. As each started to securely lay claim to swaths of systems, profits began to drop, while expenses never stopped rising. Markets had become so flooded with unchanging civilian models, so no one was buying new ships. No other major corp would do business, because that would be the same as admitting it would have been better to not start a war. So the biggest demand was on the front lines; which was worse than not making them at all.

Governments, on the other hand, were massively growing in wake of the wars. The availability of ships meant that intrastellar and even interstellar travel was more accessible than ever, and there were significant population booms in many systems. Colonization fever was taking hold again in people, with the vastness of the galaxy seemingly waiting to be settled. Corporation-sponsored colonies were common, with the entire settlements often functioning under a single Corp flag, working and living for the whims of CEOs.

The cracks were beginning to form, however. Many centers of civilization held all the cards economically against desperate market-seekers, and could place heavy taxes and restrictions. Many of the Corp colonies began to rebel, and fleets were simply spread too thin, with too many places to be at once. In 2573, the first of many peace agreements were signed, and monopolies began to collapse shortly after, with the 20 or so megacorporations that ruled the galaxy for the last two decades splitting apart into hundreds of smaller entities. The result was, despite all the destruction, a galaxy more equipped than ever for unification, with true galactic states beginning to form once again.

## **[-2578- (412AE)] Anchored**

In 2578, the galaxy would change forever. The work of over a century's work since the convergence message, a technological leap that outshined all since warp transmitters; the anchored-punch hyperdrive. An order of magnitude faster than their predecessors, often more, by operating around a very different kind of FTL. Rather than compressing and expanding space, and relying on ship engines primarily for thrust, this new technology calculates ripples through the gravity waves of nearby stars, forming a target while a temporary and highly unstable wormhole follows the anchor. It was very short range, at first, but centers of galactic civilization already existed around the tightest star clusters, so that didn't matter. The only real problem was that power consumption was also significantly higher.

This had the effect of making it only initially viable in larger ships, and for the first real time in history, carrier-type ships became somewhat common; many serving as basic FTL barges between systems, with some galactic states even setting up official shipping and public transport lanes akin to ancient sailing ships crossing the oceans. The impact of the anchored-punch hyperdrive on society, the economy, and ultimately like everything else, war and the wealthy, would become the ever-accelerating force at the center of the galaxy for centuries to come.

## **[-2591- (423AE)] Civilizations I**

It took very little time for the galaxy to totally change in the wake of the anchored-punch hyperdrive. It took only a few years for the technology to be refined even further, and quickly the busiest states had thousands of people moving around their constituent systems every month, spending sometimes no more than a week on an FTL cruiser before going about their business. The cultural and societal walls that had formed began to melt, and centers of civilization flourished in wake of the variety.

Quickly, there became an obvious, tangible benefit to being part of a bigger state, for many colonies and systems. In the wake of the corporation wars, there was public funding powered by taxes to get in on, access to wider supply and goods markets, as well as the beginnings of police and military forces for security. The ideas and desires for freedom and the right to self rule were still strong, however, and all over the galaxy were holdouts, making the political scene an absolute mess.

In some places, however, the desire for the strength that comes from numbers was strong enough for stable singular governments to form. A collection of seven colonial states, covering a total of 25 star systems, and a citizen population of just under 3 billion, met to form a union of power that would forever mark a shift in the goings-on of the galaxy. At the heart, a senate, like many before; a voice for each 100 million souls within the systems, with the separate control of the states taking a backseat on galactic matters to the rule of the senate, but not entirely abandoning their control. What they formed, they would name simply the Lunar Republic; seeking out the betterment of a united people through respectful scientific excellence, the way the people of the Grand Lunar University had many, many years prior.

## **[-2610- (441AE)] Civilizations II**

The Lunar Republic would not remain the only stable galactic superpower for long. It was quickly obvious what level of power and control the Republic was able to wield, and to many it became alarmingly obvious that there was simply no other way. There were others in the position to move to power, but not all of them were founded with such principals of peace and proficiency. Many lightyears away from the nearest border of the Republic, a self-proclaimed galactic warlord would begin uniting a huge force under their control, using it to pressure systems into signing a defense agreement in exchange for broad authority over the peoples that inhabit the system.

It was, for many, hard to even think of saying no. This warlord, quickly claiming the title of Emperor, was able to truly guarantee safety, and due to the resources at their disposal, often make a significant difference in the readiness of colonies for rejoining the galactic community; getting relays built in systems to increase communication and trade, making double use of patrol ships to carry desperately needed cargo, and actually doing something in the event of outsider attack; people wanted what the Emperor was selling, and were willing to pay the taxes and drafts that came with it.

