Historical Summary
Days of Fire [2025-2090]
Introduction
The aptyl called Days of Fire were a period of utter devastation and chaos (political, economic and military) that resulted from the sudden and unexpected collapse of the post-Cold War political equilibrium. A single disaster of previously unimagineable scale triggered a chain reaction causing more and more disasters, this malevolent chain lasting until none of the great powers of old remained standing.
Few periods of human history could match the Days of Fire in the sheer scale of catastrophes befelling the Mankind. Yet, despite all of that, humanity persevered. In the following decades an centuries it become apparent that Days of Fire toughened Mankind. New political structures and systems rose from the ashes left by the Days of Fire, raising a magnificent structure that remained strong for centuries.
Events
Yellowstone Caldera Erupts
16th October 2025, Central United States
Yellowstone supervolcano was occasionally a part of many doomsday prophecies and prediction for many years. However majority of scientists estimated that the chance of it occuring within the next few million years was abysmal. Nature decided to prove Mankind wrong, even if only to a degree. During early October, the seismic activity surrounding the Yellowstone supervolcano suddenly spiked.
In the end it was only the caldera - one of the few major magma chambers of Yellowstone - suddenly exploded that day. The advance warning of about thirty-six hours wasn't enough. Thirty-six days might not be enough. States of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, significant part of Colorado, south-eastern Montana, south North Dakota and west Iowa were simply annihilated, ash choking out all life from them and killing everyone that failed to escape in time.
Rest of North Dakota, Montana and Iowa, together with Minnesota, eastern Idaho, Utah, north-eastern Arizona, north New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, western Illinois, and western Wisconsin were decimated - tens of millions of people survived the eruption and fled, starting a refugee crisis of biblical proportion.
The rest of Wisconsin and Illinois, together with Indiana, western Michigan, western Kentucky, north Texas and western Tennesee were temporarily covered in ash, but were restored later on. The remaining states were decimated not by blast itself, but by millions of displaced refugees, volcanic winter-induced famine and the economic disaster that the eruption was.
As the country began collapsing under the strain, military seized control over majority of the Eastern Coast (and surviving edge of the Midwest) establishing emergency government that ended up remaining in power for decades. Another competitor arose from the surviving parts of the Western Coast. Texas refused to follow either side and seceeded. Alaska and Hawaii islands ended up doing the same. Canada's ability to control western half of their territory waned to the point where the entire country remained in a state of perpetual crisis for decades to come. Cuba seized Puerto Rico, to add insult to injury.
The American Empire and its Pax Americana collapsed almost overnight. The massive economic upheaval caused by the sudden disappearance of sizeable portion of North American market culminated in worldwide recession as the other markets were forced to adjust to the new situation. And if that wasn't enough, many countries that were happy to see american soldiers leave their territory soon began to miss them as wars began to flare around the globe.
East Asian War
2027-2028, Eastern Asia
China had few things to lose and everything to gain in the wake of United States' collapse. With their only serious competitor to the world's superpower out of the picture, the People's Republic of China could finally move around uncontested. What started as moderately aggresive muscle flexing soon escalated into border clashes and finally open war between the PRC and former allies of now collapsing United States.
The war was waged primarily on two fronts, the northern and southern one. Northern one saw Chinese forces face South Korea, Japan and remnants of American garrisons that went native following the collapse of the United States. Southern one had PRC engage Taiwanese' Republic of China. The serious ground warfare occured mostly in Korea, while Japan and Taiwan and engaged in war mostly on seas and in the air. After few months of struggles it has become apparent that the PRC will eventually succeed through sheer attrition, resulting in a truce and soon a peace treaty.
The East Asian War ended with China cementing its dominant power over entire East and Southeast Asia, though with no border changes. The Taiwan's years of independence were de facto over, however. It wasn't seized directly only because the worldwide's economic downturn affected the PRC too, its economy in a precarious state of manageable recession. For now, the People's Republic of China was content with establishing its superiority over the western edge of the Pacific Ocean.
The open and symetric warfare was an escalation unheard of during the last decades of political maneuvering and rare asymetric warfare. The resulting political crisis was even worsened by the United Nations' lack of political will to seriously condemn Chinese' aggression. With Taiwan issue seen by it officially as 'internal matters of China', the UN ended up being seen by majority of the world as Chinese' puppets. With NATO in decline and UN losing last remaining shreds of respect, the geopolitical 'rules of engagement' were radically altered. Soon an anti-PRC coalition began to form, with Russian Federation and the Republic of India forming its core. Soon, however, European Union and numerous secondary powers began aligning themselves with that coalition out of fear towards China's expansionism.
China responded with lack of further expansionism, deciding to wait until inevitable small rivalries and dislikes will break the opposing coalition. This plan succeeded, though not exactly as they imagined it to happen.
Second Iran-Iraqi War
2028-2029, Middle East
With the United States out of the picture, Iran decided to quell long-standing internal dissent with some conquests and military victories. The Iraq become its first target, primarily due to its weakness - after local forces of the United States and its allies pulled out, and the America disappeared from the radar, the country was in the state closely resembling a civil war. What's more, many Iranian officers and politicans wanted a rematch after the status quo ante bellum result of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraqi War.
The war was over in a flash, with the Iran army seizing Bagdad within four months after the declaration of war. Suppression of various militias roaming the countryside was going to take many years, however. What's more, this conquest was a spark falling on the powderkeg known as Middle East. Within the next half year Saudi Arabia openly annexes (or 'guarantees independence') of Yemen, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Turkey attempts to expand southward, starting an open war with Syria, whose regime is still weakened by the devastating civil war that never really ended.
The remaining power of the Levant attempt desperately to arm themselves and look as threateningly as possible, hoping the storms to pass by. The entire Middle East region is slowly preparing itself for a major confrontation between major powers of the region (primarily Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia, though Israel is counted amongst them too, in a way). For now, it's the smaller buffer states that face the troubles.
With the Middle East region burning, the global economy receives another hit which intensifies the ongoing recession. Fuel shortages (or risk of them) happen in numerous countries. This impairs both the industrial output and the popular' faith in the stability of the financial situation, meaning a massive drop in investments necessary to keep many companies afloat. And as the global stability worsens, radicals suddenly find themselves in position to seize the control over national governments or at least influence their politics.
Phlegreian Fields Erupt
13th June 2030, Italy
Following a brief period of unusual activity - believed by most scientists to be aftershocks caused by the Yellowstone disaster - the Phlegreian Fields supervolcano suddenly erupts. For a supervolcano it wasn't a large eruption, it was in fact smaller than the Yellowstone despite no attempts to defuse the bomb. However it was still a titanic blast, one that spelled disaster for Europe and North Africa, and end of the world for Italy.
The eruption wiped out Naples and everything in the vicinity, and covered a significant part of Italy (and western Greece) in ash. The Italy failed to survive that, probably no country in the world was capable of that. The remaining parts of the Italy collapse into a number of regional governments, each of them desperately trying to stave off encroaching famine and economic disaster of unimagineable magnitude.
The rest of Europe fares only marginally better. Three years long volcanic winter decimates agriculture, reminding europeans what true famine looks like. The effects are worsened by the fact that the worldwide economic chaos makes it increasingly harder to import massive ammounts of food needed to feed the european population. Naturally, with the European Union in such state, the economic downturn and global recession only worsens.
European Union attempts to counter the disaster by increasingly centralized measures. Relentless power grab is successfully explained to majority of european population as the necessity of the moment, however the radicalization of anti-EU elements follows suit. The degree of success varies, however. By year 2035 France, Germany, Low Countries and entirety of Scandinavia are mostly EU-compliant. Eastern members (Baltic States, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and so on) are much less impressed.
Second Spanish Civil War
2031-2034, Spain
The economic impact of the Phlegreian Fields eruption sunk the already struggling economies of the Mediterrenean, hitting Greece and Spain the most after the now-dead Italy. The Spain was the first to fall. With the collapsing government essentially pillaging the slightly better faring regions in order to keep the less fortunate parts of Spain afloat. This caused catastrophic rise in dissent that resulted in the open attempts to seceed.
With the talks of new catalonian independence referendum floating around, and the polls showing the widespread support for the secession, the government reacts with panic. A state of emergency is declared, and military action attempted to reinforce its rule over the disgruntled provinces. The armed opposition from the provinces and mass desertions of the soldiers sparked a civil war that lasted for three years and was simply too much for the country to handle. Even before the Phlegreian Fields such a war would drain life from the country. In its aftermath it was a disaster.
As a result of the war, Kingdom of Spain ceased to exist as a political entity. Catalona and Basque Country succeeded in seceeding, but it was a pyrrhic victory on their side, as the war ruined them more than the government's policies ever could. Large parts of the Spain were decimated to the point of partially returning to a pre-industrial level of development. Millions of people die (most of them not because of fighting, but because of economic collapse and famine).
European Union failed to respond adequately to the crisis. Spain could barely contribute anything to the Union, and in the state of the civil war all attempts to aid it (save for some unsuccessful mediation attempts) would be tantamount to throwing money into the bottomless swamp. With the war finally burning out, the EU moved in. The result was a partial ressurection of Spain as a much more centralized and increasingly left-wing republic. It was, however, lagging behind the Europe and was geopolitically irrelevant.
Ashen Flu Pandemic
2032, Earth
The first of the great pandemics of the Days of Fire strikes the world. Ashen Flu was little more but one more highly contagious flu pandemics, however the fact that it struck the world weakened by famine and poverty balooned the death toll beyond the imagination. Ashen Flu caused relatively negligible casualties in South America, Asia and Africa, but from Europe, North Africa, and North America, it was a disaster.
By the end of 2032, 52 millions people are dead as countries fail to adequately respond to the pandemic. 19 million die in the former United States, 12 millions in Europe, five millions in Canada and Mexico, and six millions in North Africa. What's more, the drastic measures used to finally suppress and quarantine the plague heighten tensions in the afflicted areas, further worsening their internal situation.
European Union' countries reaction was mixed. The biggest problem of the EU was that it's response was too medium. It was draconic enough to infuriate a large portion of the population, but still not draconic enough to suppress the plague quickly and thoroughly enough for the population to uniformly decide that these methods were justified. Worse, the EU's idea to focus its efforts on the more compliant countries sparked massive political backlash that greatly contributed to the political instability plaguing the European Union.
Kashmir War
2032-2035, South Asia
Years of tension finally erupt due to combination of the worldwide political instability and intersecting political interests. Especially the latter contributed greatly, as with China supporting Pakistan and Russia supporting India the entire conflict bordered on being a proxy war between a superpower and its last standing military competitor.
The war lasts for three years. India seems to be coming on top, and is capable of keep Pakistan forces at bay successfully. Unfortunately, due to a series of concidences, accidents and wrong decisions the war finally erupts into a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Limited exchange [with 'only' eight bombs falling], however the result is still disastrous.
Death toll is in high millions, nuclear fallout plagues the region for decades, and the world is shocked. The combat usage of nuclear weapons was something that Mankind as a whole delegated into the realm of nightmares and dystopian fiction. The fact that it actually happened managed to scare Mankind more than all previous disasters combined. Resulting in growth of the number of doomsayers. Naturally the sudden growth of worldwide pessimism didn't help the already ailing markets.
An additional result was the fact that India ceased being an emerging power, its ability to keep China in check highly diminishing. Soon China began probing the Indiochina Peninsula and exterting political pressure on local governments. The process of vassalizing these countries was put to halt by the events of 2036.
Greek Civil War
2032-2033, Balkan Peninsula
Greece died the moment the Phlegreian Fields erupted. It's collapse was a conclusion long set in stone. If anything, it was a great success that the country managed to retain some semblances of existence until the year 2032, despite the crippling economic crisis and total collapse of tourism industry. In the end, however, it was simply unsustainable.
The war started due to a failed military coup which devolved into a civil war, quickly joined by numerous militias fielded by almost every group from every part of the political spectrum. The result was a bloody chaos that lasted for less than a year, mostly because by that time only a single remaining group was still capable of fielding something resembling a military force.
The ultimate victors of the war were radical left-wing militia known as Laiko Dimokratiko Kinima [LDK, People's Democratic Movement], which succeeded mostly due to being financed and supported by the European Union. Union's leadership feared the further raise of right-wing radicalism while simultaneously attempting to defend its economic and financial interests.
The Union's success was shortlived. The LDK proclaimed the creation of Socialist Republic of Greece - a country that inherited neither debt nor treaties of the old Greece. This movement was a calculated risk, with LDK's leadership deciding that neither ailing European Union nor the Turkey (now engaged in Middle-Eastern War) will be capable of attacking Greece in near future. This meant that Greece left the EU, and refused to pay back any of its debts.
The calculations of the new Greek governments were spot on, as the disastrous 'Greek adventure' of the European Union greatly contributed to the Union's ultimate collapse.
Middle-Eastern War
2032-2039, Middle East
The tensions in the Middle East finally erupt. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey engage each other in a melee-a-trois for the position of the dominant power of the region. The war was a years long stalemate, during which all three sides relentlessly threw soldiers and equipment into the grinder. A war full of skirmishes and battles that, in the end, changed nothing.
The war esulted in negligible territorial changes, but massive weakening of all participants. Turkey spends years in great political turmoils due to wartime casualties, and Saudi Arabia's grip on their recently annexed or vassalized territories crumbles. Iran loses the least, but is still massively weakened despite being the nominal victor of the war.
In the end, the true winner of the war is Israel, which retains its power in the Middle East currently devoid of powerful enemies. Before the war ends Lebanon and Jordan are de facto Israeli's vassals. After brief (merely two months long) Sinai War, Israel seizes entire Sinai Peninsula from the weakened and half-collapsed Egypt. Sinai becomes a target of large-scale colonization efforts, with Israel finally having a place to settle Jews that decided to abandon other countries (especially remnants of the United States and now decimated Europe) in favour of Israel.
For the time being, Israel achieves almost hegemonic position over the Levant. This lasts until the Second Middle-Eastern War rearranges the whole region once again.
European War
2034-2039, Europe
The European Union's downfall was caused by a number of factors. Increasingly authoritarian measures which began infuriating even some of its supporters. Draining recovery efforts in Spain and disastrous Greek adventure. Drastic push of radically left-wing ideology, which only seemed to enflame internal turmoil and arm the political radicals of the other end of spectrum in arguments. Final spark were gossips of another horrible harvest and expected famine in the 2034/2035 winter, which triggered a number of violent riots throughout Europe.
The attempt to squash the dissent with force resulted in violent riots evolving into violent revolutions and counterrevolutions. Within less than one year the European Union's forces stopped being a cohesive group and dissolved into a number of militias facing the revolutionaries on at best equal ground. The resulting war was a horror that came to a continent that already forgot about the existence of such horrors.
Ethnic cleansings, political purges, economic collapse, genocides and general lack of common decency raged through Europe unchecked. Europe self-demoted itself from struggling first world into the third world within first three years of the war. The rest was just a pure an unadulterated horror. By the end of the war, the population of the former EU countries decreased from around 420 million to 375. Countries such as Great Britain are decimated purely as a collateral damage.
Germany and France end up being seized by a totalitarian neofascists movements headed by Karl Hauser and Eugene Delacroix, whose names soon become more feared and hated than that of Adolf Hitler's. The purges (or 'just' exile) of varios enemies of the state continue on until at least 2045. Rest of the Europe fares little better.
Great Britain collapses due to economic disaster accompanying the war on the continent. The result is the creation of the United Republic of Britain which soon descended into totalitarian form of socialism. Norway and Sweden end up as radical socialist states, being more authoritarian than many dictatorships despite being democratic countries. Denmark is torn between its neighbours. Italy is even more dead as it was, and Republic of Spain is an even worse ruined wreck, though it more or less survives. All of mentioned countries doubles down on their internal enemies, only slightly less radically than Germany and France does.
Russian Federation openly seizes Belarus, eastern Ukraine and Baltic States, with minimum resistance, establishing a buffer zone between it and the bloody mess that the EUrope chaned into. Remaining Central-Eastern Europe is a mix of struggling republics or relatively benign authoritarian 'emergency governments' that mostly turn back into republics after a decade or two.
Red Death Pandemic
2036, Worldwide
The government of the Russian Federation was pushed into the corner by the collapse of its last potential ally and the recurring border skirmishes on the Russia-Chinese border. Never being very much into ethics, they finally decided to employ a rather terrible solution to the problem. One that succeeds much more than Federation's governments expected.
Red Death was a virus created by the Russian Federation's scientists as a bioweapon. A heavily modified ebola virus, with its resistance to environmental dangers boosted by scientific tinkering, was introduced into the Chinese population in several major cities at once. It was also the first (and the last) ethnic bioweapon, the virus explicitly modified to target only people carrying a number of genetic markers typically associated with people of Chinese descent.
Russians expected the virus to be a distraction. Unfortunately, the virus mutated and within a month from initial outbreak went airborne. The result was 78 millions of victims during the first outbreak alone. The virus resurged four times during the next decade, with its final death toll approaching 240 millions (including 23 millions of Chinese living outside of China and people with a misfortune of having a Chinese person in their family tree).
The 'Pax Sinica' in the East Asia fell by the end of the first outbreak, previously vassalized countries retaking their independence. The Chinese economy fell by the end of the second outbreak (2039), causing mass scale famine that killed further millions. The People's Republic of China finally collapsed during the third outbreak (2042). The fourth one (2047]had no other result save for millions of dead people.
As the result of the China's collapse, Tibet and Sinciang go independent. Mongolia swallows and recolonizes the Outer Mongolia after the surviving Chinese settlers (decimated by the plague scouring the area) are forced to leave. Slightly less decimated Taiwan takes over the position of officially recognized Chinese state, but lacks of ability to expand onto the continental China. This changes when what's left of Hong Kong decides to ally with it, if only to avoid getting ransacked by warlords tearing the China's mainland apart. The result is a slowly growing continental domain of the Republic of China, one of the two relatively stable parts of China. The other one is the Henan Government, mostly due to said government being pretty much controlled by local Christians and Buddhists, giving them a certain level of uniqueness and internal support.
Green Crash
2040, Worldwide
The worldwide economy system was on the verge of collapse ever since the Yellowstone eruption. It was never created with weathering storms of this magnitude in mind. Recurrent disasters, disappearance of entire markets, and general pessimism caused fifteen years long recession that seemed unstoppable. This was counted among many reasons for sudden increased in intensity of various previously fringe beliefs, such as communism and fascism. The number of doomsayers predicting the end of capitalism grew exponentially for years.
What finally broke the economy was the collapse of the People's Republic of China. Red Death merely sped up the inevitable, as without the First World to supply with cheap goods the economies of Asia and Africa were already ailing and on the very verge of collapse. The collapse of China's economy was the last nail in the coffin. With global trade in tatters, main consumers out of the picture and the producers failing to sell anything they produce, the resulting was crash was a disaster worse than the 1929's.
It was a blessing in a disguise, however. Previous economic system was a balast, its remains (both literal and psychological ones) acting as chains stopping the changes from occuring. The Green Crash, however terrible, was a shock therapy. The process of economic paradigm shift was already underway for close to a decade, and what the Green Crash did was clearing out the companies that failed to adjust to it from the market. Corporations following the outdated economic models collapsed or in rare cases merged and restructured, taking over the now much smaller market. Those who already followed the model that was to become dominant in post-Green Crash world suddenly expanded thanks to the breathing space they got.
The end of 'sweatshop economy' allowed the East and South to start growing as actual competitors to the North and West. Fossil fuels were quickly phased out, replaced by energy gained from fusion and renewable resources. Rapidly growing 3D printing and drone-based logistics replaced old, centralized factories with new, much more decentralized and much more green. The paradigm shift brought new scientific breakthroughs and better usage of the old ones, making green technology a viable and increasingly cost-efficient option. Soon the economic recovery began, though it wasn't going to be instaneous.
Culturcide Ends
2040-2045, Worldwide
The globalization was a seemingly benevolent process that was also an undeniable and unchangeable fact of existence for decades. Those that fought against it were mostly seen as fringe radicals, and even they typically were taking advantage of positive changes brought by it. With the whole world changing into an interconnected village it was impossible to fully separate yourself from it.
Centuries later, during the long years of the Long War, the globalization was seen in a much different light by the post-nationalist members of the Confederation of Mankind. It was the culturcide, the mass extermination and draining of 'lesser' cultures and languages by an overbearing, worldwide 'culture' of globalization. The greatest mass extermination and draining in history, in fact, with only the period of colonialism was anywhere close to it.
Now, however, the culturcide began collapsing. Internet was in tatters, with many regions disappearing from it entirely (continental China, half of Northern America, the totalitarian nightmares of the Western Europe), and numerous autocracies taking advantage of that to severely limit access to whatever was left of the world wide web. What's more the Green Crash sparked the end of the overbearing influence of Western culture of the world (with the only major competitor of China gone as well). And if that wasn't enough, the international trade massively decreased due to the strive for maximum possible self-sufficiency in the post-Green Crash era.
