Human Timeline

#### July

* **20th**: Armstrong Outpost at Shackleton Crater is formally founded as the first human settlement on Luna, on the 100th anniversary of the first lunar landing.

### 2070 CE

* Billionaire Victor Manswell, frustrated with the pace of official human space exploration, begins funding his own private spaceflight expedition.

### 2075 CE

* The Manswell Expedition successfully launches from Earth en route to the Alpha Centauri system with 300 colonists aboard in cryogenic stasis. Communications with the vessel are lost soon after.

### 2103 CE

* The European Space Agency's Lowell City in Eos Chasma becomes the first permanent human settlement on Mars.

### 2137 CE

* The Eldfell-Ashland Energy Corporation demonstrates helium-3 fuel extraction from the atmosphere of Saturn.

### 2143 CE

* Construction of Gagarin Station begins beyond the orbit of Pluto.

### 2147 CE

* Trace amounts of element zero are discovered on Mars.

### 2149 CE

* The Systems Alliance charter is signed by the eighteen largest nations on Earth. The Alliance soon becomes the military and exploratory spearhead of humanity.

* Following information from the translated data cache on Mars, humans discover that Charon, Pluto's moon, is actually a massive piece of dormant Prothean technology, a mass relay, encased in ice. Once activated, Jon Grissom leads the first team of explorers through the relay, which instantaneously transports them to another relay in Arcturus, 36 light-years away. The explorers discover that the mass relays are part of a vast network, making travel across the galaxy possible.

#### March

* **12th** - Humanity begins the Signing of the Genoa Accords, ushering in a new era of prosperity for Earth.

### 2150 CE

* The Systems Alliance begins the first surveys for colonization prospects outside the Sol System. One of these surveys discovers the planet Terra Nova.

### 2151 CE

* To defend its expanding territory, humanity begins constructing a massive military fleet and space station at Arcturus, the nexus of several key mass relays, even though they have yet to encounter another intelligent spacefaring race.
* An accident at Singapore International Spaceport exposes hundreds of humans to dust-form element zero. Roughly 30% of the children born in Singapore after element zero exposure suffer from cancerous growths.

### 2152 CE

* The Delta Pavonis Foundation, a major consortium based on Earth, begins settlement of humanity's first extra-solar colony world, the planet Demeter. Later that year, additional colonies are founded on Eden Prime and Terra Nova.

### 2154 CE

* There is a second publicized accident involving the exposure of humans to element zero.

### 2155 CE

* The Systems Alliance occupies completed portions of Arcturus Station, intended to become the Alliance's headquarters.

### 2156 CE

* Arcturus Station is formally inaugurated.
* A small number of human children exposed to element zero exhibit minor telekinetic abilities.

### 2157 CE

#### January

* Pluto's orbit becomes circularized as a result of Mass Relay operations.

#### April

* **4th**- Humanity makes violent first contact with another spacefaring race: the turians. The turians observe human explorers attempting to activate a dormant mass relay, a practice forbidden by galactic law after the Rachni Wars, and attack. Over the next three months, a brief but tense conflict known by humans as the First Contact War and by turians as the Relay 314 Incident ensues.
* **30th** - The First Contact War culminates in the turian siege and occupation of Shanxi, the first human world to fall to an alien race.

#### June

* **27th** - Admiral Kastanie Drescher leads the Second Fleet in battle against Shanxi's occupiers, catching the turians by surprise and evicting them from the planet.

#### July

* The turians prepare for a full-scale war against humanity, but this draws the attention of the Citadel Council. The Council intervenes before hostilities escalate further, revealing the existence of the greater galactic community to humanity and brokering a peace between them and the turians.

#### September

* An anonymous extranet manifesto is published following the end of the First Contact War. The manifesto calls for an army, a "Cerberus", to be established to defend humanity against inevitable alien attacks. Derided as "survivalist rhetoric written by an illusive man", the manifesto is quickly forgotten by the media.

### 2158 CE

* Humans learn the potential of biotics. An international effort to track element zero exposures begins. Roughly 10% of recorded exposed children show indications of biotic ability.

### 2159 CE

* The Systems Alliance purchases Gagarin Station for a fraction of its construction cost and converts the facility into a biotic research and training facility.

### 2160 CE

* The Systems Alliance Parliament is formed.
* With the existence of human biotics firmly established, the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training (BAaT) program is set up on Gagarin Station to train potential candidates and develop biotic implants.
* The biotic drug red sand is first used.

### 2161 CE

* Amid concerns over gene therapy and genetic modifications being misused, the Systems Alliance Parliament passes the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act. It imposes sharp restrictions on controversial uses of genetic engineering but provides government subsidies for beneficial applications.

### 2162 CE

* Construction of Arcturus Station is completed.

### 2163 CE

* The Alliance secretly begins illegal AI research at a base on Sidon with Dr. Shu Qian as project leader. Lt. Kahlee Sanders is assigned as a tech analyst.
* The first experimental L1 biotic implants are used in humans.
* A series of starship drive failures are orchestrated over populated areas on human colony worlds, causing widespread exposures to element zero. This results in the second generation of humans born with biotic potential.