And thus, not quite two decades after the formation of the Lunar Republic, another galactic power would rise, the Celestial Empire. Growing with more and more speed, it would quickly consume a huge portion of the civilized galaxy, representing an almost 10 billion people. It became, for those outside its borders, a dangerous entity that consumed everything in its path, and the frequency with which the Empire resorted to violence to solve problems didn't put their minds at ease.

## **[-2625- (454AE)] Where Credit is Due**

In the 2180's, just before the Separation and the disbanding of the original board of colonies, the Convergence had been trying to push for their new currency, the Energy Credit, to be the standard for the newly forming colonies. Due to the board's extremely short life and the disastrous events that would fill the next few centuries, by the beginning of the great silence in the early 2400's, the Energy Credit, now known to most as simply the credit, would fail to totally catch on. It was used by many larger groups of the backbone of basic energy finances on large scales, but as the vast majority of people didn't have local energy production or need to worry greatly about their consumption since power was becoming much more available, it wasn't a popular unit of trade for most people.

This was further worsened by the splitting of the young galactic states into totally isolated entities, with little to no communication between them. Over the next century and a half, a hundred different local currencies would spring up, each only minted, secured, and supported in a small cluster of systems and sometimes individual planets, causing absolute chaos. Some corporations would begin sponsoring the conversion from certain currencies to certain others, using their own products as an exchange rate, but what currencies were available as options, any fees or taxes taken, and preventing fraud, was all handled privately by those corporations. There was never any guarantee that your money would be worth anything if you tried to travel further than the next system over, and that further made the unification of the galaxy all but a distant dream.

Some would argue that the greatest, yet least-recognized, humanitarian project ever undertaken was the Celestial Empire's remarkably selfless efforts to unify the galactic economy barely two decades after coming to power. Quickly, the Empire realized that there was a great need for a consistent way to standardized expenses and pay for extensions of the government, namely government employees themselves, and since they were now branching across dozens of tiny galactic states and systems, continuing to deal in only local currencies was going to cause the collapse of the Empire in short order. Their solution was a cooperative project with several of the corperate guilds that would later go on to form the CCC. As the backbone of much of the galaxy-scale construction and production efforts already in progress, the many mining, processing, and business guilds that would sign on as part of the project stood in an excellent position to create the changes the Empire needed so badly.

Thanks to the generous trade contracts offered by the Celestial Empire in exchange for cooperation on the project, there were few unwilling to make the requested changes. While the spending would put the Empire into a financial deficit for decades to come, it was not a waste; the systems under the Empire's control quickly began to see a rise in the use of the credit, further encouraged by hundreds of thousands of credit ATMs installed across the galaxy, grants for the installation of new credit-friendly financial systems by local governments and colonies, generous loans for the creation of new credit-based banks, and the numerous other small changes made by the Empire.

Simply put, the use of the credit while within the borders of the Empire was made to be so economically beneficial, that few holdouts were willing to put up a fight for long. Thanks to a robust high-security minting process by the Empire, the galaxy was offered its first taste of a stable economy by the year 2640, when the Empire would officially make the swap, and it would only improve as other major factions followed suit. The incredibly favorable trade deals offered by the Empire would eventually fund the rise of the CCC, as well, and while no one thinks of the Empire anymore when they hand over a credstick to buy lunch, many argue the impact the credit project had on modern life is beyond comprehension, and that none of modern life would exist in the same way without it.

## **[-2664- (490AE)] Advancements I**

One upside of the sudden massive economic stability of the majority of the galaxy was that the long-distance trade of data was suddenly far more viable, and one didn't need to maintain 50 or more credit accounts. There was a huge flood of easy scientific progress as thousands of groups could now buy data for simulations, or unfinished patents, better educational materials, training simulations, and more. The next century would be marked by several major jumps, but the first of them came in the form of a breakthrough on anchored-punch hyperdrive tuning, giving experienced pilots enough assistance and precise enough tools to be able to travel three hexes per jump, significantly increasing average ship range.

This rather quickly caused a massively shift in galactic shipping lanes, flinging some shipping ports from backworlds' nobodies into major stops, and leaving some huge ports practically ghost towns. This would be the first real test of the stability of the credit, as billions were shifted around the galaxy every hour, with so many trying to find a way to profit, and far more simple hoping to maintain a shred of their net worth. The best thing at the time was to have stock in production of some kind, which not only profited from cheaper and faster shipping, but would remain an anchor shipping location, guaranteeing stability for certain small lane clusters.

This came to the massive advance of the next major player on the Galactic stage; the Crystalline Corporate Confederacy, almost immediately known as simply the CCC. The CCC officially declared galactic independence in 2680 through a board of representatives of the most powerful and profitable corporate guilds in a distant cluster of colonies at the edges of a large nebula that had been discovered, each guild comprised of varying relatively small numbers of members, and controlling through corperate colonies and massive production facilities. 'Living' in the CCC at this time was considered the financially sound thing to do, even though the nebula made life dangerous, so not only did they have stable stock seeing increasing profit margins, but suddenly there was a massive oversupply of workers, allowing many places to drop pay significantly and slack on quality of living while still seeing soaring application numbers.