As a result, massive changes to a global culture occured, with the 'popculture' of the past dissolving into a mess of hundreds competing cultures, increased regionalism and enflamed patriotism and nationalism alike. It was also a major factor in an ongoing resurgence of religion in many parts of the world.
Sweating Plague Pandemic
2040, Worldwide
Sweating Plague was a previously unknown bacterial disease that spread like wildfire through the hotter and more humid parts of the world. It claimed approximately ninety million victims in India, Indiochina, Africa and South America. Despite being caused by bacteria, it turned out to be utterly impervious to all types of antibiotics.
This was merely the most striking case of aquired antibiotic resistance. By 2042 the average life expectancy dropped to approximately 55-62 years worldwide through a mass-scale resurgence of diseases previously pushed into the corner by antibiotics. Tuberculosis, black death and cholera reigned supreme, but even leprosy managed to make a come back and start killing people in Europe and North America. It is estimated that the death toll caused by antibiotic resistance between 2030 and 2050 reached two hundred million, with close to half caused by the Sweating Plague.
This process was effectively reversed due to post-Green Crash economic recovery leading to renew investments in biotechnology. By 2060 close to two hundred antibiotics were created, with new ones being made too fast for the bacterias to adapt, effectively ending their reign of terror over Mankind. Forever, as it later turned out.
Second Middle-Eastern War
2042-2051, Middle East
The Green Crash spelled disaster for the world at large... and armageddon for the countries whose economy relied on extraction and export of fossil fuels (especially oil, but coal and natural gas were only marginally less hit). Of course, the whole process of moving to green energy was going to take at least two decades.
WIth process of moving on to solar or energy-powered cars in full swing, and both the general collapse of industrial output of the world and drop in world's population, the demand for fossil fuels was already collapsing. The trend was obvious to everyone. The Green Crash began stalking the world, murdering economy after economy.
Within few months Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE essentially ceased to exist as countries, falling into barbarism and warlordism and with their elites typically fleeing the countries with their wealth. Iran fared slightly better, but the loss of main source of revenue from the conquered Iraq hit it hard. In the end, Iran collapsed as well, but few years in the war. This led to an obvious end of any sort of political stability in the area.
Turkey pushes southward and annexes majority of Syria and Iraq by 2045, achieving substantial victories against collapsing Iran and the Israeli Bloc. It's victory is pyrrhic, as casualties and war exhaustion led to a failed military coup which changed into a Turkish Civil War. The conquered territories are lost, and the Socialist Republic of Greece takes advantage of the chaos to seize the Constantinople and the straits. When collapse of the Turkey becomes apparent, Kurds raise and finally gain uncontested independence. Even Armenia dared to make a number of border corrections. The result is major reaarangement of the entire Middle East.
The United Shia Republic raises in the east, composed of Iran and the Shia parts of Iraq. New Islamic Caliphate is proclaimed and soon seizes Arabian Peninsula and Sunni Iraq. Revanchist and openly authoritarian Turkey remains in the north, contained by the defensive coalition of Armenia, Kurdistan, Syria and Greece, all mutual dislikes between its members squashed by fear of Turkish reconquests. The peace is temporary, as all powers impatiently await the new war to finally emerge as hegemons of the region.
Second Russian Civil War
2042-2051, Russia
Russia was the second major victim of the Green Crash. With its economy collapsing, the government adopted increasingly totalitarian measures in hope of staying afloat. The result was a successful military coup that ended as a spark falling on the powderkeg. Within days dozen radical groups raised their own banners in various parts of the Federation, with the already disgruntled military plagues by desertions.
The Second Civil War was a war of thousand secessionist movements, dozens of armies of various political radicals and the moderates caught in-between. And all of that in a country that possessed a sizeable detachment of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The two former weapons found their use in the conflict, to a genuine terror of the world.
Kremlin is destroyed alongside Central Moscow by a nuclear blast directed by either the muslim extremists or siberian secessionists. Three more blasts and numerous chemical warfare applications are noted throughout the conflict. Russian Federation collapses. Siberia and Far Eastern seceed successfully. Western aquisitions (Belarus, Balic States, Eastern Ukraine) regain independence with some help from the Central European former EU members. Muslims take over majority of the Caucasus and the Central Asia expands politically through several minor yet successful secessions. Kaliningrad becomes an independent republic, theoretically seeing itself as a 'Russian Federation' in exile.
The european part of Russia became the New Soviet Union under control of the 'victorious' neomarxists, an eclectic group that began as an alliance between local eurosocialists, neocommunists and various natonalists that wanted Russia strong, regardless of its political system. This alliance succeeded in defeating the various neofascists, imperialist, democratic and federation loyalists group, but its internal disagreement were going to plague the Soviet Union for many years.
Free City
2042-2045, Faroe Islands
An extraterritorial 'anarchocapitalist utopia' is created on a part of the Faroe Islands leased to a joint initative of a number of megacorporations that survived the Green Crash, in exchange of notable financial support to the region. Something greatly needed, as the Denmark was gone as a country and all the nearest countries were totalitarian regimes.
The resulting 'Free City' is soon seen as a wretched hive of villainy and lack of common decency, with tax evasion being the smallest of legal issues concerning the initative. This leads to few protests being put up when the United Republic of Britain seized the Islands in early 2045, erasing all traces of the 'utopia' from them together with the capitalism.
While a relatively minor incident, this event was going to be much later cited as the first case of corporatocracy and anarchocapitalism in human history. And, at least among the countries of the Liberty Conglomerate, as the prime example of 'collectivists' persecuting freedom wherever they can find it.
European Cold War starts
2045-2046, Europe
The European War ended in 2039, and that's when the political maneuvering started. No war was going to occur any time soon, as the remaining european powers needed many years to lick their wounds. However the factions began emerging much faster, and soon the continent was split between three competing powers.
The first one was the European Federation. It's initial list of members included United Republic of Britain, the socialist kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, and the Republic of Spain. During next few years this alliance was joined by the Socialist Republic of Greece and Republic of Portugal. Their politics were socialist if not communist.
Germany and France remained global pariahs, something enflamed by the partition of Denmark and vassalization of the Low Countries. The status as enemies of everyone else brought them together, leading to creation of an Iron Pact, the last flight of european fascism. Their position was far from desired, as they had enemies on every border.
The Central and Eastern Europe united itself, seeing European Federation, Iron Pact and the New Soviet Union as threats to their sovereignity and life of a significant part of their population. The result was creation of the Visehrad Alliance, composed of Poland, Czech republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Western Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. This alliance later saw a number of former Yugoslovia countries slowly gravitate towards it.
Smallpox Pandemic
2047, Worldwide
The last of the great pandemics of the Days of Fire was the return of the once dreaded enemy consigned to oblivion by Mankind's efforts... and ressurected through them. It was the global warming that brought it back, the receeding glaciers uncovering frozen carcasses of people and animals infected during one of the past outbreaks.
The plague spread throughout the world swiftly, taking full advantage of initial disbelief of many countries and mutual accusation of being responsible for engineering and unleashing this plague. The much more closed borders and necessary practice would suppress this pandemic quickly if not for the distinct bad luck of the disease reaching a major airport before anyone noticed that it even existed, carried over by a small group of researchers that came to examine the things uncovered by the receeding glaciers.
The result was a pandemic that lasted for two years and killed close to twenty million people. The casualties would be much greater, but the world at this point had a lot of experience with dealing with the pandemics, and the quarantine measures managed to stop it in time. Due do technological progress it was the last pandemic in human history, with the fact that it was smallpox of all diseases being an unique coincidence.
Ecological Equilibrium
2051, Worldwide
Mankind has succeed in utterly decimating the world it lived in. Centuries of industrialism and conscious alterations of lands inhabited by humans took its toll. The devastation of the Days of Fire only furthered the damage, as eruptions of the supervolcano rarely help biological diversity. Worse, collapse of human civilization was often more destructive that the civilization itself, as the abandoned or destroyed chemical plants and factories poisoned everything in the vicinity.
In the year 2051, the world was in horrible state. Many ecosystems either collapsed entirely or were on the edge of it. Air and water was polluted to a varied if typically rather large degree. Baltic Sea was dead, Great Coral Reef was beyond hope of recovery. The Pacific Garbage Patch grew exponentially. However, something very important changed completely.
The Earth's industrial output was crippled by the long recession and the aftermath of the Green Crash. Population dropped significantly (from close to eight billion right before the Yellowstone Eruption to approximately 6,7 billion in 2050). End of sweatshops and the more equal economic growth together with the focus on clean energy lessened the strain on environment even further.
The ecological equilibrium was achieved almost by accident in year 2051 - Mankind stopped actively worsening the situation, though it had to face the progressively worsening aftereffects of earlier mistakes. What's more, the equilibrium wasn't achieved everywhere, as some regions were still suffering (though others were recuperating). The situation was far from good, but it slowly began improving. The world wasn't capable of launching massive projects required to recultivate the decimated parts of the environment - but it was going to change as the world's situation continued improving.
Second Cold War starts
2052-2054, Worldwide
The European Federation signed an alliance with the New Soviet Union. The EF gains an admittedly rather weak ally that can be used to keep the Visehrad in check. The NSU gains a stronger ally to keep the Visehrad in check and help it with its attempts to reinvigorate the struggling Russian economy. This alliance marked the beginning of the Second Cold War. As more and more countries finished licking their wounds, more and more countries could return to playing international politics. A new power blocs began emerging.
The alliance between the European Federation and the New Soviet Union expanded over time. Western United States joined soon, with Canada following suit. Later on Australia, New Zealand, a number of South American and African nations and a number of chinese warlords joined what came to be known as Union of Progress and Freedom. An alliance of socialists, democratic socialists and communists, seeking a world of equality and personal liberty (though in case of communists the last part tended to be rather limited).
Iron Pact was ready, but it failed to gain a lot of international support, ending up mostly isolated in the continental part of the Western Europe. While no country dared to officially align themselves with the Pact, a number of countries secretly sympathized or made deals with the neofascists under the table.
The third side started in 2054 with a military treaty between the eastern United States and the Texas Republic created to counter the alliance between Canada and western United States. This alliance expanded quickly, and before the end of the year it also included the Visehrad Alliance, Japan, South Korea, Republic of China, Siberian and Far Eastern Republic, Brazil, and both Catalonia and Basque Country. It was the birth of the first iteration of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy.
What followed was the armaments race that overshadowed the recovery from the disasters of the early Days of Fire.
First Arcology constructed
2055, Worldwide
First plans and attempts to create an arcology started decades ago, but they were never a really feasible prospect due to low interest and limited technologies. This changed in the aftermath of the Green Crash. It enflamed interest in 'functional ecology', and arcologies - structures and small settlements designed from the scratch to house maximum amount of people with maximum comfort but minimal environmental impacts - fit right in.
World's first real arcology was the Detroit Self-Sufficient Habitat (DSSH) created in Detroit as a part of the eastern United States' recovery effort of its western territories. It was a large, thirty-stories high construction capable of housing fifteen thousand inhabitants in adequate comfort - including an on-site chapel, kindergarten, primary school, a small clinic, and a large and mostly automated shopping mall. With its rooftop and significant part of the walls covered in solar panels, it was self-sufficient in terms of energy. What's more it also possessed a build-in water treatment station, allowing to recycle water, which together with rainwater made it self-sufficient on that field as well.
DSSH was first arcology out of many, finished slightly ahead of schedule due to the eastern United States' government deciding to outrun the similar project launched by its western competitor. As more and more arcologies were made, the cities and villages throughout the world began shrinking. A single small arcology could replace a small town, and by the 2100 few large ones could replace an entire city.
Cities changing from urban sprawl into several interconnected superstructures surrounding by idyllic parks were only the most visible of changes. The shrinking of general population together with the shrinking of settlement lead to major parts of Earth's landmasses left to the recovering nature. The arcologies were also much more resistant to the spread of diseases and criminal activity,
Second Space Race starts
2057, Solar System
The second Space Race was caused by a combination of the political tension and the economic rebirth. The world stopped receiving a blow after blow and managed to lick the most pressing of wounds, allowing it to focus on other endeavours. Rebuilding the world and its environment was one thing. However, this required resources (many of which could be found in space - that also allowed to potentially outsource the least clean and dangerous industries to a place where there was nothing to pollute. And what if THEY were the first ones to reap the benefits?
The first move was the installation of Curiosity, the replacement for now defunct International Space Station, through combined efforts of the members of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy. It started in 2065 and ended in 2067, and for a while remained the largest thing ever placed in space by Mankind. The construction of Unity, its rival station created by the Union of Progress and Freedom, started in 2066.
Both stations acted as a staging point for the space exploration. Besides 0g laboratories they all possess large storage areas and dry docks where ships can be placed for easy repair and maintenance without the need to return to the Earth's surface. Overtime new elements were added, such as large hydroponics area allowing the space exploration crews to grow their own food. In the end, the crews still had to be regularly replaced due to long-term presence in a 0g environment causing health issues, however every bit of resources produced in space meant less money spent on carrying them to the orbit.
Skyhooks Constructed
2060, Earth's Orbit
The crucial part of the early space exploration was the struggle to lower the costs of lifting objects to the orbit. The orbital elevator was an impossibility without a massive influx of resources, but skyhook was something much more possible. It was pretty much a floating cable anchored to a space station that allowed to transport resources up and down, with help of some large aircrafts.
WIth large orbital construction already on the orbit, the skyhook construction was now a feasible concept. Within three years both the Curiosity and Unity possessed active skyhooks, rendering the space exploration as something notably cheaper, even if still rather complicated due to the need to employ aircrafts to transport goods around.
The creation of a skyhook has also sparked a growing interest in concept of a true space elevator, especially among the leadership of the Union.
Asteroid Mining begins
2062, Inner Solar System
Asteroid mining was a long-standing dream of Mankind, offring a prospect of almost unlimited resources waiting to be picked up. Before the creation of the skyhooks the largest issue was the transport of ore back to Earth - the estimates indicated that transport issues were going to increase the price of resulting materials beyond what was considered an acceptable price.
Now, however, it changed. The Union's mission landed on the Ryugu asteroid in the year 2062, drawn in by the iron and nickel deposits estimated to be worth at least 80 billion pre-Yellowstone dollars. Soon first packages of metals began began arriving on Earth, and Alliance joined the industry - it might have lost the battle but was ready to win the war in the end. With skyhook great yet limited capacity, the deliveries failed to overwhelm the Earth's economy, but offered great prospects for large engineering projects.
Soon, however, things changed quite a bit as the Union decided to invest the resulting resources in the Mankind's greatest engineering project thus far.
Orbital Elevator Constructed
2065-2075, Earth
The idea of creating a space elevator was a theoretical possibility due to both the successful recovery from the most pressing damages dealt by the Days of Fire, the recent technological developments and the recently attained access to a growing number of resources mined from the asteroids.
Alliance refused to consider such a construction, due to how difficult it was. It was going to drain extreme ammount of resources and required cutting-edge (and often not fully tested) technology to have any chance of succeeding. Why bother? Alliance decided to focus their newly achieved resources on revitalizing its economy. Union, in the meantime, decided to launch the project, the increasingly central-planned economy operating under slightly different mindset. The construction started on the coast of Equador.
To Alliance's shock, it become apparent by the year 2070 that the Union was going to succeed. The prospects of Union's economic domination led to a general panic and a rival project of orbital elevator construction that started in eastern Brazil. The positioning in both cases caused by the fact that area surrounding equator was the best location for the elevator. The Pact eventually failed to participate.
Alliance failed to succeed. Two years were wasted on political rivalry concerning the location of the elevator. Then the rushed construction caused significant setbacks, and finally the production was stalled by the economic instability caused by the massive influx of materials from the Union's elevator.
First Medical Nanomachines
2066, Worldwide
The economic rebirth in the aftermath of the Green Crash has also stimulated technological advancements on numerous fields. With no disasters befelling Mankind every few years, the money could finally be invested in some progress instead of continuous efforts to maintain what was already there. The first of the large discoveries of that period were first medical nanomachines.
Of course, they were yet to become the panaceum that they are centuries later. They couldn't suppress every imagineable bacterial and viral disease, but they could be used as an extremely good carrier of anti-cancer drugs, carrying the substances potentially toxic to the organism at large right into the center of the problem. This discovery triples survivability in majority of cancer cases within a decade.
By the end of that decade nanomachines could also be used as diagnostic tools, as with rudimentary ability to communicate they could take readings of various processes (and chemical composition) from insides of the body. It was only the beginning of the long road in front of nanomachines.
Neural Interface Developed
2068, Worldwide
The second of the great technological developments of the late Days of Fire was the neural interface. While similar technologies were developed and fielded earlier, all of them lacked some of the functionalities neessary to be considered a finished thing. This finally changed in 2068 when scientists of one of the major megacorps succeeded where others failed.
Neural interface was a direct connection between one's brain (or any other part of the nervous system) and a computer. Initially this breakthrough allowed development of a completely new generation of prosthetics that could bo controlled with natural neural stimuli, virtually indistinguishable on that field from normal body parts. The VR technology and first functional exoskeletons benefited greatly as well.
The transfer was still merely one-sided - these technology allowed machines to 'receive' neural impulses and act accordingly. The full, two-sided transfer was something that still needed many years to be perfected.
Orbital Crisis
2070, Earth
Iron Pact's forces were still mostly consigned to a single continent on Earth, the situation that was hardly favourable for its longterm plans. Neither Hauser nor Delacroix were still around, and both of the Pact's regimes turned slightly lax in the meantime, but their past crimes were horrible enough to ruin their PR forever. As a result, nobody wanted the Pact to expand.
Pact attempted to construct its own orbital station, but only its rough framework was erected before the Orbital Crisis happened. Union of Progress and Freedom accused Pact of plans to install weapons of mass destruction in the station and threatened to destroy it if Pact doesn't abandon the construction. When the Pact refused to obey, the Union actually did destroy the station, though they evacuated (some say 'kidnapped') workers from it before planting charges and destroying the whole structure.
This event was the first case of space boarding action and first space firefight (as one of the workers turned out to be political officer who carried a gun). It also almost sparked a war between the Union and Pact. It was averted because Alliance sided (against themselves) with Pact, claiming the operation to be a 'space piracy' done with no tangible evidence for Pact's plans. It was the Alliance' reaction to a number of lesser incidents caused by Union, which began infuriating some of the Alliance' members.
This was enough to have the Union back down and agree to pay reparations for the damage dealt, essentially humiliating it in the process. The orbital crisis managed to worsen already strained relationship between the Union and the Alliance, but also threw a wrench in Pact's attempts to join the space race.
'Artificial Gravity' Developed
2071, Worldwide
One of the largest problems of extraterrestrial expansion was the gravity. Prolonged exposure to low gravity caused a number of negative effects on one's body, making long-term habitation a major medical hazard. Unfortunately creating artificial gravity was apparently a technological impossibility, despite the technological progress - its creation remains an unrealized dream of Mankind for next seven centuries. However while creating such a thing was impossible, simulating the effects of gravity with some different process was something much easier.
For a while Mankind attempted to circumnavigate the problem with centrifugal force generated by making the crew quarters on its ships rotate. It was a cheap and useful trick that worked well in space. However with the establishment of extraterrestrial colonies being right behind the corner, a new solution had to be found. One easier to employ on the surface of planets and moons.
The result of the furious research was creation of a method of simulating gravity via diamagnetic force. First generation of the diamagnetic field generators could simulate gravity of up to 0,5g, and devoured so much energy that they had to be shut down during ship's maneuvers. First ships using this technology installed the field generators only in the crew quarters section. However as the technology improved, the more powerful reactors were developed. This together with improved diamagnetic fields allowed mankind to simulate Earths' gravity around year 2100.
Further developments on the field of diamagnetism amplification opened the option of employing them as inertia dampeners, slowly improving the ship's maximum acceleration achievable without changing their crews' into a paste.
Manned Mission to Mars
2071, Mars
Before the Days of Fire started, majority of Mankind expected the first human to land on Mars at worst around 2035, maybe even earlier. The series of disasters succeeded in sinking all countries that were capable of doing that, and with giant economic recession private companies possessing necessary know-how lacked funds to risk such an endeavour. The Mankind's expansion throughout the Solar System froze for decades... which now came to an end.
The initial expedition was purely a research one, but once it returned successfully the Alliance's ambition grew. Preparations for establishment of a permanent outpost on Mars were launched almost immediately. It was going to take several years, as the Alliance's base of operations was established on Mars in 2078. For the time being, the Alliance took the lead in the space race, but this superiority turned out to be merely temporary due to Union finally finishing the orbital elevator.
The mission to Mars wouldn't be possible without the post-Green Crash recovery and the subsequent acceleration of technological development. An entire new generation of engines had to be created in order to reach Mars in a reasonable timeframe. Creation of new stations on the Earth's orbit was crucial in that, as it offered the Alliance and Union an ability to test their developments in space while cutting costs of such experiments.