### 2164 CE

* Ivor Johnstagg is sentenced to 21 years in prison for attempting to assassinate Venta Tox, the volus ambassador to the Citadel. Although Johnstagg claims to be acting on behalf of the radical human political party Eternal Earth, no connection is found and Johnstagg is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Backlash from the assassination attempt jeopardizes the Systems Alliance's bid for an embassy on the Citadel.

### 2165 CE

* The Council makes official recognition of humanity's growing power and influence in the galactic community. Humanity is granted an embassy on the Citadel, the political and economic heart of the galaxy.
* Tensions grow between humans and batarians as they compete for territory in the Skyllian Verge.

* Terrorists steal antimatter from the Alliance cruiser SSV Geneva. The sole figure arrested names his sponsor "Cerberus". This is the first such incident of sabotage connected to the Cerberus organization.

### 2167 CE

* L2 biotic implants are first developed and used in humans.

### 2168 CE

* Kaidan Alenko accidentally kills Commander Vyrnnus after being provoked. The diplomatic fallout with the turians results in BAaT being shut down a year later.

### 2170 CE

* The human colony of Mindoir is attacked by batarian slavers. Many colonists are killed or captured.
* Biotic training for humans is outsourced to the military, selected R&D companies, and renamed divisions of the defunct Conatix Industries.
* L3 biotic implants are developed after L2 implants prove to be dangerous.
* The first A-61 Mantis Gunships are produced.

#### January

* **21st** - Another human colony, Yandoa, suffers catastrophic dust-form element zero exposure to its atmosphere when an Eldfell-Ashland Energy ship explodes in orbit.

### 2171 CE

* In protest at the refusal of the Citadel Council to limit human expansion in the Skyllian Verge, the batarians close their embassy, withdraw into their home systems, and effectively become a rogue state.
* Cerberus assassinates Pope Clement XVI on Earth via rosary beads coated with toxic substances; his death is attributed to age and heart failure. His successor, Pope Leo XIV, espouses beliefs more in-line with Cerberus' ideals.

### 2172 CE

#### August

* **9th** - On Gagarin Station, "Eliza" becomes the first sapient AI created in the Systems Alliance.

### 2173 CE

* A fly-by over the world of Armeni discovers odd surface protrusions. Upon closer inspection, they are identified as elaborate crypts made by the zeioph, an extinct spacefaring race. Various human universities seek to perform excavation, but Council laws that hold burial sites as sacrosanct prevent this. An ongoing debate over the issue ensues.
* Terra Firma is involved in a Nashan Stellar Dynamics kickbacks scandal, forcing Inez Simmons, the party leader at the time, to resign. Charles Saracino becomes the new party leader after his opponent, Claude Menneau, is assassinated by Cerberus operatives while en route to Shanxi. Publicly, Menneau's disappearance is never explained.

### 2175 CE

* On a survey mission to 2175 Aeia, an important colonization prospect for the Systems Alliance, the MSV Hugo Gernsback disappears and is presumed destroyed.
* Cerberus covertly contacts Michael Moser Lang, a political dissident on Earth, and provides him with funding. Cerberus continues to monitor him after contact ends.

### 2176 CE

* Batarian-funded pirates and criminals launch a surprise attack, later known as the Skyllian Blitz, on the human colony of Elysium. The assault is repulsed by the Alliance Navy and ground teams.
* The Jon Grissom Academy is commissioned over Elysium and becomes home to the Alliance's new biotic training program, the Ascension Project.
* The Anhur Rebellions, a civil war waged over the practice of slavery, begin on the human and batarian colony world of Anhur and spread throughout the Amun system. Abolitionism supporters hire the Eclipse mercenary group to fight the batarian pro-slavery Na'hesit faction.
* Miners at the T-GES Mineral Works facility on Mahavid uncover a Leviathan artifact. The miners are enthralled by the Leviathans and are used to carry out numerous experiments.

#### February

* **5th** - Michael Moser Lang assassinates United North American States president Enrique Aguilar and Chinese People's Federation premier Ying Xiong. The resulting political shuffle benefits Cerberus' shell companies and plans for the Systems Alliance Parliament.

### 2177 CE

* During a recon mission to find a missing colonial pioneer team on Akuze, a unit of fifty Alliance marines is wiped out by thresher maws.

### 2178 CE

* The Alliance tracks several pirate FTL exit vectors over a period of six months using covert monitoring devices planted on Theshaca's moons, leading the Alliance Navy to eight major pirate anchorages. Since the "Theshaca Raids", no ships from the Terminus Systems have entered the Hong system.
* The Anhur Rebellions end with the abolitionist forces in power, and the reconstruction of Anhur commences.

#### July

* **18th -** In retaliation for the Skyllian Blitz, the Alliance launches a major offensive against the moon of Torfan and destroys the criminal bases there, mostly populated by batarians. The threat against human colonies from batarian extremists is curtailed.

### 2182 CE

* Admiral Kahoku of the Systems Alliance begins investigating suspected Cerberus activities.

### 2183 CE

* Humans and turians collaborate on an engineering project co-sponsored by the Citadel Council: an experimental frigate with a prototype stealth system, the SSV Normandy.