The incredible streak of luck for the CCC, coupled with the struggles of the other major galactic factions to contain the chaos, allowed them to also officially become the backing faction behind the stability of the credit; a diplomatic move by the Celestial Empire that was quickly obvious, especially given how heavily the Empire's expansion efforts relied on their good diplomatic standing. This did allow the galaxy to begin to slide roughly back into a form of economic stability, with the CCC catapulted to top spot in the galaxy, easily out-producing every other faction combined, and holding all the cards in terms of trade.

This would begin what would become known as the Luxury Age of the galaxy. In efforts to flaunt their unfathomable riches, guilds and sometimes even individuals took to vanity projects, financing anything they thought might be amusing. Races to see which group could completely level more of small random barren moons at the safer edges of nowhere CCC space, or turning other worlds into huge resorts in massive biodomes, building entire space stations dedicated to things like zoos for alien life, or art from across the galaxy, and more. Many of these projects were even official partnerships with systems and groups deep inside the borders of another faction, bringing amenities even to those who could not travel as far.

This was also to the exceptional benefit of a lot of research groups; getting funding for a project had never been easier in the history of the galactic community. This, coupled with the sudden ease abundance of vacation destinations for the tired middle-class masses of the galaxy and their resulting surge in morale, helped gently lift the rest of the galaxy back up on its feet and into a flickering new golden age, with the galaxy feeling truly hopeful for the first time in hundreds of years of struggle. Quality of living was on the rise nearly everywhere in the galaxy, sciences were flourishing, and there was a huge rise in tourism industries, as well as a demand for skilled customer service workers and more pilots than schools could keep up with, prompting the resurgence of public education efforts, as well, ushering in a new age of standardized learning and excellence.

## **[-2727- (548AE)] Advancements II**

Extess-Livium T.I., the godfather of all modern vehicle corporations and one of very few survivors of the corporation wars, was again about to step into the galactic spotlight and dawn a new age in engineering. In the year 2727, a date picked purely for marketing reasons, the corporation would make a major broadcast that would culminate in a spectacular live showing, and like always, disaster. The newly-crowned CCC board member would first publicly announce that they would be moving forward as simply Extesium Industries, a change from 200 year old tradition to fit the 'modern age'. Then, they began to cryptically tease some kind of huge project that would be unveiled at a major CCC travel hub, at an ever-more exact time.

The galaxy watched and waited in curious awe. Speculation was abound, but no one truly could foresee what the company had somehow managed to create: accurate to the second, onlookers both in-system and broadcast across the galaxy would witness a massive vessel drop out of hyperspace, dwarfing even the public passenger carriers parked at nearby stations. This would be the first Class 4 ship ever, the Extesium Alpha. As massive ship-mounted holoprojectors scrolled promotional footage and the corporation's official broadcast started their presentation, their plan was better revealed.

Equipped with a blind-punch hyperdrive of unparalleled efficiency, power, and range, these were to be supercruisers, jumping massive distances across the galaxy to avoid navigation problems, staying in hyperspace for up to a few years fully self-sufficiently, while matching the speed it would take older 1-hex anchored hyperdrives to make the same trip (a metric that had admittedly recently lost some value). Extesium even claimed they had found a way to exploit the massive size of the ship to create a stable subspace transmitter link from the ship, *even in hyperspace*, to their headquarters, where it would then be redirected to the galactic internet. Supposedly this middleman process was so that they could run the trade-secret algorithms needed to reverse the time-dilation effects on the data, but some claim they intended to monitor all transmissions onto or off the ship. These claims are unverified.

Whatever the case, it wouldn't matter for long. After a little more than three hours into the post-presentation press conference by Extesium, and a little under five hours after the ship had dropped out of hyperspace, the ship was low on crew since they had been in flight for several months and wanted to see the local sights. The shield generators on the Alpha, not designed to run at near-max power for 5+ hours, suffered a several-second power cycle and went fully down momentarily, despite the best efforts of panicked engineers. In the few moments when that happened, a combat corvette later identified as belonging to a major pirate group in the area would fire a salvo of torpedoes at the main engines of the Alpha.

A flurry of accurate shots by nearby security ships with faster weapons took out a substantial portion before they closed the gap, and of those that survived more than half slammed into the shield as it came back online, but three did slip through, causing major damage to the main drive engines, necessary for both sublight and FTL thanks to the blind-punch onboard, and a major hull breach in the engineering decks near the engines, killing 30. The pirate corvette would be destroyed when it would then try to emergency jump out of the system, although those ultimately responsible still claim a victory.