Lunar Colony established
2073, Moon/Luna
While the Alliance pooled its resources in order to reach Mars, the Union decided to settle for something much less extreme, a lot more cheaper and with greater short-term prospects. The result was an establishment of Mankind's first extraterrestrial colony on the surface of the Moon. The colony was rapidly expanded, despite the growing costs of transporting resources from Earth before the successful end of the orbital elevator construction.
The establishment of the Union's colony on the Moon caught the Alliance off-guard, especially as the Union was looked down upon ever since the the successful mission to Mars. The result was a rude awakening and rushed establishment of Alliance' colony on the Moon in year 2074. With the Union having a large headstart and completely focus on that very project, the Union's colony remained several times larger and quickly changed into Mankind's first extraterrestrial city.
It soon become apparent that there's some deeper reason behind the forced (and slightly rushed) expansion of the Union's colony.
Union Economic Miracle
2076-2083, Inner Solar System
The vast difference between the Alliance and Union's space programs was make clear in the year 2076, when the Union used the Unity station and its lunar colony as the staging ground for a massive expansion of asteroid mining process. The result was a flood of cheap resources that was successfully exploited by the Union's economy.
Ore was harvested from the asteroids, and then transported to the Union's lunar colony where the metals were processed and refined, while also taking advantage of some of the metallurgic processes possible only in 0g environment. Some resulting materials were made into tools and parts and used to fuel the Union's space program. The rest was send to Earth through Union's space elevator, forming an inexhaustible source of relatively cheap metals to fuel the economies of the Union's member states.
Alliance was utterly surprised by this development once again. Its space program was focused on reaching Mars and developing permanent habitation there. Asteroid mining was focused on supporting that initiative and helping the planetary reclamation and rebuild efforts. Alliance was forced into desperate efforts to accelerate its orbital elevator project (resulting in more malfunctions and mistakes that delayed the project further). The Union entered a period of sudden economic development.
Third World War
2083-2089, Inner Solar System
Third World War was a conflict long in the making. The Cold War continued on for many, many years, with both an armaments race and a number of small proxy conflicts between the three competing power blocs. These events mostly stayed below the radar of the population as a whole, but the leadership of the Union, the Alliance and the Pact were painfully aware of how heated they were.
The Union of Progress and Freedom wanted to spread the equality and progress - by force, if necessary. What's more, it's relations with Alliance were extremely strained due to increasing conservatism and capitalism of the Alliance, and the fact that it seemed to be cooperating with the Pact (it didn't, but some events could be interpreted in that way). Iron pact dreamed of conquests and freedom from being surrounded by enemies and embargoed by the world after the old genocides. And Alliance, while officially created to 'preserve democracy', was just as warmongering as the two other power blocs, with many members having goals and plans that required collapse of Union or Pact to come to fruition.
The final spark that caused the war was a disaster on the Moon. A transport vessel filled with ore malfunctioned and ended up crash landing right next to the Union' colony, killing thousands and throwing a wrench into the Union' lunar base ability to process ore. This was seen as an act of sabotage (and a desperate measure on the Alliance's side) and caused a number of political incidents and accusations that finally led to an open war. Purely conventional one, as unleashing nuclear weaponry would be of no benefit to anyone. The war was waged on multiple fronts, including first extraterrestrial engagement in Mankind's military history.
The Third World War was also what essentially ended the concept of nuclear deterrents on Earth. It prove that countries tend to not use respond with nukes when the assault is purely conventional. The reason was a significant (though not total) nuclear disarmament after the war ended.
LUNAR FRONT was a purely secondary campaign waged on the Earth's natural sattelite between the forces of the Union and the Alliance. It played a supportive role for the war on Earth, as if the Alliance succeed in capturing the Moon it would halt the on-going Union' asteroid mining effort, thus stopping the resource deliveries crucial for the on-going Union's war effort. Despite the major devastation that the Union's colony suffered in the accident opening the war, it's colony was still much larger and its larger military presence succeeded in overwhelming its opponents. By the beginning of 2085 the entire Moon is under firm control of the Union, and by the beginning of 2086 the Alliance' orbital station was successfuly seized, ending the extraterrestrial war in Union's favour.
On 16th June 2086 all benefits coming from that were successfully negated, as the Alliance mounted a massive aerial operation from the bases in Brazil during which the Union's orbital elevator received heavy damages. Union failed to repair it before the war ended.
NORTH AMERICAN FRONT was an attempt to reunify the United States composed of two lesser frontlines. The first one was between the Republic of Texas and the Eastern United States and the Western United States. The second one was between the Eastern United States and Canada, which was a democratic socialist member of the Union since 2066. The initial battles were mostly fought in the ashen wastelands of the old central United States, and it was the Alliance that came on top pushing the WUS back to its core territories while keeping Canada from gaining ground in the north. However the logistic difficulties accompanying the invasion on the Western United States (on the other side of the ash-covered wasteland) led to a stalemate that lasted until 2088, when Canada officially withdrew from the war as the Union's defeat become obvious.
WESTERN EUROPEAN FRONT was dominated by the Iron Pact's desperate defens against concentric assault from the north (Norway and Sweden), south (Republic of Spain) and west (United Republic of Britain). While France and Germany possessed vast reserves of manpower, the Pact was resource-starved after decades long embargo. Its industry was barely operating, and its armies lacked modern hardware. It was only through sheer stubborness, fanatic zeal and natural borders (Danish Straits to the north, English Channel to the west, and the Pyrenees to the south) that the Pact withstood the initial offensive. Especially as the European Federation maintained total air superiority for the majority of the conflict, and the bombs kept raining on Pact's cities.
The Alliance' direct participation in the war in the western european theatre ended around December 2083, when the Catalonia and Basque Country fell to the joint forces of the Republic of Portugal and Republic of Spain. The indirect participation started when the Alliance made the 'Deal with the Devil' treaty and began supplying the Pact's armies with modern military hardware, ammunition and fuel. What's more, this deal allowed the Pact to move its forces from its border with the Visehrad Alliance, giving it the most crucial strategic reserves that it lacked earlier.
The Federation's offensive was finally halted in 2085. At its peak the United Republic of Britain controlled a significant part of the Low Countries following a successful naval invasion and a popular rebellion, while its northern allies retook continental Denmark and the Spain had a land border with the remnants of Italy. By the beginning of the 2087 the Federations' forces were successfully pushed back from the Pact's territory, and the successful counterinvasion was launched. Republic of Spain and Republic of Portugal surrendered unconditionally six months before the official end of hostilities, while the Sweden and Norway did so two weeks before the official peace negotiations.
EASTERN EUROPEAN FRONT was where the outcome of the war was decided. Visehrad Alliance (part of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy) made a direct confrontation with the New Soviet Union (representing the Union of Progress and Freedom). The initial course of the war was a stalemate lasting until 2085, followed by a series of disastrous defeats of the Alliance. They were caused by both the growing numerical superiority of the Soviets and the end of hostilities on the Siberian Front where the Soviet Union steamrolled the Siberian and Far-Eastern Republics.
The Union planned to have the Soviets steamroll the continental Europe too, essentially repeating (successfully) the 1920' war. Soviets were to push through the Belarus, Ukraine and Poland, assaulting the Iron Pact's forces from the east, leading to Pact's collapse and establishment of ground connection between the European Federation and the Soviet Union. The rest of the war would be cleaning up the southern members of the Visehrad Alliance. This plan was slowed down the Alliance's 'Deal with the Devil' that allowed the Visehrad to move its entire forces east, and then derailed completely by the Day of Judgment counteroffensive.
With the Union possessing superiority in numbers (mostly due to industrial superiority caused by availability of free resources imported from space), the Alliance decided to put faith in cutting edge science. Numerous science projects were launched, all of them equally desparate and in a way repeating the Hitler's search for wunderwaffe. Unlike Hitler, however, the Alliance succeeded in achieving a number of breakthroughs that were enough to turn the tide. Mostly because the Alliance waited with using the new weapons until it possessed enough of the new equipment to make a change.
Day of Judgment was a counteroffensive that took full advantage of a large numbers of 1st generation AA laser batteries and magnetic weaponry. The result was a total rout of Soviet forces, which suffered devastating casualties during the first twenty-five hours of the battle - only then their high command finally understood the scale of the disaster and stopped counterattacking. Within this time more than six hundred combat aircrafts were shot down, and more than one thousand tanks were destroyed or abandoned, with no less fifteen divisions destroyed entirely, surrendering after being encircled or losing its combat ability.
The New Soviet Union war effort collapsed entirely. There was no longer war in the east, only a continuous, nightmarous massacre of the Union's forces. Fearing the repetition of the mistakes of the Napoleon and Hitler, the Alliance refused to enter Russia after pushing Soviet forces out of occupied territories of Belarus and Ukraine. Instead it took advantage of the devastating casualties sustained by the Russian airforce to initiate the three years long campaing of air raids. Power plants, dams, factories, and main communication hubs were systematically obliterated (together with airbases housing whatever remained of the Russian airforce), Thousands of bombs and missiles were deployed every day for almost nine hundred days. The resulting collapse of public morale and industry together with the humanitarian disaster effectively kicked the Soviet Union out of the war.
SIBERIAN FRONT was a shortlived desperate efforts of the Siberian and Far Eastern Republics (supported by the South Korea and the Japan) to avoids getting swallowed by the Soviet Union. These efforts were unsuccessful, and by the end of 2085 the Russia once again reached the Pacific Ocean. Plans of the ground invasion of Korea were delayed by the intensifying defense of the Visehrad Alliance and scrapped completely after the Day of Judgment. The result was the limited Alliance counteroffensive, with Japan and Korean forces retaking the eastern coast of Russia (effectively restoring the Far Eastern Republic). The plans to push into Siberia didn't come to fruition before the war ended.
PACIFIC FRONT was another secondary and mostly unimportant front. Majority of engagements on the Pacific Ocean occured between the forces of the South Korea, Japan and the Taiwanese Republic of China (representing the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy) and the Australia and New Zealand (representing the Union of Progress and Freedom), with the Alliance members simultaneously fighting the communist warlords of China and trying to keep the Siberian and Far Eastern Republics alive. A number of larger battles also occured in the east, between the fleets of the Alliance and the Western United States.
In the end, majority of the battles were either inconclusive or failed to yield significant territorial changes. Alliance won a minor strategic victory by keeping the local members of the Union from reinforcing its war efforts on the other continents.
Third World War Ends
2089, Inner Solar System
Third World War ended with a decisive victory of the Iron Pact and the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy. While Alliance lost the war on the Moon and spent years in a complete (and bloody) stalemate in North America and slightly less complete and bloody stalemate in the Pacific, it was the Europe that decided the outcome of war. The Soviet Union was kicked from the war, while the European Federation lost to the Iron Pact. It was a military and political disaster that the Union couldn't hope to recover from. The result was the peace talks, which started while the Union still had at least some cards in their hands.
NORTH AMERICA saw the United States reunited under the leadership of the former eastern United States. Texas Republic rejoined the US, but with a well-defined and expansive autonomy making it a country within a country. Former western United States was thoroughly 'decommunised', with hundreds of thousands of prisoners used as labour force for the reclamation effort of the ashen wasteland of the central United States. Canada was forced to pay large reparations, but avoided any border corrections.
WESTERN EUROPE become the playground of the Iron pact. Norway and Sweden were occupied and 'released' as Scandinavian Republic, under Pact's 'guidance'. Republic of Spain become another sattelite country of the Pact, and Catalonia and Basque Country failed to regain independence (which soon become a major source of tensions between the Pact and the Alliance). United Republic of Britain would have maintained its indepedence if not mass riots that soon turned into a civil war that the Pact intervened into. In the end Pact seized the Britain, Scotland and Wales, while the Northern Ireland was saved by timely annexation by the Ireland. Republic of Portugal was technically independent, but the Pact seized it few years after the peace treaty. Ireland avoided the same fate by joining the Alliance in 2092.
EASTERN EUROPE saw collapse of the Soviet Union. No border corrections were made, but millions of Russians left in Ukraine, Belarus and Baltic States were encouraged to emigrate back to Russia or the Republic of Kaliningrad that officially joined the Visehrad Alliance in the aftermath of the war. In exchange for allowing Russia to maintain its territories in the west the Visehrad demanded gigantic reparations in both money and works of arts that crippled Soviet' economy and national pride. Crippled, but not destroyed, as it turned out.
FAR EAST was mostly returned to the pre-war status quo, with some small differences. Australia and New Zealand were forced to pay large war reparations. Most of the communist warlords in China were defeated - most, but not all. The remaining warlords that hoped for the restoration of the PRC had their resources pooled together and began slowly gaining ground in the aftermath of the war. The remnants of North Korea regime (slowly decaying for years due to lack of China) are officially dismantled, beginning the process of reunification of Korea.
The largest change was the fact that the now-rebuild orbital elevator was seized by the Alliance, acting as the core source of the Alliance's post-war hegemony.
Lunar War
2090, Moon/Luna
The Union forces controlling the Moon refused to accept the outcome of the war and attempted to remain an independent enclave of the Union by threatening the Alliance and Pact with usage of the moon's gravity and magnetic rail systems to launch projectils at Earth. The bluff is called when the joint Alliance-Pact operation is conducted and within two weeks the forces of the Union on the Moon officially surrender. No projectiles were launch during that time.
The chaos and fundamental lack of stable political order was what defined the Days of Fire. In a way it was an interval between the post-Cold War system and the post-World War Three system, all its attrocities and disasters caused by how abrupt the ending of the old system was. The Third World War was what finally decided what the new world order was going to be. The victory of the Alliance safeguarded the market economies and preference for freedom over liberty.
As Lunar War was the last campaign of the Third World War, it is also considered the end of the Days of Fire.
Solar Expansion [2090-2160
General Description
The Solar Expansion was a period overshadowed by the renewed intensity of the space exploration, with Mankind reaching every corner and world of the Solar System... and staying permanently on some of them. it was also a period that once again teached the powers of Earth that only befriending, a successful compromise or a total destruction of the enemy can offer a lasting peace. And defeating enemy without destroying him will only came back to bite the victors down the road.
It was, after all, the time of Alliance total hegemony of Earth... and its painful end.
Events
Third Cold War starts
2091, Inner Solar System
Pact and Alliance had no love for each other. In fact, Alliance hated the Pact with passion much larger than the one fueling its hatred towards the Union. And the Pact hated the Union only slightly more than it hated the Alliance. The 'deal with the Devil' that the Alliance signed was purely temporary, as the Alliance needed a distraction to stop the European Federation and the Soviet Union from conquering the Euroasia.
As the Union of Progress and Freedom collapsed, the cooperation ended almost instantly. In fact the Alliance seriously considered invading the Pact and get rid of it once and for all right after the Union's surrender. Especially the Visehrad Alliance supported the idea, however in the end the wartime casualties were too large. With the APD' population wanting peace, the invasion plan was scrapped.
Pact quickly prove that it was a mistake. Basque Country and Catalonia were reabsorbed by the Republic of Spain, now a member of the Pact. What's more the Pact also invaded the Great Britain, seizing majority of the British Isles in the process. Neither of these actions were a part of the Alliance's plans, however in the end Pact's calculations were correct and the APD did nothing. It was simply too exhausted after the war.
The result was an another period of the de facto cold war, this time between the Alliance and the Pact. It was later on changed back into a three-sided Cold War when the Union of the Progress and Freedom reformed successfully. it was a period much less active than the former two cold wars, mostly due to Iron Pact's lack of presence outside of Europe. As a result, the Third Cold War was an economic competition and extraterrestrial rivalry between Pact and Alliance - until the reorganization of the Union, which heightened tensions.
Midwest Reclamation Project
2092-2104, United States
Sixty-seven years have passes since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. The ash was still there, but the real problem was the decimated biosphere, and general poisoning of the soil and water due to lack of human oversight over the collapsing infrastructure in the region. Chemical plants, storages of toxic materials and even two nuclear power plants ended up becoming a major source of poison that drained life from lands that used to house tens of millions of people.
Before the Third World War the central United States remained untouched for political reasons. Two governments were in tense rivalry over being the legal successor of the United States. Any attempt of either of them to expand onto the no-man's land was bound to cause furious protests of the other side. At least on two occasions mere talks of such initiatives were enough to cause international scandals which could have become the Third World War if the side responsible didn't back down.
The Third World War changed that. There was only one United States government, and even the Texas returned to the fold. This together with the 'free' labor force recruited from political enemies of the new United States made the reclamation project a feasible prospect. The first phase focused on the western half of the US' Midwest, started right after the war. It was an astounding success, despite repeated sabotages of the disgruntled work force and multiple accusations of violation of human rights accompanying the project.
These accusations - and the fact that the Alliance at large and the United States in particular ignored them - greatly contributed to the reorganization of the Union of Progress and Freedom few decades later.
Council of Nations established
2093, Worldwide
The United Nations ended in the same way as its predecessor, the League of Nations, in the darkest days of the Days of Fire. Unlike the LoN, however, no successor was established. The remains of the UN vegetated here and there, mostly focusing on small-scale humanitarian efforts and preservation of human heritage. In a way, it lost so much of its already weak pre-Days of Fire authority that nobody even bothered to officially dismantle it.
However with the Third World War ending, the need for a new international assembly become apparent. It was initially composed of the members of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy and a number of formerly neutral secondary countries (including the Israel, India, Indonesia and Mexico, and a number of lesser countries). While it remained dominated by the Alliance and its interests until the very beginning of the Fourth World War, it was eventually joined by the former members of the old Union of Progress and Freedom. Iron Pact members were never invited.
Council of Nations proved instrumental in stabilizing the political situation on Earth. Unlike the League of Nations and United Nations, CoN possessed the full authority of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy behind it, offering it certain level of universal respect.
First Full-Immersion VR
2094, Worldwide
The neural interface was the necessary first step in creation of a true connection between man and machine. The real holy grail of this research field was creation of a two-sided connection, allowing a computer to project sound, sight, and even smell and taste directly into one's mind.
The breakthrough allowing that was achieved in year 2094, creating the first true full-immersion Virtual Reality. It was first used not for the games, but as a powerful tool for psychiatric and psychological help for the veterans of the Third World War. Soon after that its uses expanded to general psychological care, and then, finally, the first games were created. The VR films follow suit.
Before the year 2100, the VR technology expands onto numerous fields. Unfortunately, the growing phenomena of people losing connection with Reality and retreating into increasingly complex worlds forces world's governments to enforce the limit on the immersion level, to ensure that he real world remains more real than the interactive VRs (non-interactive, so for example the VR films, remains unlimited).
Obviously the result is an addition of full-immersion interactive VRs to the long list of things prohibited, yet possible to obtain through contacts with criminal underworld. The VRs intentionally 'more real' than Reality are even more prohibited.
Italy Reunified
2095, Italian Peninsula
Italy remained decimated ever since the Phlegreian Fields eruption. The devastation was much lesser than the one caused by the Yellowstone supervolcano, but still substantial enough to break the country into a number of smaller and struggling communities, with the Italian population dropping from sixty millions to twenty, with further ten millions leaving on exile overseas.
The situation, however, was slowly improving overtime, and the various small countries of the Peninsula were slowly developing back from the state of decimated third world. The great help on that field was international aid, originally provided mostly by the Catholic Church who had a lot of vested interest in Italy.
With the Iron Pact suddenly growing stronger, italian countries felt threatened. This forced them to reunite, with the helpful mediation of the Church and offers of large scale aid from the Visehrad Alliance. The result was the reunification of Italy and creation of the Italian Federation.
The Visehrad Alliance provided the aid, its scale improving overtime as the Alliance's economy recovered after the damages and casualties of the Third World War. The result was a successful reclamation of the most decimated territories. By the year 2110 the Italy become a relatively stable country, poorer than its regional counterparts but not by a large degree.
Extraterrestrial Agriculture begins
2096, Worldwide
A number of technological breakthroughs allowed for a sudden expansion of extraterrestrial agriculture. On one side, it was caused by a boom on efficient aeroponics, requiring a minuscule fraction of water needed for traditional agriculture or hydroponics. On another, by the diamagnetic technology becoming cheaper and cheaper, allowing the farms to be constructed away from Earth in a state of simulated gravity.
While far from inexpensive, the food produced on craft and stations was more economical and easier on the interplanetary logistics. The result is the opening of the Outer Solar System for exploration, and the swift multiplication of Inner Solar System' traffic.The even more important change is the increasingly fast expansion of the extraterrestrial settlements, starting from the ones on Earth's Moon - every one of them could now easily replenish the food supply of a ship passing by them, allowing vessels to carry more cargo.
Without being restrained by the need to deliver a majority of food in order to feed the population of the colony (while feeding it in the most austere way, naturally), the extraterrestrial settlements could finally expand into something worth being called a 'city'. Of course, there was also a downside - the prospect of self-sufficiency in space let to a slow growth of separatist movements throughout the Solar System.