Due to the location and nature of the damage, repairs would take years, and in that time, it became clear to Extesium that there simply wasn't a market for what they were selling. Public transport was already common, and it was easy to book long-distance privately. Newer ships could make the journey faster, and most travelers simply had no interest in spending that long just on travel, the stops along the way were a large part of galactic commuting and transport culture. As the final re-attempted initial maiden voyage sold less than a quarter of the spots, the corporation would quietly sink the idea, converting the Alpha to a mobile headquarters but mostly keeping it parked, until it would be dismantled after failing updated safety regulations about 30 years later.

## **[-2753- (571AE)] Advancements III**

Always on the hunt for new ways to dominate the battlefield, military researchers working for the Celestial Empire made a huge discovery. They had been able to create an arcanotech circuit that could convert large amounts of electricity directly into simple forms of matter, following basic principals of mass and energy equivalence as a guide for what its inventors referred to as electro-alchemy. After many years of secretive further development, the result would be the Arcane Exchange Chip, or AEC; a compact cluster of power regulators, computer chips, and powerful arcane enchantments, that would consume tremendous amounts of electricity to produce a variety of simple things; ammo was by far the primary focus, initially, with the hope of making future weapons never need to be reloaded.

There was one problem, however; supplying small objects with that kind of power, without a large cable and a generator in a backpack, was very hard. The most advanced power cells of the time took several seconds to supply enough power for a single shot, and could only do maybe half a dozen total. The hunt for a solution would become the top priority in the eyes of the Empress; a true warmonger who felt that the place of the Celestial Empire as uniter of all worlds had slipped, and that people were getting soft in the modern galaxy. She believed that her armies, equipped with advanced AEC weapons, could wipe the Lunar Republic off the map entirely, and as the technology became more refined and she hunted down rare resources across the galaxy with increasing hunger, it became clear that something terrible was coming. The drums of war...

## **[-2786- (601AE)] War I**

In the early 2700's, the Lunar Republic has busy making advancements in a number of sciences thanks to thank near golden-age of science that was forming. In particular, they had begun to discover a series of systems, following the faintest training edge of the nearby nebula, that possessed a unique and very high-potential resource; aerus crystals. If held in a certain special containment field, it was discovered, they could store what was essentially vibrational energy in the structure of the crystal to an unprecedented degree, nearly to the point of molecular dissociation. This made them extremely useful at storing energy, it would turn out, and slowly over the century the Republic would begin to learn how to mine, process, stabilize, and utilize they crystals, and a new generation of power cells was produced that so vastly outperformed their competition that larger cells could power entire buildings, although only for short periods at first. This would be a wide blessed on the people of the republic, who could suddenly consider designing almost any device wirelessly, if they fit enough power cells.

Unfortunately, in the late middle of the century, there would be another force that would turn its focus towards aerus. The Empress, seeing the crystals, and the power cell technology she could take from the Republic scientists, as her ticket to endless armies equipped with AEC weapons, she would press first for a series of ever-more-aggressive trade deals, pressuring border systems and staging shows of military strength at major shipping lanes. There was no way to know yet if there were any other sources of the crystals in the galaxy, and although many suspected the CCC may be hiding aerus deposits, the Empire seemed to have no other options. Military leaders knew that the more crystals they exported to the Empire in trade, the narrower the technological gap that gave the Republic its only edge would be, and so these deals were met at first with hesitation and occasional reluctant acceptance, but that quickly turned into refusal.

This was not a well-received decision by the Empress, likely to the surprise of very few. The galaxy had spent the last few decades waiting, feeling like a storm was brewing just out of sight, always on edge. In 2786, the storm finally broke with a crash of thunder; the Celestial Empire had annihilated a planeside Lunar Republic forward staging post near the border, declaring a war for the possession of aerus and all systems of the Republic. Citizens of the Empire, having been fed decades of propaganda-filled reports of the horded advanced splendor of the Republic that weren't even very far from the truth, leapt at the opportunity, and volunteers were in surplus. The border systems quickly became massive warzones, individual systems playing host to battle that dwarfed anything of the past, a complex push-and-pull for non-destructive control of usable staging points.

The Republic was not ready, but they likely could never have been. Many worlds were quickly lost before the senate even had time to set up measures to pass by military emergency, but after some standards the Republic had begun to meet the Empire and hold them back, and both sides would begin to dig in as progress either direction slowed. Research into new possible advantages continued on both sides, with the Empire putting to use any and all aerus crystals it could gather from stolen worlds, quickly replicating the research of Republic scientists, and Republic military engineers making significant improvements to the AEC, employing it in their own weapons. As the gap continued to close, however, the Republic would desperately begin looking for something new to hold the line, and just maybe last the Empress's bloodlust out.

## **[-2823- (635AE)] War II**

At the end of the 28th century, the Lunar Republic was just starting to find its footing in the battle against the Empire. Looking for something they could use to turn the tide, they began exploring one of the least well-known forces of the time; magic. How could it be used for battle, what were the costs, the limits, they wanted to know everything. They didn't learn everything, but as they began to study to old, traditional schools of wand-wielders, modern enclaves of technomancers, lost colonies with inscrutable rituals, and the vast events of the arcane natural world, they were able to figure out a few things.

First, and perhaps the most important, was that magic seemed to be hard. Long-lasting magical effects were rare, and permanent enchantments tended not to be stable. Spellcasters could wield great power, but it would sometimes only take one or two great feats to leave a person drained. Training frequently can be used to help a person reach their potential, but no amount of training, or other methods, seems to be able to awaken power where there is none. However, the existence of arcanotech was well known at this point, so some work was focused on bridging the gap, using modern cybernetics to try to artificially grant a satisfying facsimile of real arcane gifts.

Second, it seemed to be quite rare in people. Initially, a linkage was drawn between the huge amounts of industry happening across the galaxy with the arcane awakenings that were on the rise, but industry would continue to increase exponentially in volume, while magic users only somewhat slowly grew in frequency and power, from generation to generation. It seemed that making gifts were hereditary, as well, and ongoing work would continue for decades to isolate the genetic conditions that caused magic to be an awakened gift, but it would prove a remarkably difficult puzzle to crack.

Finally, however, after several decades of research, they had something concrete. In 2823 in Lunar Republic military began to employ the first standardized series of tests and matched ranking system, for use in grading arcane-gifted recruits. These were put to use in the first squads of combat mages to ever hit the battlefield; elite, extremely well-armed troops with the advantage of magic, they were an extremely effective force. The Empire, which didn't have long, proud houses of spellcasters to recruit from, simply couldn't field the same number of units, and was forced to splinter their mages into specialist positions. This would prove to be the edge the Republic needed to finally completely fault the Empire's advance, but things wouldn't stay looking so hopeful for long.

## **[-2850- (660AE)] War III**

something that would prove critical to the fate of the galaxy was the idea that just because the feedback of magic might be minor, if the entropy isn't focused it will happily find somewhere else to happen. AECs, while they were minor magical effects, and thus took very little power compared to doing things the non-arcane way, were still reversing a remarkable amount of entropy by bringing kilograms of mass into existence every minute.

The feedback from the mass deployment of AECs into all branches of combat, from multitools to exosuits, on both sides of the war, was starting to become noticeable. Not very noticeable, at first, but then someone took a look at records of unexplained disasters over the last few decades. Some concerned research teams were put together, tests were done, and the answer was immediately undeniable. AECs were literally causing the galaxy to start to come apart at the seams. There wasn't much to be done; the feedback couldn't go into the wielder like normal spells, or they would become drained far too quickly. The weapon certainly couldn't handle the strain if the whole galaxy couldn't, so that was out. They could go the route of arcanotech for the wealthy, and supply things like synthetic diamonds to channel entropy into, but at that point, what they've done is make ammo with extra steps.

2842 marked the beginning of what would become known as the Cursed years as neither side of the conflict wanted to face or admit the issue. These were years when absolutely no one would count on their luck; bones could break at the slightest slip, even the sturdiest buildings seemed to tremble under the strain of their own weight, and crossing a bridge was like having a deathwish. Despite that, it would take eight standards before, understandably first the Republic, and then extremely surprisingly, the Empire, moved to ban the use of AECs completely.

It would be a decades-ongoing process to recollect, dismantle, and repurpose the resources in the AEC's that had already been produced. A huge number were forever scattered across the galaxy, although they're hardly coveted tech; anyone who used AEC tech after 2850 was looked at with distain due to the severity of the Cursed years, and the bounties offered by both governments on AEC tech were usually gladly taken. That did, however, leave a huge amount of aerus crystals available for use in other devices. Forced to almost completely rethink her strategy and find herself a new edge in the war, in 2852 the Empress would pull her forces back somewhat, leaving an unofficial ceasefire hanging over the galaxy as she plotted her next move.

## **[-2858- (667AE)] Boundless**

AECs were almost everything in ground combat for the entirety of what was, with a few years of near-peace to reflect, now being called just 'The Great War'. People quietly hoped they had seen its end, and things were just nearing the official point, but there were still innovations being made. Space combat became far more of a priority; rather than winning the fights over aerus mining facilities carefully on the ground, the Empress's plan became to completely cut off their supplies from space, forcing their cooperation.