Aurora Disaster
2097, Earth's Orbit
The issue of trash littering the Earth's orbit was a problem for decades, however it was never pressing enough to warrant a major action. The lack of orbital activity during the bad years of the Days of Fire delayed this problem from blooming. The later space race changed a lot, as with major presence in space, recycling of parts of deactivated sattelites become an option. However ships still suffered small damages from fast-flying trash from time to time.
Each such event added a bit more trash. The destruction of three spaceships on the orbit during the Union assault on the Alliance' orbital station worsened situation further, and rather drastically so. The slowly progressing development of Kessler' Syndrome (a scenario where Mankind's is confined to Earth's surface due to fast flying trash on the orbit destroying any spaceship attempting to leave the planet) was brought to popular attention in year 2097.
It was, obviously, caused by a disaster large enough to draw people's attention. The APD's passenger vessel Aurora was hit by a large chunk of trash while approaching the Alliance's orbital station. The resulting decompression (and general structural failure of the ship) killed thirty seven people, and forced Mankind to finally take a stance.
The result is a major clean-up operation lasting almost a decade which, together with a much more strict regulations on keeping Earth's orbit clean, managed to stop Kessler' Syndrome scenario from fully realizing.
Hephaestus Station Constructed
2098, Moon/Luna's Orbit
The Third World War proved that focusing your starship manufacture on Earth's orbit is a potentially dangerous idea, with enemies being capable of visiting you when you don't expect that. The result on the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy's side was the creation of new space shipyard.
The Hephaestus Station was assembled on the Luna's orbit. The entire complex for a while remained the largest Mankind's extraterrestrial construction effort. It included three main elements. First one was the Hephaestus Station itself, a large modular construction easy to expand in the future but already capable of constructing four starships in closed docks at once. The docks were only constructing the ship's framework, with the finishing work typically done outside - the demand for new ships was simply that large.
The second element was the planetary installation acting as massive storage area, and a processing facility for minerals and metals mined from the asteroids together with a growing number of factories producing parts from said materials. Later on this part also included a small city, and a growing aeroponics farm. And the third element are not one but two space elevators (much easier to construct on low-gravity world such as Luna) - one used to lift parts and other resources from the planetary installation to the Hephaestus Station, and the other used to efficiently transport ore from the cargo vesels.
The result was a sudden expansion of the Mankind's presence in the Solar System. This is the true beginning of the large scale exploration and settlement of the Solar System.
New Berlin base established
2102, Jupiter Subsystem
The Iron Pact failed to participate in space race prior to the Third World War due to being contained in a small part of a single continent of Earth, and due to being embargoed by absolutely everyone. This changed to a limited degree when Pact expanded, making it
slightly more self-sufficient.
As the hyperradical politics of early Pact grew lax, the entire bloc slowly switched from genocidal neonazism into militaristic and imperialistic fascism. This slowly weakened its international isolation. It was still hated by the Union and in fierce with the Alliance, but for the first time in its history it was capable of projecting it power outside of Earth.
Pact decided to expand into space in one, powerful sweep, while simultaneously moving into the only place that wasn't yet claimed by the Alliance. The result was a one-way journey, as the small colonization fleet of the Pact had enough of fuel to reach Jupiter, but not enough to return safely. If the colonization failed, they would have to ask Alliance for help or send more ships. However it didn't fail. The result was first permanent settlement in the Outer Solar System, with the Iron Pact establishing the New Berlin colony on Europa, the moon of Jupiter. With the Europa's orbit being a bit unstable, the outermost Jupiter moon of Himelia was also settled and changed into the combination of shipyard, refueling station, and transport hub.
The Pact began funnelling a lot of funds and people into the Jupiter subsystem, establishing new settlements on Ganymede (2104), Io (2106) and Kallisto (2107). With limited ability to resupply the colony from Earth, Pact does everything it can do to keep its colonies as self-sufficient as possible. As the result, the entire Jupiter subsystem changes into the Pact's domain.
Treaty of Dublin
2104, Ireland
The process of mining asteroids was steadily intensifying for decades. Alliance held monopoly, but now the new competitor arrived in the form of the Iron Pact. What's more, the Union wasn't fully annihilated, as while it lost its lunar colony, the Progress station on Earth's orbit remained active and still serviced whatever remained of the former Union members' space programs.
Alliance decided to establish an internationally-recognized legal framework for the space exploitation, resulting in the signing of the Treaty of Dublin - officially under the auspices of the Council of Nations, but also including all space-capable countries from those existing outside of the Council.
The asteroid belt is divided between the signatories, the Iron Pact receiving disproportionately small part of it - causing yet another small political crisis. Besides the crisis the treaty also opens a new age of mass asteroid mining. The resource import quota stabilizes the Earth's planetary economy, which kept being (often violently) rocked by every new asteroid mine and every sufficiently large shipment.
The last part created a longterm program of moving especially dangerous or polluting industries outside of Earth, initially mostly to the Moon. Naturally it was a very limited program that only worked for industries producing sufficiently valuable products, however as the space presence of Mankind expanded, the program did just as well.
Missile War
2104, Europe
The Iron Pact wasn't happy with the Treaty of Dublin, or at least the size of its share of the cake. With the Visehrad Alliance counted among the most active opponents of the Pact during the negotiations, it should be no surprise that the political crisis resulting from that that issue was mostly focused on the border between the Pact and the Visehrad Alliance.
A small artillery strike on a military installation near the border quickly evolved into a prolonged military engagement throughout the entire Pact/Alliance border. No ground forces participated directly. Alliance responded to Pact's provocation with artillery counterstrike, and so the Pact responded with more artillery and missiles. Soon aircraft were involved.
The result was a two weeks long indirect warfare resulting in large devastation of the area surrounding the border between the two alliances, few thousand dead civilians and military personnel, and seventy-two shot down aircrafts. It was also one of the last cases of a aircraft used for ground assault, as the steady improvement of atmospheric laser AA batteries began outperforming the steady improvement of anti-laser armor materials that were light enough to be used in atmosphere.
The Fourth World War is narrowly averted by diplomatic means, but the Pact's share of the asteroid belt is expanded by twenty percent. The Visehrad Alliance officially severed diplomatic relations with the Pact, changing the border between the two alliances into a heavily fortified hotspot on the world's map, with military incidents and skirmishes occuring regularly for several decades.
Treaty of Pekin
2106, China
Seventy years of political split and internecine warfare between warlords has decimated the former People's Republic of China. The pandemics, famine, warfare and successful secessions reduced the China population from the 1,4 billion in 2025 to seven hundred million in year 2100. Naturally, this had to stop.
Treaty of Pekin was a truce between a number of non-communist warlords and both the Taiwan and Henan governments. It calmed down and stabilized a significant part of China, opening the possibility for future reunification or at the very least rebuilding what was destroyed and attempting to make China internationally relevant again.
The most important result of the treaty was a slow process of an integration of warlord domains' into the three major competing powers of the former China: the two Republics of China in Henan and Taiwan, and the slowly merging group of communist warlords in the north, which were planning to reorganize the People's Republic of China. The biggest weakness of this group was its revanchist plans, making countries such as Tibet, Sinciang and Mongolia funnel funds into the warlords fighting against the communism.
Pacific Northwest Reclamation Project
2106-2112, United States
The Midwest Reclamation Project ended as an astounding success, with the large territories of the United States restored to life and filled with idyllic, ideal and arcology-based settlements. Of course, this was built on the back of slave labor of political prisoners, causing inexhaustible ammount of scandals and political issues.
In the end, the political prisoners were officially decided to be 'successfully rehabilitated' and moved away, with the future Reclamation Projects based on work of decently paid professionals. What's more, the new goverment of the United States decided to try to appease the disgruntled West by focusing the second stage of the Reclamation there.
The Pacific Northwest is successfully reclaimed by the end of 2112, and repopulated mostly with surplus population of the former Western United States. This fails to appease the WUS' loyalists while simultaneously strengthening them by doubling the territory controlled by them and causing a decade long economic boom that brought the former WUS lands back to its pre-WW3 economic and political power.
Second Treaty of Dublin
2110, Ireland
The First Treaty of Dublin failed to fully quell the political troubles surrounding the ongoing space expansion. The result was the need to establish a second treaty, this time one much more straightforward. While the first one tried to establishing asteroid mining zones and laws concerning the transport of resources back to Earth, the second one cut the Solar System into a number of spheres of influence.
MERCURY was a place that interested absolutely noone, resulting in the entire planet being set as an 'mandate' of the Council of Nations. A number of small settlements were placed there, almost uniformly scientific bases focused on observing the Sun from close distance. Recurrent gossips suggested some of these bases to be secret research labs or even prisons maintained by the countries of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy, however no conclusive proof was ever published.
VENUS was handed out to the former countries of the Union of Progress and Freedom, mostly as a consolation prize. It was also hoped that keeping them relatively happy with their international position would stop them from contesting the post-WW3 world order, with the Alliance not sure if it could face right-wing and left-wing radicals at once. Soon a number of outposts was established on Venus, changing the planet into a central hub of post-Union space presence.
LUNA saw notable changes. A number of less important areas of the moon are handed to the still remaining countries of the Union. The largest part goes to the New Soviet Union, but Canada, Australia and even the Socialist Republic of Greece receive at least some small parts of the Earth's natural satelite. In the end, 1/5 of the Moon was ceded to the former Union, but its colonies were to remain demilitarized. 1/20 of it was handed to the Basque Country and Catalonia' governments in-exile.
MARS remained the bastion of the Alliance. While the Hephaestus Station remained the focal point of APD's extraterrestrial activity, Mars wasn't far behind. It was divided between the United States, Republic of Brazil, Visehrad Alliance, Japan, South Korea, and joint colonies of the Siberian and Far Eastern Republics.
JUPITER was to become the stronghold of the Iron Pact in the years to follow. No country attempted to confront the fascists over that, as the territories of the Outer Solar System were of little interest to anyone. Alliance was in fact genuinely happy that the accursed Pact kept its space exploration far away from Earth.
The general idea was sound, and in fact succeeded in negating a number of international issues - enough to be considered by future historians as the last part of the post-WW3 clean-up and stabilization of the Alliance-dominated political system. However the situation began steadily worsening as time went on.
The biggest problem was the long period of relative peace and development on Earth. The economy grew - in a much more equal way than in the past - and the technologies developed. Soon more and more countries achieved ability to join the space exploration, for example Indonesia, Italy, United Shia Republic, South Africa, Argentina, and Mexico. Other countries changed their long-term priorities and started looking into space (for example Israel and India).
All this countries found no place for themselves in the Solar System, causing the problems the Alliance was facing to multiply. In fact the Second Treaty of Dublin was one of the major reasons behind the Fourth World War starting, as disproportionately large part of the raising powers sided with the enemies of the Alliance.
Cerebral Implants
2112, Worldwide
Cybernetic technology continued improving in the meantime, finally resulting in a creation of the first cerebral implant - a 'deep' brain implant capable of doing more than just simulating outside stimuli. Implants were already a thing, however Mankind encountered numerous setbacks with creation of true cerebral implants. The earlier full-VR worked on the basis of a small network of implants located in nerve clusters approaching the brain (for example the optical nerves for simulating view).
Finally, however, first successful cerebral implants were created. The first usage was, obviously, medical. A number of cerebral implants capable of altering one's thought patterns were developed, opening a completely new field in the psychiatry. Then a slightly stranger ideas were developed, such as memory alteration of the terminally ill patients, allowing them to pass away without remembering bad parts of their life. Then the ethical issues and the fear of the cerebral implants' ability for de facto brainwashing sunk the entire technology.
By the year 2120 the cerebral implants were almost completely banned, save for a few key mental diseases that were seen as terrible enough to warrant a small exception. It was one of the few cases when the Alliance and former Union members actually agreed. Pact had more doubts and it was believed to still use this category of implants for interrogation and occasional brainwashing.
Mountain West Reclamation Project
2114-2137, United States
With the Pacific Northwest successfully restored to the fold, the time has come for the most troublesome part of the United States' reclamation project - the Mountain West. It was where the Yellowstone erupted - in the north, but the ash choked the south part of it almost as bad, due to winds blewing that way.
The United States was finally ready to tackle that problem, establishing a proper connection between the West and East halfs of the country. The initial focus was the southern, less destroyed part - this process was essentially over by 2020. The real problem was the northern part, especially the lands surrounding the former Yellowstone.
The numerous setbacks caused by growing internal dissent between the two halfs of the US delayed the second half of the project until the outbreak of the Fourth World War, leaving the Mountain West Reclamation unfinished until the Solar Commonwealth's era.
Electromagnetic Breakthroughs
2115-2119, United States
The magnetic force was already employed in a number of ways, forming the backbone of the space expansion for decades. The technology was however primitive, extremely power-hungry and generally all but efficient. It began changing in the 2110s, when a number of major breakthroughs massively improved the technology.
The result of the technology was a number of lesser developed. First Non-Nuclear EMP was created in year 2115, improving the arsenals of the various countries of the world. First generation of anti-starship railguns was developed in year 2117, offering a massive improvement in firepower - the breakthrough finally made the rounds fast enough to actually make them accurate on such distances without melting the ship's reactor.
In 2118 the recent developments allowed the creation of first true inertia dampeners, allowing ship to maintain a cohesive and long-term acceleration of around 2,5g, with short burts approaching 5g, without any effects on people in items in inertia-proofed decks. And finally, the first magnetic shield capable of deflecting solid rounds was created in year 2119. The result was creation of first dedicated warship, which left the Hephaestus' station in year 2123.
This also allowed the expansion of simulated gravity areas in extraterrestrial settlements, improving quality of life in the colonies.
Siberian Civil War
2120-2121, Russia
The Siberian Republic was the sick man of the Alliance for many years. The Third World War decimated it. What's more, the question of whether Siberians were Siberians or Russians was still unaswered, causing an increasing strife between the siberian nationalists and the russian loyalists.
The result was the slowly brewing conflict that finally erupted in year 2120. The civil war was relatively short and not particularly bloody - in fact it was often seen as civil in more ways than one. The result was a victory of the loyalists, as the nationalist support' waned quickly. The result was a political crisis that began the starting point of the decline of the Alliance' hegemony.
Loyalists weren't fully happy with the current Soviet government, resulting in no serious talks of reunification - at least not yet. However the Alliance reacted adversely to the very idea, alienating the new government (especially the Visehrad Alliance and the eastern republics - South Korea and Japan were hostile to it). The even worse move was the Alliance' acceptance of the remnants of the siberian nationalist government in its extraterrestrial colony.
The result was the sudden weakening of the political image of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy (and the Council of Nations) resulting in growing political instability.
Korea Reunited
2122, Korean Peninsula
North Korea was in a precarious situation for decades. It lost the support from China when the People's Republic of China self-annihilated in the wake of the Red Death Plague. It remained in the state of perpetual collapse for several decades, saved from conquest by South Korea only by the fact that their neighbour wasn't faring particularly well. With ailing economy, attempting to reabsorb territory as poor as the North Korea was a suicide.
Overtime the North Korea' regime was forced to change. By the time of the World War III, the North Korea was slowly developing itself towards much less self-isolated country that it was in the past. In fact, it attempted to join the Union of Progress and Freedom, and wasn't accepted only due to rather bad background and how poor it was - it was seen as an attempt to get more international aid. It saved the North Korea from being squashed during the war.
By year 2120, the North Korea was pretty much a severely outdated and poor socialist country on the verge of becoming a democratic socialist country. The economy was slowly developing, as its self-isolation ended together with the Kim dynasty (now reviled as totalitarian madmen) and the global economic situation. Finally, the decision was made to finally reunite Korea, on both sides at once.
The result is the United Republic of Korea, which is a country in two widely different halves but with joint military and government. Economic ties grew, however the Korea's participation in the Alliance was limited from that point onward, as the North half of the country felt more connection with the former Union.
Eastern Russia unites
2124, Eastern Russia
Following the Russian loyalist victory in the Siberian Civil War, the Far Eastern and Siberian Republics turned back to their Russian roots. It was still part of the Alliance and a democratic (if slightly authoritarian) country, feeling no connection with the ailing and slowly collapsing Soviet regime in the west. However, they were Russians stills.
The result of this was the Far Eastern and Siberian Republics uniting into the Republic of Russia. Soviet Union, obviously, doesn't like it but can do little to stop it at this point. Especially as members of the Alliance' welcome the new political change, seeing it as a counter to both the Soviet Union and the potential threat of the slowly reorganizing China.
The post-WW3 political was slowly but surely changing, with majority of the changes thus far being favourable for the Alliance... which was going to change soon enough.
August Revolution in the Soviet Union
2125, Russia
The creation of a completely new Russian state was a final straw that broke the camel's back. Soviet Union was recovering economically from the devastation of the Third World War, but the political recovery was nowhere to be seen. It was utterly humiliated by both the APD and the massive pillage of art pieces in the aftermath of the war. And now, a completely new Russia was created.
The frequently changing (due to schemes and changes in power) neocommunist governments failed to receive any public trust. The process reached its peak in 2124, with seven short-lived governments coming and going in the span of a single year. The results were mass riots. Military step in to restore order... only to instead storm the governmental buildings.
The result of the August Revolution is the Soviet Union remaining Soviet Union, but switching from hardline neocommunism into a hardline militant socialism. The political switch was swift and mostly painless, though the resulting reforms weren't so. However the new governments regain the public trust and the Soviet Union economy was already mostly restored to its pre-WW3 state. As the result, the Soviet Union returned to position as a major power in the world.
Marx Station constructed
2126, Venus Subsystem
The Venus was handed to the former Union members as a consolation prize. And while they lacked the drive and political cohesiveness of the Iron Pact, the former Union decided to take full-advantage of this gift. As a result, the construction of the Marx Station on the Venus' orbit was initiated.
Marx Station was finally finished in 2125. It was the largest orbital station, surpassing even the Haephestus Station (though mostly because of Venus' surface being less welcoming and everything having to be built on the orbit). It is a military fortress, shipyard, massive storage area and a small orbital city with close to 10 000 permanent inhabitants. The fact that it was built from the scratch with newly found powers of magneticism in mind was a great factor in making its construction possible.
The construction of Marx Station changed the space part of the Solar Expansion era into a three-side rivalry between the former (and soon to be reanimated) Union, Pact and Alliance.
Union of Progress and Freedom Restored
2127, Solar System
Countries of the former Union of Progress and Freedom were slowly reorganizing themselves ever since the conclusion of the Third World War, taking advantage of Alliance' attempts of reconciliation hopes of establishing an anti-Pact coalition and of the Alliance' newly-found complacency. The process was lengthy and complicated... and then the Autumn Revolution started.
With the Soviet Union quickly regaining its power and with its politics aligned with slightly more relatable socialism (rather than highly divisive neocommunism) it has become a perfect focal point of the UPF' attempts of reorganization. Soon an official conference was called, and to horror of Alliance' and Pact's leadership it resulted in reorganization of the Union of Progress and Freedom.
The Soviet Union was swiftly joined by the former members of the Union - the Socialist Republics of Greece, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The UPF however also gained a number of new members, replacing those lost permanently in the wake of the Third World War. The list of its new members included Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, and the United Shia Republic - while not socialist, these countries were increasingly left-leaning and decided to take advantage of the Union's ability to expand into space, with the Alliance denying them the option for that.
Blocs Expand
2127-2137, Solar System
With the sudden Union of Progress and Freedom reappearance and expansion, the Alliance and Pact were forced to rapidly adapt to the new geopolitical situation. With the space exploration being a powerful bargaining chip, all three power blocs engaged in desperate efforts to persuade as many secondary powers into joining them as possible.
Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy managed to persuade Italian Federation (in 2128), despite fierce competition from the Union's side. They also gain the cooperation from the Israel and its puppet regimes (in 2130), the Central American Alliance (2131) and the Pakistan (2132). Iron Pact succeeds in persuading the increasingly totalitarian New Islamic Caliphate into signing an alliance (in 2131), the Central African Federation (in 2132) and the revanchist Republic of Turkey (in 2033). The Union of Progress and Freedom succeeds in adding the Republic of India (2129), and the Carribean Federation (2130).
The last changes to the rooster before the Fourth World War was the Korea withdrawing from the Alliance and announcing its neutrality (2136), changes in the China following the collapse of reunification negotiations, and the Equador signing military alliance with the Union of Progress and Freedom in hopes of regaining control of its coast strip housing the orbital elevator (2136).
Wall of Reason Theory created
2129, Solar System
The technological progress regained its speed after the first half of the Days of Fire, which continue on until the end of the first half of the Solar Expansion. Now however an increasing ammount of scientific researches were getting stalled, with no obvious reason for that - and even the steadily growing funding didnt' seem to change a lot.
Numerous theories were made to explain it, from coincidence to secret pact between world's scientists in order to coerce larger budgets for the research in all of the world's countries. The theory of the 'Wall of Reason' was created as well, explaining the problem with the increased dissociation between the Mankind's intelligence level and the intelligence level needed to comprehend further technological developments.