To that end, not that it was an advancement that would not have been made soon enough either way, the Empire's engineers would soon find a way to utilize aerus crystals in hyperdrives. Aerus cell capacitors would prove to be enough for anchor-punch hyperdrives to reach six hexes for the first time, a significant improvement in a somewhat-stagnating field. This helped ships move a staggering 8,000 times the speed of light, and let people cross a 20 lightyear span in under a day. The Empire would waste no time in designing a new fleet to utilize this technology, although while supplies of aerus were much better that they used to be, it still took quite some time for enough AEC tech to be reprocessed to actually build this new fleet.

## **[-2866- (674AE)] Antimatter**

Aerus cell capacitors would prove a significant upgrade, but it wasn't one that the Republic wasn't able to quickly utilize as well. To truly dominate the way she felt she needed to, the Empress wanted more. She would pour the Empire's military resources into searching for any possible new technology, utilizing harsh taxes to extract extra from the already-exhausted citizens. Tensions were extremely high, open acts of rebellion were common, and there was a significant separatist movement that the Empire had failed to fully destroy some years earlier that had gained a foodhold in the Empire's far colonies, acting with greater governmental authority there than the Empire itself.

The year was 2866; the 80th standard since the start of the Great War. There were vague talks of perhaps, maybe, a peaceful meet to discuss terms of a truce, and in a surprise move, the Empress actually agreed to send a diplomat to meet. However, she had no intentions of peace. On the day of the meet, instead of a diplomat, she sent what she believed was her new key to victory. A single gunship, armed with a single high-yield antimatter torpedo, dropped out of hyperspace and immediately fired on the meet, ending the 14 standard long ceasefire and killing all who had already gathered in a massive explosion.

In one atrocious act, the war was back in full swing. Despite the ultra-aggressive initial showing, antimatter was far from a perfected technology. The primary focus of the Empire's research; it was intended to power even more advanced ships, but while antimatter-powered hyperdrives had been successfully created, the Empire simply could not produce enough antimatter yet to fuel them, and was reduced to using what they could make on extremely expensive warheads. With only the occasional ship armed with this devastating weapon, it would take a decade for enough antimatter to be produced for the Empire to start fielding antimatter powered ships.

## **[-2875- (683AE)] Costs of War I**

When the ceasefire began in 2852, the Lunar Republic had a brief chance to recoup losses and see about how they would continue to ensure their survive, should the Empire actually find their new champion technology. the problem was the sheer volume of the Empire's fleets; if there would be some way to slip to fleet, the odds would start to be more in the favour of the Republic. There was no effective way to strike the Empire on another front, however, and there were no galactic powers interested in allying, not that there were many qualified options. So, the Republic would have to make an ally from scratch.

They began to very, very quietly funnel funds, blueprints, and military operatives into the separatist movement in the Empire's northeastern colonies, which was already doing fairly well for itself. It took remarkably little assistance for the separatists to be able to begin mustering a fleet to rival that of the Empire's local forces, a feat that already seemed to make the Empire very nervous, but it would never come to blows, a cold war forming in the systems on the near edge of the colony cluster. If the rest of the fleet that had been facing the Republic arrived, the uprising would have been crushed. Instead, in 2866, the Empress would break the ceasefire, and her fleets would reengage on the front line, leaving the colonies barely defended. She would, at the very least, deploy a few of her new antimatter superweapons, believing them sufficient to ensure the uprising stayed tame through fear.

This was, in the grand scheme of things, laughably ineffective. 2875, the separatists would officially make their move, declaring their independence as the Equinox Republic, representing almost 50 colonized systems, some of which had become quite modernized thanks to the backdoor help they had been receiving. In particular, they had access to a surprising wealth of AEC tech they had secretly collecting, which allowed them to integrate aerus into their cities from the ground up.

The Empire would not recognize this move, and declare it an act of civil war. A sizeable fleet breaks away from the front lines, and would begin moving across the many sectors to crush the upstart new republic. It was clear to all, however, that the Empire was simply stretched too thin. Fleets of near equivalent firepower threaten two major, opposing borders, while open rebellion marks every labor site, and businesses go into bankruptcy from taxation. Equinox would be the first crack, but if something wasn't done, it would splinter and tear the Empire apart.

## **[-2882- (689AE)] Costs of War II**

After a few standards of losing battle on both fronts, ongoing shortages on antimatter, and complete anarchy on the horizon, the Empire was forced to face the music. In 2882, 96 years after the Great War began, the Celestial Empire and the Lunar Republic agreed on peace. Many systems were returned to the control of the Republic; this would cause no end of cultural turmoil, as some of these worlds had been lived on by multiple generations of citizen of the Empire by that point, but such is war.