According to the Wall of Reason theory, the Singularity wasn't going to occur without Mankind somehow improving itself. The difficulty level of future discoveries grew faster than Mankind's intellectual capabilities, essentially slowing the development down. The idea of constructing smart robots to create smarter robots to create the smartest robots that could create an even better technology beyond human intelligence also wasn't an option, simply because Mankind wasn't smart enough to create sufficiently smart robot to start the robotic chain to Singularity.
The Wall of Reason theory was, much later, changed into the Wall of Faith theory, as the developments of the Solar Commonwealth' and War of Purity' era prove that there was more to the issue than mere human' stupidity.
Russia Reunites
2132, Russia
The Russian Republic and the Soviet Union were both Russian countries. One was a militant socialist authoritarian regime, and one was a vaguely socialdemocratic and regime. Alliance didn't expect anything more to happen on that front, as the both countries were still notably different.
Instead, the Russian Republic decided that it was more Russian than democratic, and suddenly started strengthening its ties with the Soviet Union. Of course, the process wasn't a true annexation - it was something that was expected to happen within several decades at best. However the Republic officially left the Alliance, entered a two-sided military alliance with the Soviet Union. Both sides began to prepare for the longterm project of making themselves more similar to each other.
In the end, the former Russian Republic was to become an autonomous area (actually autonomous, unlike various autonomous regions of the old Russian Federation), mostly self-governed but with its armed forces dismantled once the reunification process is finally finished.
The result of this event was a total panic on the Alliance' side, Korea leaving the Alliance, and the fact that the explosion of the Fourth World War become an obvious thing to absolutely everyone. With the Russia reunification happening, all three power blocs ramped up their fervent military preparations.
Chinese Reunification Halts
2134, China
The talks of reuniting China intensified right after the reunification of Russia. To a (slight) surprise of the world, the talks suddenly broke due to political differences between the successors of the People's Republic of China and of the 'old' Taiwanese Republic of China. The result is a prolonged cold war between two main competitors.
The northern China was controlled by the remaining communist warlords. Their alliance has recreated People's Republic of China under military junta-style government, their forces soon receiving support from the Soviet Union to the north. The PRC eventually joined the Union of Progress and Freedom soon after their competitors joined the Alliance, making their allegiance officials.
The southern China was born of the alliance between the two governments calling themselves the Republic of China - one in former Henan province of the PRC and one from the Taiwan. Once joined with a number of remaining southern warlords, the result was the creation of the Chinese Federation. With the PRC receiving almost open support of the Union, the Chinese Federation decided to eventually join the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy, which occured in the year 2136.
Fourth World War
2137-2145, Solar System
Forth World War happened due to several crucial miscalculations of the Alliance. The first one was that it allowed the Iron Pact to grow in strength too much - had the Alliance invaded the weak Pact right after the Third War ended, it could have cause its early demise. In fact, some members of the Alliance proposed that (especially the members of the Visehrad Alliance that weren't rolled through by Soviet tanks), but most of the members preferred to focus on rebuilding.
The second one was that when the Pact began growing in strength, Alliance attempted to counter that by rehabilitating surviving members of the Union. Rather than making them suddenly like the Alliance and cooperate with it against the Pact, it made the Union resurface. The third mistake was not leaving space for emerging powers in the Second Treaty of Lisbon, which in turn made them much more likely to pick the alliances that contested the post-WW3 world order.
The war started due to a political crisis caused by Union of Progress and Freedom deploying a large air force and a numerous missile systems in Equador, overlooking the orbital elevator controlled by the Alliance. The demand to stand down and remove this forces resulted in regular military engagement, which escalated into an open war.
The Alliance possessed a massive superiority in industrial power and financial situation due to wealth gained during the long years of the interwar period. Their technology was much better as well. Eventually, however, the casualties and sheer number of opposing countries began to whittle down Alliance' might.
SOLAR FRONT was dominated by an early all-out assault of the Pact's fleet that took the Alliance and Union' forces offguard. The Pact's military build-up in the Jupiter subsystem turned out to be much larger than anyone expected. For the first two years of the war Pact had an initiative in space. Eventually, however, Union and Alliance' decided to cooperate temporarily in space. Pact's invasion on Mars was repelled, its fleets were scattered, and finally the Alliance attacked and occupied the Himelia station, essentially knocking the Pact out of the war in space.
The extraterrestrial hostilities between the Alliance and Union were resumed, but the Alliance' assault on Marx Station ended with Union' victory. What's more, the ground invasion of the Pact colonies in the Jupiter subsystem would be hell. In the meantime, the Union lacked space presence significant enough to push the Alliance out of Mars and Luna (where the Union' colonies were quickly subjugated once the war started, despite them possessing entire arsenals of weaponry and equipment that shouldn't be there).
Alliance dominated the Solar System, but failed to achieve the final victory there.
WESTERN EUROPEAN FRONT saw confrontation between the Visehrad Alliance and the Iron Pact. Fierce battles were waged on the ground, in the air, and on the Baltic Sea through the entire war, with no significant successes on either side. Both sides have spend the entire time that passed since the Third World War on digging in, changing the whole area into a heavily fortified border zone. With numerous AA batteries keeping aircrafts at bay and shooting down missiles, the forts had to be assaulted with only the artillery as a support.
This front saw what was de facto first positional warfare ever since the conclusion of the First World War. The fortifications allowed the Visehrad to focus majority of their force in the east, preventing it from getting squashed.
SOUTHERN EUROPEAN FRONT saw the Italy successfully hold against the forces of the Pact... for a while. The mountainous region wasn't enough of a trump card, resulting with the Pact essentially occupying majority of the Italy before the end of the war. In the very same time the Socialist Republic of Greece was engaged by the forces of the Republic of Turkey, an ally of the Iron Pact.
Greece' eventual defeat was staved off by the Visehrad focused on its western and eastern front, and the Turkey also being engaged in heavy fighting on the Middle-Eastern Front. This couldn't remain forever, and before the year 2139 the Constantinople fell, and by the year 2142 the Turkey succeeded in seizing the Greek Islands and landing on the continental Greece. By year 2142 the SRG was essentially kept alive only by the Russian reinforcements arriving through nominally neutral Bulgaria. By year 2145 the entirety of Greece was occupied, as Russia was forced to pull out of the region.
EASTERN EUROPEAN FRONT saw a slightly less destructive repetition of the events from the World War III. Soviet Union attempted to steamroll the Visehrad Alliance with masses of tanks, infantry and airplanes. Once again, this failed, but without a decisive victory such as the Day of Judgment.
The whole campaign was a war of attrition, with Alliance' central position allowing it to juggle reserves between the western and eastern frontlines. Majority of Ukraine and Belarus fell, and so did the Baltic States (again). Union's armies were also forced to bolster the Southern European and Chinese fronts. What's more its demographic and industrial might was also severely limited by past wars and at best moderate demographic trends lasting ever since the end of the First Cold War.
Eventually, the war ended.
ASIAN FRONT was a mess. Alliance domination of the region crumbled before the war even started. Union maintained the initative for majority of the war, as a result. The fiercest battles were waged in Japan, China and Southeast Asia. Pact lacked any sort of presence in the region, making the whole area being fought by the Alliance and the Union.
Soviet Union' invasion of Japan was eventually repelled after three years of constant military engagements. It left Japan drained and economically devastated, and was also responsible for draining a notable part of military assets of the United States, as without the US intervention the Union would have defeated the Japan.
In China the Soviet Union reinforced the People's Republic of China in its attempt to march south and reunite the China. The Chinese Federation replied in force, holding ground thanks to the reinforcements from the United States and, later on, Japan. This war was waged simultaneously to numerous naval engagements between the eastern Alliance members, and combined fleets of India, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia.
The casualties were horrible on both sides - it was in Asia that the fiercest and bloodiest battles were fought. What saved the Chinese Federation was the Soviet Union's participation in the east waning as its reserves were bloodied out, and the Pakistan engaging majority of India's ground armies. This together with growing infighting had the People's Republic of China de facto collapse by the year 2143.
With this, the Alliance victory in the region was certain, however ruinous to all of the victorious countries.
NORTH AMERICAN FRONT saw the United States fight Canada, Mexico and Alaska. It would normally end with swift victory of the United States, which while no longer a superpower was still a notable power, however the situation was slightly more complicated. The USA was forced to reinforce Alliance' members in the Asia, Central America, Southern America and, to a point, Africa - it was, in short, the source of the Alliance' strategic reserves.
What's more, the sheer length of the borders it had to cover made defense a complicated issue. The successful US offensives seized large territories early on in the war, while simultaneously forcing the country to send more and more soldiers in order to suppress the guerilla warfare. And if that wasn't enough, the riots bordering on open revolution kept drawing the US attention to the former territories of the Western United States.
In the end, United States won the war against Canada and Mexico, but failed to win the resulting peace. The United States collapsed soon after the war ended.
CENTRAL AMERICAN FRONT was a secondary battlefront, where the Cuba-led socialist-communist Carribean Federation engaged the Central American Alliance in a prolonged war filled with naval engagements and the occasional landing on various small isles of the region. What eventurally crushed the Central American Alliance was the fact that it was bordering with the Union member to the north (the Mexico). Mexico send only a relatively small amount of forces south, but it was enough to have the CAA collapse around year 2142.
SOUTHERN AMERICAN FRONT saw Brazilia face Argentina and continue winning, until a number of other countries in the region (including Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Venezuela) decided to curb the Brazilian' obvious growth into the Southern American hegemon. With these countries already sympathetic towards the Union, the process of joining the UPF was swift. The Brazil managed to delay the offensive with the United States' support, successfully collapsing the Argentina, occupying Uruguay and Paraguay, and weakening the other coalition members, but eventually Brazil' war effort collapsed due to economic crisis and wartime casualties.
The Union forces stationed in the Ecuador succeeded in seizing the orbital elevator early on in the war. Alliance attempted to retake it thrice, each resulting battle counted as one of the most fierce battles of the war. All attemps failed, allowing Union to retain control of the elevator. However the UPF also failed to take full advantage of their control over the elevator, due to the Alliance' base on Luna allowing it to control the space surrounding Earth, essentially blockading it from the Union's space traffic.
MIDDLE EAST FRONT was a relatively fierce battlefront between the Union-aligned United Shia Republic, Pact-aligned Turkey and Islamic Caliphate, and Alliance-aligned Israel and its sattelites. The first phase of the war was the Caliphate fighting the United Shia Republic in the east, and the Israel fighting the Turkey in the west.
The result of the first stage of this war was the United Shia Republic' collapse, and a bloody stalemate in the west. The Pact's victory in the region would be certain if the Caliphate assisted the Turkey - but instead, the Caliphate officially left the Pact's rooster and assaulted both the Republic of Turkey and the Israel. The battle was long and bloody, and saw the Israel and Turkey actually cooperate. In the end, the Caliphate crushed Turkey (rendering its victory in Greece moot) but the Israel managed to maintain its territorial cohesiveness - mostly because the Caliphate's war fatigue reached its peak.
INDIA FRONT saw Pakistan and India engaging in a conventional repetition of the Kashmir War. India succeded in defeating the Pakistan (opening it to Caliphate's influences after the war), but it took it several years. India was drained, and the Indian Front made it unable to seriously assist the Union's war effort in Asia.
Fourth World War Ends
2145, Solar System
The Fourth World War has ended - but not officially. By the end of the 2145 very few of the participating governments maintained an ability to continue their war efforts. The war ended, because there's no one left to continue it. Casualties, public dissent and the economic drain has succeeded where the armies and diplomats didn't.
With the leadership of the Alliance, Union and the Pact in the state of the collapse, the member-states of the three alliances quickly began signing separate peace treaties with the countries they were fighting with for last several years. There was a number of territorial and political changes that happened immediately after the end of the war, but the largest problem (and source of largest changes) was the subsequent general collapse.
The era of relative stability brought by the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy's domination after the end of the Third World War has come to an official end.
The Solar Crash
2145, Solar System
The Solar Crash was the grandmother of all economic and financial crises. It was caused by the war and the financial drain that it was on the countries and companies participating in it. It's arrival was obvious at least since the later 2144, however rather than cease hostilities in preparation for it, most countries made last desperate attempts to achieve victory before it was going to hit. Obviously it only worsened the resulting crash.
Financial crisis happened because countries fighting the war spend so much money on expensive military hardware and payouts for the soldiers. Debt swiftly spiralled out of control, and with the only slightly less painful debts from the Third World War still mostly unpaid the results were terrifying. Country after country went bankrupt.
What's worse, the the bankruptcy of countries also began bankrupting companies, especially those who kept doing things for last few years while geting paid in notes indicating a share in post-war reparations paid from the defeated enemies (the very fact that such methods were used says a lot about the late-4WW desperation of the war participants). This expanded the financial crisis into a general economic one.
In the end it was an absolute disaster... however a temporary one. After merely two years the situation reached its deepest point, and after four years it started improving. However, it was already too late for many countries. And even then, Earth didn't reach its pre-war production level (and GDP) until around 2160.
Autumn of Nations starts
2145, Worldwide
Autumn of Nations was the result of the process that continued on ever since the end of the Culturcide. One long-term enough for most to not notice it. With the World Wide Web increasingly fragmented and a revival of national cultures, majority of the countries got increasingly decentralized. Culturally, that is, as the political changes failed to adapt to that properly. As a result for example Gasconians or Occitanians saw themselves as French to only a limited a degree, and one secondary in standing to their regional identity.
The process finally reach its conclusion in the aftermath of the Fourth World War, as the powers of the world weakened to the point where suppressing separatist movements that seem to show up anywhere was simply impossible. The result was the Autumn of Nations that successfully sunk numerous old countries, replacing them with vastly more numerous (and small) countries, their borders often set accordingly to the borders of relatively small cultural differences.
This process was long-termly beneficial, as it successfully quelled majority of military adventurism, as countries were simply too small to achieve a lot on that field. However the collapse went too far, and many fragmented regions ended up reorganizing themselves as a form of various, often large, federation or confederations - each of them typically incorporating minicountries of vastly different political and economic system. Such federations were by necessity decentralized and with extremely limited central governance.
In a way, the significant part of Mankind returned politically to the times of feudalism. But with typically democratically elected feudals.
United States Dissolve
2146, North America
The Great Crash was the final nail to the United States' coffin. With the US bankrupted and the economy skydiving, the socialist riots escalated into frequent clashes between the remnants of military and various militias (socialist, fascists, libertarian, secessionist etc.) armed with heavy weaponry.
Rather than start regular civil war that would last for years, the president and the Congress announced the dissolution of the United States and called the warring groups to cease the on-going violence and instead decide the future via regional elections. Said elections continued for next four years and happened in parallel to (slowly fading away) violence. It wasn't easy, but eventually the regular civil war was averted.
The result of the dissolution was creation of two-digit number of lesser countries, raging from neosocialist eco-utopias to anarchocapitalist oligarchies, with countries resembling old United States in the middle. The resulting political entities include the Socialist Republic of California, and Cascadian Socialist Federation in the West, with the Republic of Texas and [IDEAS GUYS?!] in the East.
Unlike many other countries falling apart in the aftermath of the Fourth World War, United States of America had mostly adapted to the growing regionalisms, making it mostly unaffected by the Autumn of Nations. Its collapse was mostly caused by different factors, though the regionalisms certainly didn't help the US Government.
Iron Pact Collapses
2146, Western Europe
Pact was slowly dismantled internally by the internal dissent for years before the outbreak of the Fourth World War. Times changed since Delacroix and Hauser reigned supreme, their remorseless and heavy-handed approach keeping the Pact's population in line with a combination of fear and ideology. Leadership of the Pact was slowly losing contact with Reality and its population was losing any sort of cohesiveness, with more and more people merely paying lip service to the dominant neofascist ideology.
When it went to war, it was like the old Warsaw Pact few years before its dissolution. Giant on paper, with massive army and reserves - but a giant slowly broken by corruption and death of its ideological basis. Its leadership still believed in the ideals, at least mostly. But its contact with reality was... incidental. Numerous battles were lost because the the leadership failed to understand that a single Pact's division is worth half of what it was worth two decades earlier. Massive wartime casualties were the last straw.
When Pact's defeat in the war become apparent, riots broke in almost all major cities of the Iron Pact. Some of them were brutally suppressed by police and military units still loyal to the government. In other cities the rioters were suprised to see the police, army or even the political police members join them. The downfall of Iron Pact was certain from the very second the Fourth World War ended. The Autumn of Nations merely helped guide the results.
Four months later the last vestiges of the Iron Pact disappeared from Earth. Former territories of France, Germany, Great Britain, Norawy, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Nederlands and Belgium were divided between sixty-seven internationally recognized countries. Thirty more failed to be internationally recognized due to being too radical or weak. Regional warfare of typically low intensity lasted until 'merely' fifty-five countries survived (including none of the previously non-recognized), their political ideologies scattered along the entire spectrum. The Iron Pact's territory was limited to its enclaves in the Jupiter subsystem, where the remaining loyalists and old government evacuated hastily.
Third Russian Civil War
2147-2151, Russia
Following a series of failed coups and barely suppressed regional revolutions, the Soviet Union is finally decapitated when slightly better group of revolutionaries storms the govermental buildings and summarily executed majority of the Union's leadership. The result is an another civil war, though much shorter and less bloody than the past two (due to country being too decimated to field significant armed forces).
Soon four major groups emerge. Resurgent neocommunists, claiming that the recent disaster was due to incompetent and weak socialist government. Socialists and socialists-democrats, who were technically the 'legal' governments or at leasts its remains. Market democrats, seeking a political system more akin to the APD'. And the tzarists, who were radical reactionaries (and highly religious, with the orthodox faith undergoing major resurgence for few decades) seeing all the civil wars and lost wars as God's punishment for communism, socialism and godlessness that the Russia fell into.
What decided the war was the compromise between the democrats and the tzarists, and the former Russian Republic supporting the resulting coalition. With communists and socialists fighting ferociously with each other, the result was the total defeat of both groups. In the aftermath of the war, the Russian Empire was 'restored'. It wasn't an absolute monarchy, as the Emperors were 'merely' heads of the military and law enforcement, while acting as the head of state. Numerous vaguely democratic checks on the emperor's power were established, but the market democrats failed to make them work in the long-term.
The end result was a slightly more clear and less oligarchic Russian Federation with nominally monarchic leadership and numerous actually autonomous regions - a movement which helped mostly quell the still developing Russian regionalism. The Empire was, however, too devastated by recent wars and remained mostly isolationist.
Solar System Splits
2147-2152, Solar System
With Earth in post-war turmoil, the extraterrestrial colonies were forced to stand on their own. At this point, population of Mars and Moon counted in millions - both relatively self-sufficient, and capable of further growth as long as they possessed access to asteroid mines and the ability to trade the ore with Earth in exchange for various goods that couldn't be (or couldn't be yet) produced in sufficient quantities in colony. Unsurprisingly, talks about going fully independent grew in intensity with every new revolt and riot shattering their Earth' homelands.
First Martian colony announced independence from their Earthbound 'owner' in 2147. By 2148 both Mars and Moon were essentially independent. By 2149 - due to needs of rather ascetic colonial lifes and to increase their own political power when negotiating with Earth - both Federation of Mars and United Lunar Republic were proclaimed. Both the Union colony on Venus and Pact strongholds among the Jupiter moon go similar way. Jupiter decides itself to be sole successor of the ideals of the Iron Pact, essentially inheriting the name.
Venusian atmospheric habitats were soon united under the Republic of Venus, a combination between another bid for 'democratic socialism paradise' and free love Las Vegas of Solar System. Asteroid Belt and rights to many other asteroids were essentially privatized, together with a sizeable part of crumbling space fleets of various collapsing nations. This move - while it was necessary to offer the newly rising political entities some manner of economic stability - has caused lasting enmity between them and at least some of Earth countries.
Visehrad Alliance Declines
2147, Central-Eastern Europe
The end of the was a disaster for the Visehrad Alliance. The APD lost (or at least failed to win). Global economy was in shambles, and the debts decimated the Visehrad' economy and finances. The Visehrad's power declined significantly. In fact, the Alliance would probably collapse after few years, but recreation of the Russian Empire and the mess in the western Europe reminded the members of why the alliance was useful for them.
While no territory seceeded, the VA lost its internal cohesiveness. Economic treaties with outside countries began being sign without caring about the Alliance' opinion. The heated debates about many issues (regionalist decentralization or centralization, role of religion in politics, smaller ethnic groups and their representation etc.) have further weakened the Alliance. In the end it lost its ability to play in the first league of the international politics for a longer while. Twenty-five years later the process of member-states regionalist dissolution went so far that the Alliance de facto become a confederation of federations.
This also ensured the political dissolution of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy, as the Visehrad was the only major member of it that has survived more or less intact. With it unable to project its power outside of its own borders, there was no one over which the remains of the APD could gravitate towards.
Western Europe Reunites
2149-2150, Western Europe
The former european territories of the Pact have broke hard. Too hard, in fact, to remain like that for long. Countries were too small, their mutual politics too complicated. The result was the drive for a limited form of unification, one that would leave the european countries with as far autonomy as possible while establishing a necessary political framework for the day-to-day cooperation between them. There was also the part about rebuilding and attempting to organize a non-neofascist form of government where few people really knew anything else.
The result was an establishment of the European Polity, a loose association of numerous smaller, regional communities with their political systems ranging from socialism to libertarianism and with everything in-between. The Polity lacked cohesiveness necessary for imperialistic politics, and was generally fairly content with just existing. Its decentralization went so far that the Polity failed to establish anything resembling a joint ground army, with only the much more resource-hungry Navy and Airforce being truly joint.
The most important result of the European Polity's establishment was the stabilization of the region. While post-Iron Pact clean-up was going to take a decade more, the process could finally start properly. What's more, with the Polity placed where it was, the Visehrad was no longer mostly 'landlocked', opening new options for its long-term development.
Bosporus Crusade
2150-2153, Asia Minor/Middle East
Forces of the New Islamic Caliphate were mostly outdated, yet decent numbers and fanaticism are a form of quality on their own. During the Fourth World War it has succeeded in overwhelming the United Shia Republic. Its betrayal of the Iron Pact resulted in the melee-a-trois between the Caliphate, Israel and Turkey - that resulted in Turkey's collapse. Caliphate was too tired to take advantage of right away, but things changed.
Caliphate's push into the Turkey met with limited resistance and small ammount of internal interest. When the Caliphate attempted to seize the Bosporus Straits from the collapsing Socialist Republic of Greece, the Visehrad felt called to the table. The result was the low-intensity war between the two tired powers who really had better things to spend money and people on. It was also the Europe's last religious war, as both sides attempted to boost their soldiers' limited morale with religious motivation (with some successes).
The Alliance succeeded in halting the Caliphate's expansion. With the Socialist Republic of Greece collapse, the Visehrad forces were there to ensure the establishment of the Republic of Greece, with its political system resembling the one of many Alliance' members. During the next ten years, the entire Balkans become part of the rather anemic Visehrad's sphere of influence. The war wasn't finished, as in the year 2152 a part of the European Polity decided to send reinforcements to the on-going Visehrad's war effort. The result is the creation of the Republic of Western Turkey, a de facto protectorate of the Visehrad (with Polity receiving various trade benefits on the Black Sea in return).
The war is finally ended in 2153, when the Russian Empire and the Greater State of Israel joined the war, in a similar low-intensity way as the rest of the participants. Israel seized majority of Syriac Coast and the Cyprus, establishing itself as a dominant power over the entire Levantine Coast. Russian Empire strenghtened its grip over the Caucasus muslims (vassalized by the Soviet Union before the Fourth World War) and establishing its protectorate over the Georgia and Armenia.
While the Bosporus Crusade seemed like a reactivation of old imperialistic politics of the local powers, it was in fact their death throes. The war was fought with a splinter of pre-Fourth World War military power, with armies at least partially composed of local sympathizers armed in outdated equipment that was merely taking up space in the arsenals. It also failed to break the Caliphate, who underwent a period of major internal reforms at least partially due to humiliation it received during the war.
North American Trade Union established
2152, North America
The collapse of the United States paved the way for a large number of countries to emerge - it also succeeded in replacing relatively united US economy with a complicated maze of anarchocapitalist, libertarian, market liberal, democratic socialist, socialist and neocommunist economies. Numerous regions fell into poverty not because of the Solar Crash but because their neighbours switched into an utterly different form of economy, severing crucial economic relations. Something had to be done with that.
The result was an establishment of the North American Trade Union. It was originally a trade treaty, establishing a legal framework on the basis of each post-United States countries agreed to open their borders for the trade and cooperate during the recovery from the effects of the Solar Crash. It evolved into a defensive alliance against threats from outside of the former United States territory' following the 2154's shortlived Cascadian War that saw the Cascadian Socialist Federation clash with the Socialist Republic of Canada over border incidents.
As the regionalist principles grew in strength among its population, the NATU was slowly centralizing and becoming a much more politically diverse and decentralized United States of old. It was never truly united, and member-states retained ability for some foreign relationships and treaties. It was possible mostly due to how abnormal US situation truly was, as single of its' regions' was several times larger than the largest one from the European Polity or the Visehrad Alliance.
Treaty of Phobos signed
2153, Solar System
While the extraterrestrial colonies recently proclaimed independence from their Earthbound-metropolies, their situation was precarious. The powers of Earth were in decline, but the entire process was still a secession, at least partially done to avoid being forced to pay the price for the war. Earth's governments were utterly furious. In order to safeguard themselves from any reconquests attempts, the extraterrestrial colonies decided to sign an anti-Earth and anti-Iron Pact's Jupiter enclave coalition treaty.
The result was the Treaty of Phobos. Besides organizing a coalition directed at the two potential enemies, the treaty regulated the diplomatic, economic and political relations between the United Lunar Republic, Federation of Mars and Venusian Republic. It also served as a basis for intense negotiations with terran governments, with their recognition of colonial independence being the goal.
From the history's point of view, the Treaty of Phobos was merely the prologue to a much more important Treaty of Deimos that followed after few years.
Iron Pact collapse
2155, Solar System
While the Alliance and Union ceased to exist after the war end, the remains of the Iron Pact technically still existed. Its goverments and remaining loyal element of its secret police, military and law enforcement (together with their families) has mostly relocated to the Iron Pact's colonies in the Jupiter Subsystem. Due to their numbers, this process 5reached its conclusions in year 2154, eight years after the officiall end of the terran' Iron Pact.
Few months later a coup occured, and the Iron Pact was officially replaced by the Jovian Coalition. Coalition was a democratic republic that was interested in following the Pact's policy of militarism and roughly fascist internal politics, but without its imperialism and with no political enemies left to persecute. The Coalition signed the Treaty of Phobos in 2156, essentially joining the mainstream extraterrestrial human politics.
With its internal politics mostly isolationists, it took other countries a while to start suspecting that there was no coup. The Jovian Coalition was, essentially, a rebranding on the Iron Pact, with all ties to its horrible past gently swept aside.
Gabriel Newman announces creation of an FTL drive
2156, Solar System
In the general chaos of the years following the Fourth World War, a certain event remained almost unnoticed. In year 2156 Gabriel Newman, a largely self-taught astrophysicist and a starship engineer by trade, has announced creation of a working FTL drive. Majority of the reactions are, of course, laughter. It's seen as nothing more but one more parascience and an attempt to gather mody.
To a surprise of absolutely no one, Newman launched fundraising efforts on numerous webpages, in order to construct a ship capable of reaching the edge of the Solar System in order to properly 'test' the Newman's Drive. Through his personal charisma and some viral memes Newman succeeds in gathering sufficient ammount of money to - after seeling majority of his possessions - launch the construction of the Discovery.
The complete bankruptcy doesn't happen to him, as once the ship's construction was confirmed, Newman received further funding - mostly from various people that decided that Gabriel apparently seriously believes in his drive, which should make the failure of his attempt into something worthwhile. This allows the Discovery to be finished (despite some setbacks) within three years.
Second Orbital Crisis
2158, Solar System
When the colonies throughout Solar System went independent, they seized a sizeable amount of interplanetary 'traffic'. It was a sensible move, as most of the major Earth countries lost (temporarily) the capability to sustain their own ships. Earth's orbit was mostly underdeveloped due to threats of orbital bombardment and political problems surrounding such development, making the competing powers of Earth focus their space presence on bases away from Earth. However, this act of theoretical space piracy caused a lasting enmity, only worsened by the secession of the colonies..
The Second Orbital Crisis happened when the Treaty of Phobos signatories reacted badly to the gossips of the new ships being constructed on the orbit being military ones, assembled by Terran countries with action against the rebellious colonies in mind. The end result was a fleet sortie to Earth orbit which almost sparked a war. It was narrowly averted, mostly due to the 'phobosians' deciding to back down (as war between several planets, but with at best 7-8 million people, and one planet, but with close to 7 billion people, could end only in one way).
This event, together with how easy it was for the colonies to bombard Earth (and how hard it was for Earth to respond to that) forced the Earth to the negotiation table. The results were visible almost immediately.
Treaty of Deimos
2158, Solar System
Following the theme of negotiating and signing the treaty in an otherwise unimportant moons (that then are used to name said treaties), a Treaty of Deimos is signed. Visehrad Alliance, European Polity, Russian Empire, North American Trade Union, Japan, Korea, Chinese Federation, Republic of India, Socialist Republic of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Republic of Brazil, and the Greater Israeli Republic recognize the independence of the Republic of Venus, Federation of Mars, United Lunar Republic and the Jovian Coalition.
It wasn't a cheap independence. Significant part of the seized ships was to be returned to their countries of origin. Massive reparations were to be paid for the planetary infrastructure taken over by the colonists - however with low yearly interest rates set to no more than 5% of the colonies' expenses. In exchange, countries of Earth officially relinquished their rights to every permanent settlement and installation beyond the Earth's orbit.
First talks about creating a successor to the Council of Nations (which lost its entire authority after the collapse of the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy) began during the Deimos conference, however they failed to lead anywhere. The progress was visible, and so was the international interest in such a thing being created.
Discovery leaves the Solar System
2160. Solar System
Discovery, the ship of Gabriel Newman with his 'experimental FTL propulsion system' reaches its desired location at the far end of the Solar System. Many people watch it through the telescopes and other sensors, if only to be able to watch the rather significant failure of what is commonly seen as a bunch of parascientific nuts flying a very complicated machinery to the very edge of Solar System.
To surprise of almost anyone systemwide, rather than an explosion or humiliating silence, the onlookers end up seeing the Discovery suddenly vanish from the sensors in a cloud of high temperature visible on the thermal scanners (but much too low to be an explosion). Nearby research ships scramble to investigate, but find nothing suggesting that a disaster occured. After almost two months (when the controversies began dying out - albeit slowly), Discovery suddenly returns, claiming that it managed to visit the Alpha Centauri.
That claim alone would probably only further exaggerated the recently gained fame, but it is not enough. Gabriel Newman claims to have encountered an Ark - an unknown ship, much later believed to be Aurum colonization ship - and while his boarding caused the ship's main computer to reignite and depart from the system, Newman managed to salvage some technology from it. This included two archeotechs known later as World Forge and Gene Artificer. The first one was a miniaturized production facility of nanobots that could terraform worlds in absurdly short term. The second allowed for directed (and very safe) genetic modification.
Newman announces that he will hand both items (and the working FTL drive blueprints) but only to a new (and slightly more centralized) political union of Mankind. The talks that already started during the Deimos Conference intensify almost overnight, as the offer is simply too good to refuse.
Second Treaty of Deimos creates the Solar Commonwealth
2160. Solar System
Newman offered the entire Galaxy to Mankind - and Mankind decided to take that offer. The talks are rushed, and many things are left for the future. But they are successful. Within six months the Second Treaty of Deimos is prepared, and the groundiwork for the establishment of the Solar Commonwealth is ready. Newman acts as he promised. World Forge and Gene Artificer are handed to the Commonwealth's first official representatives, and the blueprint for the 1st. Generation Hyperdrive is publically transmited throughout the Solar System. Then Discovery was abandoned by its crew and destroyed.
The initial list of the founders of the Solar Commonwealth included the members of the North American Trade Union, European Polity, Visehrad Alliance, Chinese Federation, Russian Empire, Republic of India, Republic of Brazil, United Lunar Republic, Republic of Venus, Jovian Coalition and the Federation of Mars. So, every extraterrestrial country and all the remaining notable powers of Earth. Within next six weeks, this list is joined by all secondary powers of Earth (Greater Israeli Republic, Carribean Federation, Socialist Republic of Mexico, Socialist Republic of Canada, United Republic of Korea, Japan, Federation of Italy, Republic of South Africa, and the South American Socialist Alliance). By year 2170 only a single digit number of recognized political entities didn't join the Second Treaty of Deimos, the only notable power among them being the New Islamic Caliphate.
This event marks the official end of the Solar Expansion era, and the beginning of the Golden Age of Mankind.
Golden Age of Mankind [2161-2266]
General Description
A period in history when Humanity reached the peak of its might. An era where the political decline of the Earth pave the way to ascendance of the Solar System as a whole, leading to a creation of the Solar Commonwealth. The first truly interstellar government of Mankind. It saw the heights of technological might of Mankind, achieved in the days when nothing but the most basic human decency limited Humanity's scientific progress.
Unfortunately, while Humanity achieved greatness it also seeded its own doom. The basic human decency was ignored all too often. Ability to tamper with human genome (and the erasure of borders between human and technology) unleashed demons that should never be free. This lead to the bloody horror of the War of Purity and the eventual collapse of the Solar Commonwealth.
Events
Terraformation of Titan
2161-2169. Saturn Subsystem
Despite Gabriel Newman being suddenly elevated into being seen as one of the greatest (even if rather eccentric) scientists in human history, his claims about the World Forge nanites had to be tested before being implemented anywhere with a human population. Because of that first practical employment of terraforming nanomachines happened on Titan, where human settlements were limited to some research stations. Normally, a terraformation would require decades if not hundreds of years and trillions of dollars worth of investments. Here... it ended in eight years and with almost no costs.
The nanomachines multiplied insanely quickly. They turned out to be capable of adapting the terraformation to pretty much every planetbound element. They could even pick the most sensible terraformation plan. In case of Titan they settled for the so-called Ground Insulation. Only outermost parts of the planet's ice crust were melted, with the rest protected from this fate and remaining as ice. This allowed to avoid unleashing the sea beneath it (salt like a Dead Sea and with lots of Ammonia). The nanomachines also altered the atmosphere with speed that was seen as 'miraculous'. The end result was a creation of a moon with a surface on which a human could walk without any protective gear.
It was far from pleasant, though. The resulting world has a low temperature aplitude (11-15C), five large yet shallow oceans (surrounded by one giant continent), very moist atmosphere with fogs and clouds being almost constant, and just enough light to maintain some forests but with their lower levels being mostly dead (as there wouldn't be enough sunlight to light the grass, moss and bushes beneath the leaves). On the other hand, it possesses enough of stable and safe orbits to maintain a sizeable fleet of telecomunication satelites. It is defended by Helene, one of the outermost moons of Saturn, turned into a fortified transshipment station similar to Jupiter's Himelia.
The end result was settled by the Solar Commonwealth and made into its capital. It also housed a number of universities and institutes dedicated to space exploration, colonization of new worlds and both xenology and xenoarcheology (direct result of the Ark being a proof that there was something alive out there). It's the outermost regularly inhabited world (with population capping at around 10 milion in 2180 and remaining relatively stagnant ever since), serving as a basis for expeditions to the other systems.
Humanity 2.0 Project Starts
2162. Solar System
Gene Artificer offered absolutely unbound possibilities in terms of fixing the issues with human genetics. When 'loaded' with a genetic data (in other words, blood samples of sufficiently big number of humans) it could create genetic templates, a blueprint containing list of genes from the provided genetic data considered harmful, those that were beneficial and those that were neither. Such templates could be then used (with a blood sample of specific person) to create personalized cocktails of nanomachines and DNA-carrying retroviruses that altered the reproductory system of their recipients by purging the harmful genes, adding the beneficial ones (and ensuring that they will be inherited) and leaving the rest intact (so hair colour etc. were inherited normally).
This was of course morally dubious. The issue was heatly debated for decades to come, even after it became a reality. Soon three main groups were formed. First were the denialists that went against any tampering with the genome. Then there were the progressives that wanted not only the fully acceptance of the genetical betterment of Humanity but also wanted to essentially design their children (their 'brainchildren' were the much later Variants creators, one side of the Genetic Wars, and finally the transhumanists). Preservationists accepted the use of the technology to get rid of genetic disorders and even improve the genome a bit, but there was a limit to that - they only accepted the genes that already existed in the genepool and simply were now rendered common among the Mankind. Over time the denialists mostly crumbled (typically joining the preservationists), but the preservationists and progressives fought each other until the War of Purity rendered progressives de facto extinct.
Humanity 2.0 Project was a genetic equivalent of Titan terraformation. To find out if there even was an issue to debate, a Gene Artificer treatment was applied to a sizeable part of the Jovian Coalition (whose government 'volunteered' for their own, eugenic reasons) population. The results of the process were going to be analyzed until all results of Gene Artificer usage were catalogued and understood. Jovian Coalition was the best potential target, because not only its High Council was fully ok with becoming guinea pigs, but also because the Coalition still remained mostly isolated and there was no risk of altered genes spreading throughout the rest of Mankind.
Alpha Centauri Revisited
2162, Alpha Centauri
To conclusively prove if Gabriel Newman really discovered the working FTL drive (rather than accidentally running into the Ark on the edge of the Solar System), a second ship outfitted with it is created. It's eventual return from Alpha Centauri prove that Humanity is on the edge of something great. While no signs of Ark are discovered, this journey prove that interstellar exploration was truly possible - at least if one was ready to ignore the fact that even the develoer of the FTL drive wasn't really sure how said FTL worked.
The result is the start of a massive program of extraterrestrial expansion. Trying to settle worlds so far away was a folly without proper preparations, however. Because of that the Commonwealth initially focused on sending exploration crew to map neighbouring systems, while simultaneously launching numerous colonization and construction programs within the Solar System boundaries. This process was supposed to establish a necessary industrial and demographic foundation for large scale interstellar colonization effort supposed to follow suit. Besides, the Commonwealth's leadership felt understandable doubts about sending thousands of colonists away on barely tested FTL drive - one more bonus of such a two-step expansion.
The result is a centralization of large scale construction projects within the Solar System, and massive expansion of funding for such projects. Already massive interplanetary traffic and exploitation of extraterrestrial resources grows even further in the following years.
Terraformation of Europa
2164-2167, Jupiter Subsystem
With the results of Titan terraformation being more than obvious in their miraculousness, it didn't take long for worldforging nanites to be employed by many extraterrestrial worlds. Jovian Coalition - with their semi-authoritarian ways of doing politics - was in the vanguard of the process. The first world that was picked was Europa, house of the oldest Coalition' settlements and its capital.
In merely three years the frozen oceans of Europa melted into water which chemical composition was soon altered by the nanomachines to be friendly to Earth' sealife. The result of the process was Mankind's first Ocean World... which was quite troublesome. With no seafloor to speak of, the biggest trouble of Europa was something that the nanomachines couldn't help in, namely designing the ecosystem capable of thriving with no seafloor. Even with Gene Artificer the end resulted required regular maintenance. In the end, large artificial underwater 'continents' had to be created to allow sealife to settle somewhere, as attempt to circumnavigate the issue produced subpar results.
Europa soon flourished with numerous floating cities, algae farms and fisheries that succeeded in providing food not only for 15 million inhabitants of Europa (at its peak in 2190) but also for a significant part of the Jovian Coalition outside of Europa, becoming first Farm World of Mankind. It also included - due to its clear water, relatively stable climate and low gravity (allowing humans to RUN on the surface of the endless ocean) certain level of tourism industry. The Coalition' capital was moved to Ganymede (and then to Callisto, during the next phase of Jupiter moons terraformation, but ultimately returned to Ganymede).
Copernicus Massacre
2165, Ross 248 - Barnard' Star Hyperspace Passage
A survey ship SCS Copernicus attempts a long distance hyperspace travel for the first time in human history. The result is the discovery of the Hyperspace Insanity Syndrome. 12 out of 17 crewmembers is either murdered or commits suicide before the remaining five that remained sane manage to seize the bridge and leave leave the Hyperspace. They manage to return to Earth after less ardurous yet still mentally straining journey, bringing the sad news to Earth.
After short investigation makes it obvious that the culprit for the massacre is nothing else but the Hyperspace itself, new rules for starship travel is issues. The slightly earlier disappearance of SCS Newton is attributed to similar outbreak of Hyperspace insanity, though this time with no survivors and the ship remaining forever in the Hyperspace. The resulting public backlash is surprisingly small, as the very concept of finally visiting other star systems is too tempting for a disaster of such magnitude to put a dent in public opinions.
From now on remaining too long in Hyperspace is officially banned. However due to malfunctions and a variety of other reasons, Copernicus massacre repeats itself for a multitude of times throughout human history.
First Hyperspace Derelict encountered
2166, Hyperspace
An extrasolar survey expedition encounters a derelict ship floating through the Hyperspace during transit between systems. They fail to reignite the main reactor of the heavily damaged ship, so after pillaging it for interesting technology (including a MAW cannon far beyond current technological capabilities of Mankind) they return to the Solar System. Bringing a confirmation of the existence of aliens (even if long dead ones) for those few that still doubted it after seeing the World Forge and the Gene Artificer.
It is merely the first derelict out of many. Some exploration attempts, however, end badly. The result is a temporary spike in disappearances of starships mid-transit, due to failed attempts of derelict boarding resulting in deaths of entire crew or a crippling damage of the ship. Because of that, a separate branch of Solar Commonwealth' Survey Corps is created for the purpose of pillaging derelicts for technology. It's composed mostly of military ships (and military crews), which lowers down casualties to a manageable level.