The steady trickle of a significant portion of soldiers back to their homes, some of them having spent their lives fighting the same war their great grandparents helped start, did some good to help quell civil unrest, but thanks to the war, resources were short, so there was a flood of homeless veterans as their families simply couldn't afford to take them in. Psychological damage to the citizens of the Empire was great, and things only worsened as troops came home with stories of the horrors the Empire committed, and managed to cover up.

The Empire was in astropolitical freefall. They had gained nothing in a century of war; the AEC that drove the war to breaking in the first place were banned, disfunction tech. They had spent their credits, the trust of their citizens, and the lives of their soldiers. Dozens of systems that started as colonies of the Empire were flying a different flag, and there was no sign of them falling. The Empress, strangely, was absent. She seemed to have signed the peace accords in a quiet, cold rage, and disappeared. Not that the Empire seemed headless; everyone important seemed quite comfortable with the situation, but months would continue to pass with absolutely no contact. Even stranger, a significant portion of the fleet never returned home; some of the most cutting edge ships, many of the only deployed antimatter models. Something was terribly wrong...

## **[-2883- (690AE)] Annihilation**

In 2883, it would all end, and a cascade of events set in motion by one crashed colony ship would change the galaxy forever. It was a pirate attack, caused by the Empire's interference with Equinox patrols of the area, that would befall a colony ship destined for much further in the new Equinox colonies. It contained many souls that would be lost, but a small group of qualified survivors would set themselves to justice. Two elite ex-imperials; an extremely skilled pilot trainee running from his obligations on the day of graduation, and the emotionally-broken robotic shell of a man who volunteered his entire existence in the pursuit of justice, only to be directed to commit war crimes. A retired high-class escort, hiding from powerful people who realize just how much she might have learned. And, A magic-wielding vat-grown prodigy of a research institution deep in the Twilight Hegemony, seemingly just set loose on the galaxy with no real-world skills at all.

They would pick up assorted other companions as they began to work for Equinox, helping to solve the problems facing people in the border systems. Eventually, they would be sent to retrieve an artifact of presumed precursor origin that had been discovered; one that Equinox hoped would lead them to a fabled precursor site somewhere in the region that supposedly could produce a planet-sized shield of incomparable strength. Unfortunately for the galaxy, both the artifact and the site were real. Worse still, the Equinox Republic were not the only ones who found out.

The reports are somewhat unclear, and will likely remain so forever. But, on one fateful day late in 2883, Equinox fleets were in orbit around a small sandy planet as their team, including the original survivors of the colony ship crash, would find their way into a precursor facility of unmatched condition. A large united pirate fleet, striking from deep space, would catch Equinox off their guard, but the pirates were unused to large-scale coordination, and the battle began to slide in favour of Equinox.

It was at this point that the galaxy got their answer about where the Empress had gone. The entire fleet had been hiding in the blind-punch FTL bubble created by the Empress's personal warship, a massive Class 4 superdestroyer named the Citadel, which dropped out of hyperspace in the system. In the later decades of the war, the Citadel had been the forward staging point from the Empire's main attack force, but it never engaged directly in combat, as it was constantly in a state of being half-finished and under perpetual upgrades as technology advanced.

The battle was instant chaos. Comms had long since been cut off, but the team had found success in the facility, and the shield generators began to activate, one by one. All of the details are lost to time, however, because the Empress saw this as an absolutely unacceptable move, and rather than let the planet be lost to her, she fired the Citadel's main weapon, an untested antimatter-powered singularity cannon, at the planet through one of the remaining holes in the shield.

One thing that no one knew, as there had been less than a day to study the planet or the facility in any way, was that among many other things, the facility functioned by tapping directly into an extremely dense leyline concentration, to draw power. As the planet began to crumble in on itself due to the forming black hole, the extreme surge of entropy at that very unfortunate location was simply too much. A reality-altering surge of energy tore open the very fabric of the universe, immediately consuming the contents of the system, all three fleets, and every celestial body. But that was only more mass lost, which caused the tear to accelerate, widening faster.

Faster than instruments could measure, the galaxy was functionally torn in two. The Rift ate upwards of an estimated 150 star systems, and likely would have continued widening, were it not for the fact that, all at once, the raw power would be directed into something far more disastrous. The Collapse.

It was the silence that told you something had happened. If you had been standing in the right place, looking into the night sky in just the right direction, you might have seen a void of infinite black the size of a nebula appear in the blink of an eye, but then you would notice the silence.

Every single ship, every orbital relay, every server room supporting the galactic net, every colony, every space station for over five centuries had been equipped with an ever-improving model of subspace transmitter. By the 2800's, even high-end commpads had them, so you didn't even need a local server. Every single piece of data transmitted in the galaxy was no more than a millisecond from its last subspace transmitter jump. And they had simply... Stopped. Every signal in the galaxy suddenly had nowhere to go, and there was nothing else; just silence.