The discovery of more and more pieces of archeotechs - together with apparent inability to fully understand their inner workings - grants further credence to the Wall of Reason Theory, currently in process of changing into the Wall of Faith theory (due to a critic of it using such a term in their article - and the name somehow going viral through the Commonwealth's culture).
Terraformation of Ganymede and Callisto
2167-2172, Jupiter Subsystem
With Jovian Coalition jumping on the World Forge bandwagon, the only limit to the terraformation processes was speed in moving the population out of the worlds like Europa (that were going to change from ice worlds to worlds covered in ocean) and then deploying the new settlements. With Europa out of the picture, Ganymede and Callisto were next in line to receive World Forge treatment. It happened simultaneously and ended almost at the very same time. Effects, however, were different.
On Ganymede the world was turned into an Ocean World, forcing the Jovian government (with massive help of the Solar Commonwealth) to create artificial continents. With the planetary hydrosphere being mostly stable, and modern industry being capable of producing a buoyant materials in sufficient amount, creation and anchoring of such continents (initially islands) wasn't a problem. However it still took decades for the islands to slowly expand into small continents. The Ganymede ended up becoming a major population (and industrial) center of the Coalition, its population reaching 35 million at year 2200.
On Callisto the nanomachines (and their human helpers) ended up picking up route similar to Titan. With partial ground insulation employed, the world ended up becoming an Earth-like world. It was filled with lakes, islands, peninsulas and waterfalls, with perpetual spring and low gravity. This ended with Callisto becoming a major tourism center (for the Coalition for now, and then for entire Solar System once the Humanity 2.0 Project was over). Its population capped at around 30 million at year 2190.
Terraformation of Mars
2169-2171, Mars Subsystem
Terraformation of Mars was a dream of Mankind for a long time. It came to a fruition with extreme speed once the worldforging nanites were deemed save - and employed upon the Red Planet. Ironically, while it was one of the most Earth-like worlds, it was also among those that required the most work outside of the deployment of nanomachines. This included the greatest feat of planetary engineering (moving the planetoid Ceres to Mars' orbit to accelerate the planet's rotation and reignite the magnetosphere) and the conversion of the caustic regolith to an actually arable soil.
The result was a planet of complex ecosystem, divided between oceanic north and high attitude south (with a sizeable middleground between them). The world became a first Earthlike extraterrestrial world known to Mankind. It has also became a sizeable industrial hub, though not initially (it was considered to become an Industrial World only in late years of the Solar Commonwealth). It's population capped at around 1,5 billion around year 2300.
Terraformation process of Mars was also the first and (for a long time) last feat of planetary engineering of Mankind. Moving Ceres anywhere was extremely draining. If not for the world in question being Mars of all worlds (and the terraforming projects happening concurrently being mostly automatic) Mankind would never succeed in moving a planetoid anywhere, at least not as early in its history.
Terraformation of Io
2172-2180, Jupiter Subsystem
Last of the Jovian moons to be terraformed, Io was a complicated issue. It required redirection of several comets to add water and oxygen to the atmosphere - as even the worldforging nanites can't make something out of anything. What's worse, Io is an extremely volcanically active world, with some volcanoes reaching a truly gargantuan size. It also required dealing with the issue of intense radiaton bathing this world due to proximity to Jupiter.
The end result is a planet that will forever remain largely inhospitable, but even the fact that humans can spend short time outside with at best minuscule protective gear was a great improvement for the settlers. With already a rather unpleasant atmosphere, a lot of geotermal activity and various interesting deposits (for example of various sulphuric compounds), Io is soon changed into an Industrial World, producing goods (and mining minerals) and chemicals in truly great number for the Coalition. The population capped at about 20 million in 2200.
Terraformation of Io was interesting due to two things. Firstly, it was interesting from a scientific point of view, as it showed at least some limits of the World Forge. Secondly, it meant that the old and mostly stagnant at this point project of moving dangerous industries out of Earth could find a focus point. While Io was an Industrial World with a wide array of factories and production facilities, it was mostly famous for something else. Chemical and nuclear industries, with numerous factories producing goods deemed too polluting, potentially toxic or bearing a threat of radiation, soon began the center of Io' economy.
Terraformation of Venus
2172-2179, Venus Subsystem
Venus became another target of the terraformation - mostly due to the fact that the Republic of Venus was anxious to take advantage of potentially fabulous effects of Venus transformation. The result took a while to occur. It was, in fact, also an experiment. While the nanomachines capabilities on the field of creation of greenhouse gasses was already established to be nothing sort of miraculous, nothing was known about their ability to handle anti-greenhouse gasses. Venus, in a way, was a field testing of the technology before the execution of plans concerning the deployment of the nanites to Earth, to deal with the atmospheric pollution.
Nanites turned out to work just as well. Within merely seven years, Venus was turned into a garden world. Of course, there were issues. To stabilize the atmosphere and cool it down, the air pressure had to be much greater than on Earth - reaching all the way into the pretty much unhealthy levels. Of course, it also has other issues, like a day lasting for more than a terran year and essentially playing the role of seasons. On the other hand, it wass also a world of shallow oceans, powerful yet stable winds that can be used to produce electricity, and an almost Earthlike gravity,
Eventually it becomes a major population center. It actually ends up toppling the Mars as most populated extraterrestrial world around year 2310. Its population stabilized after the fall of Republic of Venus and the world's annexation by the Solar Republic, its growth stopping at about 2 billion people.
Islamic Wars
2172-2196, Terra's Northern Hemisphere
The Islamic Wars was a period of military conflicts caused by the New Islamic Caliphate's return to power. The country managed to drag itself from the post-WW4 crisis, only to see itself surrounded by countries that got complacent in the world that seemed to be heading towards long period of peace. The Caliphate was seen as backward country of obsolete military, one that simply wasn't going to be a threat - only the Greater Israeli Republics maintained sensible military presence in their territory. Nobody expected the Caliphate to attempt a military expansion.
The Caliphate, however, ignored everyone's expectations. The result was a long series of military conflicts that lasted almost twenty-four years and included not only the Islamic Caliphate but also numerous other major powers of the region - all of them were needed in order to finally suppress the threat, a great sign of how demobilized their armies and industries were before the start of the hostilities. And not all of the opposing countries survived that.
The First Islamic War (2172-2174) ended with the Caliphate annexing the West Turkey, and the Visehrad Alliance pooling all its forces into desperate (yet successful) defense of the Constantinople and the Bosporus Straits. This was also saw the creation of the Balkan Confederacy, a political entity composed of Balkan countries south of the Visehrad borders (created to resist expected Islamic assault - and to stop being so dominated by the Visehrad).
With the Visehrad temporarily tired and a truce was established in the north, the Second Islamic War (2175) ended up with the Greater Israeli Republic receiving the brunt of the Caliphate' strength. Despite fearsome defenses and almost total mobilization of the Israeli forces (plus the international support), the enemy was simply too strong. The Republic was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty that essentially was an almost unconditional surrender. The entire Israeli territory was to be demilitarized and slowly annexed (piece by piece) by the Caliphate. The delay was made to have the Israeli evacuate the annexed territories, essentially sending the entire nation into another diaspora.
What immediately followed this stage was the Third Islamic War (2175-2180), as the Caliphate's forces marched west, conquering the northern coast of Africa part by part. Despite the European Polity's support (admittedly a rather impotent one) the entire region was annexed, though the sheer distance meant that it was a long and ardurous struggle, with the Caliphate' armies dangerously overextending themselves. What's more, it gave time that the Caliphate's enemies needed to bring their armies back into at least theoretical competence.
Fourth Islamic War (2179-2184) was waged everywhere at once. As the armies of the Caliphate were bringing the Central Asia to the fold, they encountered fierce resistance from the forces of the Russian Empire. The result was the swift formation of the anti-Caliphate coalition, including the European Polity, Visehrad Alliance, Russian Empire, Balkan Confederacy, Italian Federation. Republic of Etiopia and a number of lesser countries. Despite that, the Fourth Islamic War was the Caliphate's victory. Etiopia fell, Sicilia and Cyprot were invaded and seized. Bosporus Straits fell to the Caliphate (together with the Constantinople), and Central Asia was mostly seized by the Caliphate as well.
The time however played against it, as the enemies were not fully defeated, but fully certain that they had to contain the newly arose threat. When the Caliphate understood that its opponents saw the peace treaty as a way of buying time in order to reorganize their armies and rebuild their morale after numerous defeats and setbacks, the Fifth Islamic War (2186-2191) started. By that time the Caliphate managed to fully incorporate its african territories and focused fully on dealing with its northern neighbours. The war started with an all-out assault in the Balkan front, and the Balkan Confederation stopped being an active participant of the war within a year, the armies of the Caliphate marching north after defeating Visehrad forces in several battles. In the east transcaucasus sattelites of the Russian Empire were finally defeated and annexed, and the Caliphate' marched north through the Caucasus mountains, invading the southern Russia. Third front was temporarily opened when the coalition fleets on the Black Sea were defeated and the Islamic armies landed in the Crimean Peninsula, hoping to divert the already thin armies of the coalition while simultaneously denying safe harbour to the remains of the enemy fleets.
The attempt to end the war as fast as possible has backfired. The Caliphate' armies were dangerously overextended. Despite securing a significant part of the Crimean Peninsula, the Caliphate army there was eventually driven back to the sea, suffering massive casualties. The war ended with the coalition theoretically agreeing to a peace treaty that was favouring the Caliphate greatly, but it was its last success. With the guerilla warfare in the recently conquered territories on the rise and the European Polity finally deciding to join the containment efforts, the Caliphate lost the Sixth Islamic War (2191-2193) which saw it pushed back to the other side of the Bosporus Straits, Caucasus Mountains, and the Mediterennean Sea, essentially returning the situation to status quote ante bellum (save for the former Republic of Western Turkey and the Greater Israeli Republic.
While enough for the European Polity, the Russian Empire and the Visehrad Alliance decided to dismantle the problem once and for all. The result was the Seventh Islamic War (2194-2196), which saw the Caliphate essentially collapsing. Turkey was seized by the victors and former government of the Republic of Western Turkey became a new government of the Republic of Turkey. Central Asia became the Russian' dominion. Mediterennean isles were taken back. The Levantine coast (with Jerusalem) become an independent enclave under military protectorate of the victorious powers - despite doing that in hopes of bringing the Greater Israeli Republic, overwhelming majority of the Israelis decided to move out from Earth and seek some actual peace. What's more, the Suez Channel was seized by an international consortium with European, Visehrad and Russian backers.
For the Caliphate, however, it was the beginning of the end. It began weakening internally, and was slowly torn apart by various rising religious groups that remained in opposition to the ultraconservative and militant Islam that was the Caliphate's state religion.
Hyperspace Anomaly Discovered
2173, Hyperspace
Survey Corps' reconaissance frigate SCS Reasonable discovers a massive hyperspatial distortion while investigating the area of hyperspace where three Survery Corps' ships previously vanished without a trace. Unlike its predecessors, Reasonable manages to retreat before it sucked by inward current of what is soon termed simply a 'Hyperspace Anomaly'. Much later it is officially classified as hyperspace vortex and receives a codename Zeus.
Hyperspace vortex is a point in the Hyperspace that appears to be drawing the very space inside of it, together with everything that happens to occupy it. The closer the space is to the center, the stronger the pull, until not even a warship can escape it. To this day, no one knows what exactly is in the epicenter of the vortex, as just like black hole it is inobservable and impossible to return from.
In fact, the dominant theory about hypervortexes is that they are 'born' from a black hole swallowed by the Hyperspace - though nobody knows why a disproportionaly large percentage of black holes ends in Hyperspace, or why the space pulled by them is for some crowded with derelicts. Soon the Zeus Anomaly becomes a center of a thriving (if dangerous) salvage industry.
Terraformation of Luna
2173, Terran Subsystem
Luna, while highly troublesome in terms of terraforming in the pre-World Forge era, changed into something much more approachable after it began. With United Lunar Republic essentially losing most of its influence to other Solar System powers (and increasingly aligned with powers of Earth, in stark defiance of the Second Deimos Treat)), gathering necessary political support for a deployment of nanites took a while.
The end result is a world that is a much smaller version of Earth... but of very limited ecosystem, and with everything living on it capable of limited time flight simply by flapping hands strong enough. That's where the benefits end, as the extremely low-gravity makes the atmosphere unstable and forces all settlements to rely on simulated gravity. The 20-meters high waves in the lunar seas isn't helpful either - on the hand, ability to escape such wave by flying above it negates some issues.
United Lunar Republic largely bankrupted itself on the projects of bringing comets to Luna in order to enhance the moon's hydrosphere to a sensible level - despite the generous Commonwealth's dotations. Due to that, the process of large-scale soil modification in order to make it arable is extremely slow, and majority of natural life exists in the various seas and lakes of the Moon. In fact it was never finished, as it was largely scrapped when the United Lunar Republic was annexed by the Solar Republic.
Later on Luna was changed into a Fortress World overseeing the Homeworld. It's population reached five million during the ULR's open air phase. The Solar Republic changes ended with majority of its atmosphere being lost, and the habitat-focused population reaching one billion, majority of this number being soldiers and supporting personnel.
Archeotech Index created
2174, Solar System
First version of the index of discovered archeotechs is created by the xenoarcheologists working on Titan. Initially it is merely a list of recovered archeotechs, sorted according to aesthethic and functional similarities indicating the same origin. While the first version of the Index included less than ten recognized origins, by the year 2800 this number balloons to 15 000.
Much earlier than 2800 the Archeotech Index is changed into Exotech Index or, in short, Exoindex. The custom of attaching names to the cultures that become notable due to either quality, quantity or diversity of their creations was born around year 2230, and by the closing years of the Golden Age the archeotechs are also graded by their rarity and by how much they seem to be violating established rules of science.
The Index is originally available to entire Mankind in its true, full form. Ever since the collapse of the Solar Commonwealth the Index grows more and more fragmented and censored. By year 2800 only the Explorers' Guild seems to possess full records, and even their versions vary in details.
Terraformation of Oberon and Titania
2175-2180, Uranus Subsystem
Neither Titania nor Oberon (two biggest moons of Uranus) were ever expected to become a large population centers. However even limited efforts at terraformation (especially when it was rendered easy by the World Forge) could lower the costs of permanent habitation. In the end, both received their own packets of nanomachines, turning into desolate and barely habitable worlds at the very edge of human habitation.
Both moons end up being cloudy, with extremely long (counted in years) days and night. That's despite them being tidal-locked, as the Uranus regularly hides them from Sun, making them both tidal-locked AND suffering 'polar nights and days' . With a 15C average temperature it results in most of flora dying out during the night phase, as it keeps trying to grow thinking it's spring, only to find no sunlight. And that's before taking into account the fact that even in the day it's not exactly a sunny place, at best maintaining tundra or taiga-like environment. At the end, Titania becomes a military training range while Oberon is fashioned into a prison colony. Both have population beneath half a million. And both belong directly to the Solar Commonwealth.
One of the outermost moons of Uranus, Perdita, is changed into a transshipment station supporting the entire Uranus Subsystem of Solar System. It also becomes a military outpost, though with the amount of traffic negligible when compared to Jupiter or even Saturn, the military presence in Perdita is minimal.
Terraformation of Saturnian Moons
2176-2189, Saturn Subsystem
Terraformation of Saturnian moons other than Titan was, in a way, a test of the World Forge nanomachines in more extreme circumstances... and partially because Humanity was experiencing a rather significant power trip due to terraforming boom caused by the Forge. There was also an issue of the Commonwealth itself wishing to expand its own economic power in the Saturn area. Enceladus, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus and Tethys were chosen for terraformation, with Mimas instead receiving a large settlement in the so-called Herschel crater, now domed.
Enceladus, due to its very small gravity and powerful volcanic activity, was the first nanite terraformation that failed - they deactivated almost immediately after being deployed. This proved that there are globes that are too hard to be terraformed. Rhea became a precursor to the Mining Worlds with around 800 000 inhabitants. Tethys after its temperature stabilized at around 0C became a semi-lifeless rock with very primitive ecosystem, inhabited mostly by scientists and weirdoes wanting to escape from the civilization (300 000 inhabitants). Iapetus remains a minor tourist destination (due to its mineral springs), with 450 000 inhabitants.
Dione, like Tethys, stabilizes at temperature around 0C with small amplitude of temperatures. Unlike Tethys, however, due to its natural features - and some artificial reefs and islands - Dione becomes a planetwide reservation for (almost dead at this point) Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems (with some ammount of warmer oceans near the equator). Soon Dione' ecosystem is also a hunting ground famed for its exports of fur and whale bones (both in numbers that do not damage the ecosystem), inhabited by less than 400 000 hunters, scientists, terraformation engineers and hardened survivalists.
South American War
2176-2181, South America
The tensions in the South American region finally erupt into a regular war between three main competitors to the role of the regional hegemon. The neointegralist Unitary State of Brazil (which slipped into right-wing extremism following the casualties they sustained in the Fourth World War), the South American Socialist Union (no longer merely an Alliance, but an actual united state of former Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile), and the formerly socialist yet now increasingly capitalistic countries of the Mutual Assistance and Trade Treaty, including Equador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama.
The reasons for the war was the wealth that was coming to Earth through the Equador-controlled orbital elevator, which together with the Panama's control over the Panama Channel granted the MATT a powerful economic boost (and partially contributed to its growing capitalism). Unfortunately the enmity between the Unitary State and the SASU was intense. If any of them engaged the MATT in open warfare, he could naturally expect the other side to jump at the occasion to eliminate a competitor. In the end it was the SASU an the Unitary State that started fighting each other, with the MATT trying to play the third side. Firstly as a weapon's supplier. But finally, as the participant - as the Unitary State began losing a bit too much and required urgent help.
MATT has of course joined the war as third side, trying to play the both sides against each other while tiring them enough to stop being a threat. This plan failed, as after few successful twists of that type, SASU and Unitary State temporarily joined hands. The result was the military collapse of the MATT, which survived only by having the Solar Commonwealth intervene (in exchange of large concessions with the orbital elevator usage) and send 'peacekeeping mission'. This event soured the relation between the terran nations and the Commonwealth.
The SASU and the Unitary State continued their war for a while, before eventually deciding to settle things. Their relations with the MATT reached and all-time low, and the further weakening of the two power blocks would only help the MATT cause. As a result, the South America stabilized politically for a long time.
Terraformation of Mercury
2176-2189, Mercury Subsystem
The last of large extraterrestial yet intrasolar worlds to be terraformed, Mercury was a rather complicated target even for the World Forge. It require substantial human action, many shipments of gasses from other worlds of Solar System, creation of artificial magnetic field and a redirection of several comets. It was announced that the terraformation of Mercury ended at 2189, though it's not technically truth, as to make it truly a hospitable place many more shipments of gasses were required. And they continued to arrive for many years after that date.
The end result is a world defined by massive mountain ranges that separate its surface into a number of separate 'cells' that are forced to be mostly self-sustainable. What's more, it is also a world of rather radical temperature amplitude, with rather short days essentially acting like different seasons (and a rather extreme ones in terms of temperature). The end results are massive thunderstorms that wreck Mercury almost permanently, forcing all habitats to be either fully underground or at least reinforced a lot. What's worse, the difference in river outflow due to daily seasonal changes are MASSIVE and result in frequent flooding of biblical scale.
Due to Mercury being a rather valuable find, the talks about its ownership are rather intense. The end result is a creation of new political entity, the so-called Mercurial Confederation. It's a democracy but highly decentralized, with every 'cell' governing itself, resembing the European Polity on that field. Due to their relative isolation, many political, religious and societal extremists gets themselves their own cell, making the Confederation' politics into something rather unstable and volatile. Mercury' population caps at 300 million around year 2250.
Cthulhian Cluster discovered
2180, Cradle Sector
A number of alien ruins covered in protoorganic slime are discovered in a cluster of star systems 110ly from Earth. Soon it becomes apparent that said slime (that reacts aggresively to foreign organic matter in a multitude of ways) is at least partially composed of past inhabitants of the world. The so-called Cthulhian Cluster becomes a prohibited zone for civilians.
Scientists working to unlock the mysteries of the area soon come to a conclusion that the colonies were destroyed by orbital bombardment and subsequent bioorganic contamination. Initially it is believed that the entire civilization was wiped out in the Cluster, much later discoveries of ruins of the Silinrul Empire however invalidate that theory.
Twenty-two years later a protestant church known as the Tenth Choir focused its funds and political pressure, manages to seize the colonization rights to the world near the Cthulhian Cluster. This is caused by the 'vision' from God that the sect's founder received, with the planet on which the Choir's colony was established (Vigilance-II according to later naming convention) claimed to be a vital in the future battle between good and evil.
Terraformation of Triton
2180-2189, Neptune Subsystem
Triton - a moon of Neptun - is the outermost world in the Solar System that could hold even the most minimal plantlife if terraformed. Under normal circumstances it's unlikely that it would be seriously considered as a terraforming candidate. But with terraformation being so easy in the World Forge-era, the Solar Commonwealth decided to do just that.