It terms of percentage of population lost, it would only be beaten as the worst extinction event in history by the fall of the UGC and the fall of Terra, which killed more than 95% of living people. However, over the next decades of chaos, an estimated 5 trillion lives would be lost, entire planets would fall to apocalyptic anarchy, and life would never, ever be the same.

## **[-2888- (694AE)] Costly Freedom I**

The galaxy was all but in ruins, and two groups bore it the worst; the Empire, which had lost both flagship and ruler, as well as the entire cutting-edge fleet, and dozens of colonized systems. Unfortunately, however, they weren't in the worst shape. To say that Equinox had been decimated by The Collapse would be a tremendous understatement; more than 75% of represented systems were completely missing from the map. The Capital and entire ruling body were among those destroyed; there was little representing Equinox even left.

Across the galaxy, it would take several standards before the Empress's daughter, who had survived in the capital, to take the reins of the shattered Empire, and would be the first new head since before the beginning of the Great War, over a century prior. Despite the state of Equinox, and although there was no one who could hear the message, one of her first actions was to recognize the complete independence of Equinox, accepting all terms of secession in full. She likely thought it an empty gesture, given that what survived of Equinox was now lost on the other side of the Continium Rift, possibly forever. Only time would tell.

## **[-2892- (698AE)] Costly Freedom II**

In early 2883, less than a standard after the end of the Great War, multiple states within the Republic had begun to push ever harder for independence from the republic and the military conglomerate that had formed during the war, saying that they had a right to disassociate with future conflicts. It would come to nothing during the standard, as these systems stood steadfast in their demands. Then the Collapse would happen, and the situation changed significantly.

Nine standards later, as tiny groups of systems had began finding ways to establish some sort of stability, the newly-proclaimed Shire Union would rise up from the very same collection of systems that had previously been pushing for independence. However, it had been a very chaotic nine standards, and the movement was filled with extremists who saw the chance to be free of the Republic forever. The forces of the Shire Union would go on to earn a horrific reputation as they began to annihilate republic-aligned stations, colonies, and barely-defended military bases. Despite the tiny size of the movement, the galaxy was already in a state of near-anarchy, and it took over a standard for the senate of the Republic to even hear about the uprising.

They would send small ships and fleets as they could try to and avert the slaughter, but due to the delays, it would take standards more fighting on both the ground and in space, with the pieces of the Great War not even cleaned up, before the Shire Union would finally fall in 2897, and the 'capital' system would remain under near-constant military watch afterwards.

## **[-2904- (709AE)] From the Ashes Again**

It was a story that had been told again, and again, and again. Tragedy, seemingly never far away, but the dawn always returns. It would take some time to 'perfect' the technology, find viable servers, send messages manually back and forth during setup, redesign all data protocols to reduce packet size to an absolute minimum, but in 2904, the first small cluster of pre-Collapse servers would link up with newly designed quantum relays; pairs of entangled particles that could replicate a tiny fragment of the effect of subspace transmitters.

It would become known as the galactic echonet, for the ECHO data protocols it was designed around, and it would become the highest level of the new galactic net pyramid. At the top is the echonet; it would slowly reconnect major servers, allowing the biggest systems to be linked instantly, and allowing financial institutions to begin to function again. Below that are the sysnets; the closest thing to the old galactic net, they contain all the servers and colonies in a system, hosting high-res webpages, virtual realities, and everything else consumers are used to. Finally are localnets; quite flexible in size and design, they typically take the form of an individual colony, ship, or station.

It was slow work, and there was no way to compare the echonet to the galaxy-spanning web that had existed. Echonet pages were black and white, no font variation, and were compartmentalized in a way where they could be useable in small pieces; lots and lots of loading screens. Primarily, in the beginning the echonet wasn't even used for full pages, but instead raw, usually encrypted, data, and other high-priority transmissions.

## **[-2921- (725AE)] Boundless II**

This was not the first time science and technology had faced such setbacks and the complete loss of information; it had already been common procedure to securely save copies of important data for several centuries, and while there could never again be a single server that stored everything, many facilities able to continue their work, if they weren't facing problems of survival. At perhaps the galaxy's point of greatest need in centuries, an entirely new technology would be discovered; a culmination and combination of a wide variety of modern scientific cornerstones that, had it come at a different time, would likely have welcomed a golden age of civilization.

Instead, the Stargate, a term for the quantum-entangled, wormhole-stabilizing space stations that could allow instantaneous travel between linked gates, would be an ultra-expensive pipedream. It's not that stargates were unreasonably expensive, and few claimed it; the sad truth was that the galaxy was in ruins, and mustering even a tenth of the resources that one could prior to The Collapse was difficult. Every few standards, another pair would get built between important points, bringing people together like had never been experienced before, but it would take a long time for stargates to become at all common a sight, even for travelers.