The end result is probably the least habitable of habitable worlds. With its axis tilted, the solar nights and days that last up to 82 years on the pole. Almost windless and heavily humid, while also stabilized at around 8C. This is caused mostly due to the nanites using the solid particles from the melting icecap to form a natural insulation layer, preventing the moon from turning into a full ocean moon. This caused some of the remaining ice to continuously melt (and sooner or later, froze again), lowering the general temperature. And the entire ecosystem of the world would be composed of least demanding plants, mosses and lichens.
What's worse, even with the nanomachines still active, the post-terraforming equilibrium of Triton is VERY fragile, with a single powerful nuclear detonation being enough to disrupt the greenhouse gasses layer keeping the planet warm and cause very, very fast ice age. And the world is also tidally locked, lacking stable geostationary orbit neccessary for longterm satellite deployment, seriously limiting offworld communications.
It's ~350 000 population is composed mostly of scientists (Triton quickly become a favourite destination of science projects that didn't carry a risk of explosion) and terraforming specialists monitoring the world. Soon the 'Science World' part is expanded to other moons of Neptun. With permanent settlements formed on moons of Nereid and Perseus, the another transshipment station/military outpost was created on moon of Halimede.
Terraformation of Earth
2181-2186, Terran Subsystem
With the World Forge being conclusively proven to be safe and extremely useful, the time finally comes to try it on Earth. After all, if something horrible happened to the Cradle of Mankind, the survival of extraterrestrial colonies would be threatened - while there was a fair chance of them surviving in the end, it was still too much of a risk. Now, however, this changed.
Deployment of nanites resulted in atmospheric pollution being cleared within a year. Quality of air returned to pre-industrial levels, and the subsequent pollution produced by Terran population and industry was cleared before it could accumulate. The same happened within next few years with planetary hydrosphere, with centuries of Global Warming pushed back in a blink of an eye.
World Forge remained a motivation for the Earth powers to cooperate with the Commonwealth. While this motivation now disappeared, Earth was now too busy reaping benefits from a new state of things to reactivate its political ambitions. What's more majority of Terran countries was undergoing internal fracturing similar to what created European Polity. This was no time for wars, save for some regional skirmishes and incidents.
Humanity 2.0 Project Concludes
2185, Solar System
With 23 years of extensive observations and testing of the human population altered by the Gene Artificer - and their first descendants - a verdict is made. The process is just as safe as the World Forge nanites deploymen, and very beneficial. Almost every known genetic disorders was eradicated (though it was speculated that in time they could reappear as random mutations, though few and far in-between).
People were healthier, stronger, prettier/more handsome, as a general, rated above average in terms of intelligence (though the difference was small and could be a result of people being healthier and suffering from less developmental defects). What's more, Humans 2.0 were much better suited for operating in-space and on foreign worlds, due to their general much larger tolerance for prolonged exposure to radiation, magnetic fields, and both low and high-gravity. The most important improvements were gravity (due to how many of currently settled worlds were low gravity ones) and magnetic fields. The method of simulating gravity by diamagnetic fields meant spending time in what was essentially a powerful electromagnets, causing sleep disturbances (especially insomnia), headaches, tiredness, fatigue and even depression and hallucinations. The Humanity 2.0 suffered symptoms of intensity an order of magnitude smaller.
The most troubling were changes in behaviour. At least some changes the Gene Artificer were done 'automatically' by it, with limited understanding of the scientists overseeing the project. The machine seemed to prioritize the most important element of evolutionary process, namely procreation. Massive boost in general fertility was one thing, however the genetic alterations also included purge of genes associated with heightened risk of various behavioural traits deemed harmful to the goal of transfer of genes into the next generation of the population. Conversely, some traits associated with heightened chance of results positive were also disseminated among the population. While genes increasing libido were mostly purged in subsequent genetic 'patches' (or at least slightly limited in intensity of the results), the situation with massive drop in occurence of asexual (down to 20% of Humanity 1.0 statistics)homosexual (down to 15%), bisexual (down to 35%) and transsexual (down to 2%) activity was more controversial.
The fearsome ethical and polisocial debates that followered were won by the preservationists. Gene Artificer treatment never became mandatory, but it soon become widespread. To avoid some sort of genetic 'aristocracy' forming alongside the line of treatment availability, the Commonwealth decided to pay for the treatment to everyone willing to improve themselves and their descendants. Before year 2200 all humans outside of Terra were either Humans 2.0 or were going to have a 2.0 children. By 2300 the only sizeable population of Humans 1.0 existed on backward areas of Earth (such as the Islamic Caliphate) and by year 2400 the baseline subspecies of Mankind was extinct.
Centuries of random mutations either spread around the population or not (depending on the state' politic and culture) read to notable genetic diversity between people theoretically being part of the same subspecies. By year 2800 a planet where heterosexuality is a fringe occurence (and the population reproduces with external help) can exist right next to the world whose population parted with the very concept of homosexuality. The less ideologically contested' fields remained much more united.
Gabriel Newman dies
2189, Titan
Nobody lives forever, and Gabriel Newman was no exception. The now famous scientist finally died in year 2189, while being 98 years old. Body is never seen as the coffin is closed during the ceremony. This is merely the beginning of Newman's fame, as soon more and more strange things are discovered.
It is at this point that questions began being seriously asked about Discovery crewmates. It is quickly apparent that all seventeen crewmembers of the Mankind's maiden voyage among the stars disappeared prior to the Newman's death. What's more, five years later a group of conspiracy theorists managed to infiltrate Newman's mausoleum on Titan, only to discover the coffin empty.
The result are numerous conspiracy theories arising, ranging from Newman' being spies of some mysterious and secretive alien overlords to God himself appearing on the Discovery's bridge and sharing some unbelievable secrets of universe with the ship's crew, leading to all of them (or perhaps only Newman himself) ascending to a higher state of existence.
Styx Colonized
2189, Styx
As a last stop of the rush to the outer edge of Solar System, a combination of transshipment station, refueling station, military outpost and repair shipyard is constructed on Styx, moon of Pluto. While too cold to terraform in any meaningful way, Pluto remains an useful starting (and ending) point for extrasolar expeditions, both to another star systems and the Kuiper Belt.
With Styx colonized, the trade routes of the Solar System are pretty much stabilized. Each major globe or space region possessed a transshipment station between which large (even 3-4km long) ships travelled taking advantage of the flight windows caused by their start and end points current placement in the Solar System. From them, smaller and more cost-efficient ships carried the goods and people to their destination. Mercury (and its Daedalus Station). Venus and its Progress Station (renamed from Marx Station). Earth and Luna with their Hephaestus Station and, well, Luna itself. Mars with the Phobos. Jupiter with the Himelia moon. Saturn with Helene, Uranus with Perdita, Neptune with Halimede and Pluto with Styx, also acting as a transshipment station for the interstellar travel.
It is also an end to the first phase of space expansion. With Styx colonized, Commonwealth could finally expand itself throughout the stars, as its foundation was firmly established.
Interstellar Expansion begins
2192, Cradle Sector
With the Solar System almost fully colonized (though far from reaching the maximum level of population), the time has come for Humanity to expand outwards. Between year 2163 and year 2192 hundreds of survey expeditions went sent outside of Solar System. All systems within a 200 light year radius from Earth were visited at least once. 3 Earth-like, 27 Mars-like, 48 terraformable Inner System worlds (like Venus or Mercury) and 201 terraformable Outer System worlds (50 relatively comfortable worlds like Europa or Titan, and 151 much worse worlds ranging from Dione to Triton) were found.
The colonization efforts could now begin for real. Of course, it was no simple process. Colonization of worlds within the Solar System wasn't really hard due to industrial powerhouse of Earth being so close. However, trying to settle a brand new world outside of Solar System, often months away from Earth, and with Hyperspace being so unreliable (the sudden disappearance of transport vessel carrying food wouldn't be discovered until months have passed, possibly starving everyone in the colony), was a completely different issue.
The process had to be properly planned. In the end, a composition of any colonization group was established to be composed of three transport ships (one carrying people - 20 to 40 thousand typically, and two carrying necessary planetary infrastructure and supplies) and one military ship that was going to end up as a permanent orbital 'garrison' of the world. If the world in question also required some additional help - for example comet redirection to add some moisture to the planet - additional ships were added with necessary technicians aboard.
Conference of Styx
2192, Pluto Subsector
As a part of an ongoing interstellar expansion, several less important issues had to also be ironed out. Good example might be a naming convention for stars and planets alike. Until now stars weren't exactly an important issue to a general population. Now however people wouldn't want to refer to their system's sun as for example 'DENIS J081730.0-615520'. The end result was an acceptance of a great variety of names, as long as they weren't referring to any particular person or ideology.
In the end, for example a system called Serenity would have it's stars signed officialy as Serenity A, B, C etc. Planets circling those stars would be counted as Serenity A-I, A-II etc. (simply Serenity I, II etc. if there is only one star in the system). Moons would be then signed as for example Serenity A-IIIa, A-IIIb etc. It was of course the official classification. Inhabitants were free to add their own names, though they weren't going to be the 'official' name for their worlds.
Despite the name, the conference happened on Titan. However, it was officially signed on Styx, which was done for symbolic reasons. Styx was, after all, the starting point of colonization fleets departing from the Solar System.
Insomniac War
2195-2196, Solar System
A war breaks out between the Jovian Coalition and the Federation of Mars - and all of that because a captain of a martian warship suffered from a longer period of insomnia, resulting in his rather aggressive attempt to inspect the cargo of the Jovian cargo vessel. Things soon spiralled of control, but not entirely. The Insomniac War was in the end mostly composed of trade interdiction and raiding attempts, in a way a microscale ancestor of the modern asymetrical space warfare.
The Coalition and the Federation continued pummeling each other's space industry, while simultaneously playing cat and a mouse on each other's cargo vessels, while attempting to avoid direct confrontation between their armed forces. The two large developments of this period was the creation of the general foundation of the asymetrical space warfare (focused on avoiding regular battles while hitting enemy logistic routes and attempting to blockade hostile worlds) and a resurrection of long-dead combat spaceship class.
Some of the Jovian engineers decided that you don't need to possess an overwhelming firepower in order to hit unarmed cargo vessels, so they strapped some basic weaponry to engine system and powerful (if unpleasant) inertia dampeners. Together with powerful neural interface and first workable cognitive boosters (allowing to massive accelerate cognitive speed of a pilot in full connection with a ship's system, allowing humans to catch up in reaction speed with machines), allowed the Jovians to create a first 'proper' starfighter.
The very term 'war' is doubtful here, as merely seventeen people died during the course of the hostilities, including one jovian captain who had an accident while drunk after celebrating their tenth cargo vessel seized and five martian crewmembers that seized a ship in much worse technical condition than it looked from the outside - bad enough for a reactor to malfunction catastrophically on the return journey. Despite that, whatever the Insomniac 'War' trule was, the result is a humiliating defeat of a much larger Federation of Mars, and significating trading gains of the Jovian Coalition. What's more the Coalition's military prowess shown during the 'war' has improved their diplomatic standing among the Solar System nations.
Aurums Discovered
2196, Cradle Sector
Despite being visited multiple times, Alpha Centauri system proved to a secret that managed to elude scientists to this day. A small planetoid has been discovered to possess ruined (and well hidden) settlement of a species later named Aurums. It turns out to be a treasure trove of technologies, even though unlike the hyperspace derelicts it's rather run down.
It is no surprise that the existence of this outpost is connected to the Ark. It is because of that discovery that the Aurums are believed to be the source of the Ark, however the data on that issue is painfully limited. With the aurum technology being so well-preserved, this date is often seen as a date of first confirmed xenotech recovery.
The majestic recordings of the inside of the aurum settlement triple the number of people applying for various xenologic and xenoarcheologist courses on Mankind's numerous universities.
Voyager-4 goes silent
2200, Solar System
In late 2198 three probes were launched from Styx and Halimede into the void between star systems, each in a different direction for a variety of scientific reasons. They were named Voyager-3, 4 and 5, as a reference to much earlier Voyager-1 and 2 probes launched in late 20th Century. Each of them was equipped in modern propulsion systems, much faster than in case of their predecessors.
In 2200 Voyager-4 suddenly went silent, its last transmission indicating massive structural damage. The conspiracy theories soon rose claiming that aside from technical data indicating the damage received, Voyager-4 also send visual data showing the mysterious assailant seconds before probe's ultimate demise.
Contact with Voyager-3 and 5 is terminated in 2201, with the official cause being design flaws. No additional attempts to send probes into the interstellar space are ever made, and the plans to create manned outpost on Sedna as a basis for Oort Cloud exploration and research are officially scrapped as 'uneconomic'.
Procession of the Lost sighted
2202, Dragon System
The famed Procession of the Lost is sighted for the first time in human history. Thousands of ships of various size and types fly through the recently colonized Dahak system in silence, the biggest of them being 100km long. The news reach Earth almost four months later, as the colonization fleet on the colony's orbit is destroyed by an automatic defense system on one of the derelicts. Only once the Solar System notices the prolonged silence and the dispatched response fleet reaches the system is the truth revealed.
After the recording of the Procession reaches Solar System, it soon becomes an object of desire for many. After all, what sort of fabulous wealth could possibly be salvaged from fleet filled with ships of this size? However, due to massive firepower of the Procession and it's tendency to appear and disappear in random, pillaging it is a dream that didn't come to fruition even in 29th Century.
The recording of the first known passage of the Procetion becomes one more major drawn for exploration... and an inspiration for an entire generation of artists.
Colonization Fleet 76 Dissapears
2205, Hyperspace
Colonization Fleet 76 (composed of warship Agincourt and three transport vessels) disappears during Hyperspace transit. The end result is almost 40 000 humans disappearing forever. What's more, those four ships become first known ghost ships, as they are repeatedly spotted in Hyperspace in decades to come. Soon they are considered a bad omen for ships that encounter them.
The ghost ships join the slowly growing list of various superstitions filling the heads of extraterrestrial settlers. The source of this are the electromagnets - exposure to a powerful magnetic fields can cause feeling of an unspecified presence and hallucinations, believed by some part of modern science to be the reason behind various stories about 'haunted houses' and so on. As a result, numerous myths and religious epiphanies occured during the first decades of space exploration. Mankind learned to cope with that, to a degree, but even with Humanity 2.0 treatment the frequent space travellers appear to be much more prone for development of various superstitions.
This dissapearance of Agincourt is only a temporary setback. Rather than slowing down further colonization (due to fears of this tragedy repeating itself) all it does is triples the yearly budget of Commonwealth's Hyperspace research in order to ensure safe FTL travels.
African Wars
2206-2222, Africa
African Wars were caused by a parallel expansion attempts of two highly racist and borderline genocidal regimes in Africa - the more fascist-like Central African Federation and the much more socialist-like State of South Africa. While other countries in the region were significantly black (massively lowering the potential ammount of victims of the CAF and SSA genocidal purges), their political lack of interest in furthering the cause of the black racism resulted in numerous wars, with the two powers attempting to force the unity of the Africans in order to put an end to 'centuries of racial exploitation of Africa by the outsiders'.
While the overwhelming majority of circa four million civilian casualties were the non-black inhabitants of the conquered territories, the blacks instead suffered massive deportations. Especially the CAF reached an insane level of them, all in an attempt to successfully shatter the remaining tribal loyalties that impaired the development of Africa. The side effect of many ethnic group scattered throughout the territory of the expanding empires was, typically, a long-term assimilation and many languages going extinct in a small, regional reenactment of the Culturcide.
African Wars came to an end when the powers of the Northern Hemisphere managed to manipulate the two regimes (which already disliked each other) into an open confrontation over whose ideal of the future was better. The result was a critical weakening of both regimes and their slow fragmentation into numerous, typically democratic (either liberal or socialist) successor states. In an ironic twist, the African Wars greatly hindered the African' development and delayed the moment where Africa caught up with the Terran' First World economically and politically (which happened during early War of Purity).
Bountiful Harvest raided
2210, Simplicity System
A transport vessel SCS Bountiful Harvest is raided by a mysterious armed group that thoroughly pillage the ship before departing into the Hyperspace. It was later discovered to be perpetrated by a group of military deserters that captured a solarian warship and used to it to pillage a number of goods (including a collection of rare art pieces) from Harvest.
The group is finally cornered, with their ship disabled and the perpetrators captured during the successful boarding action. They later faced trial and spent the rest of their life in the prison colony on Oberon. The boarding action had to be done by a group of operatives from the Solar Commonwealth's Survey Corps, as that was the only group skillful in space boarding and combat.
The result of the first true act of space piracy in Mankind's history is the birth of the Solar Commonwealth Space Marine Corps. It was a short and small military build-up, but a military build-up nonetheless. With the security of extrasolar colonies brought into attention, numerous planetary militias were created alongside the Space Marine Corps.
Hellstorm
2210, Simplicity system
Humans have only recently became a Hyperspace-capable species. They were still many things that they didn't know about that almost eldritch dimension. This included the fact that this place had it's own type of 'weather'. Humanity discovered that in the worst way possible.
Hell Storm (shortened Hellstorm) was first hyperspace storm ever encountered. It erupted from the Zeus anomaly in early 2212, causing severe disturbances in spatial compression of Hyperspace, throwing ships off-course and swallowing entire colonization fleets, while dooming many of the survivors to Hypermadness. The storm marched through the Human Space, repeatedly changing direction. At the end, entire Humanity was at least slightly touched by the Storm.
It is estimated that almost 200 000 humans died and at least 20 000 went insane due to the raging currents of the storm. 24 transport vessels and seven military ships are lost to the Vortex Storm.
Human Population Reaches 15 Billion
2214, Cradle Sector
Despite the massacres of the Days of Fire, and of both the Third and Fourth World War, the human population was steadily growing. In fact, it remained in the state of the slowly accelerating population boom of a scale unheard of ever since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The reason for that was the prospect of the unlimited (or almost unlimited, at least in the timeframe counted in centuries or even millenia) living space outside of Earth.
While the extraterrestrial colonies were limited to closed habitats, the population growth was strictly enforeced. Now, however, new worlds were steadily getting terraformed. Each of them was ready to be settled by whoever was willing to leave their world. However, there's no point in establishing an extrasolar colony with zero population growth. After all, the more population you have, the more goods you can produce and the greater the money you earn. The bigger population also meant more political power in the Commonwealth's senate. As politics and economy intersected, things began changing. By the time the first extrasolar colonization missions started, colonial prospectors greatly favoured potential colonists who admitted that they want to have as many children as possible (or at least more than two).
Technology naturally followed. Increasing mechanization of troublesome jobs resulted in the economic system where a single person from a developed part of the world could earn enough money for an entire family, even with multiple children. Surrogate robots were made, allowing a pregnant woman to attend even the hardest work in person (theoretically) without risking anything - which together with an option for external pregnancy rendered the choice between career or children a non-issue. The spread of Humanity 2.0 was also a contributing factor. Earth's population was still mostly stable (following the growth spurth of the post-Days of Fire era, where arcologies allowed much greater population density without affecting environment), but even it started growing after a while.
Soon the standard family in the Colonies was composed of parents and anywhere from three to six children. This, together with great healthcare and long lives, resulted in incredibly fast population growth. The 15 billion mark was reached in year 2214, with fourteen billion inhabitants on Earth, and around one billion leaving outside of Earth. The proportion soon began tilting in the extraterrestrial worlds' favour.
First Telepath discovered
2218, Cradle Sector
First scientifically confirmed case of psychic power is found soon after the Vortex Storm passes. The telepath in question is half mad (due to suffering from Hyperspace Insanity Syndrom) and soon perishes due to malignant brain tumours. However, he is conclusively proven to be able to read one's thoughts and transfer thoughts on a distance up to one meter. Soon a number of additional powers are discovered.
Initially the link between the development of anomalous powers and the passing of the Hellstorm seems obvious, earning people that gained them a term 'Stormtouched'. Much later it is discovered that a minuscule part of Humanity 2.0 augmented people develops such power when exposed to Hyperspace. Typically the stronger the Hyperspace exposure the more people awakens into Stormtouched (later known as sorcerers, espers or psychics). However, the stronger the initial trigger, the less stable the result is.
With Hellstorm causing mass exposure to Hyperspace, it also caused the subsequent 'outbreak' of anomalists. However with the strength of its currents, the end result is a mass outbreak of malignant brain tumours, cerebral hemorrhages and degenerative neural diseases. Out of approximately a thousand Stormtouched, merely around ten can be considered 'stable'. The rest dies horrible deaths.
Hyperspace Relays Created
2220, Cradle Sector
One of the 'gifts' of the Hellstorm to Mankind was that it doubled already massive expenditure on hyperspace experiments while also providing Mankind with a lot of valuable research data. The end result was a creation of a first Hyperspace Relay, They were little more than navigational buoys that could be placed in Realspace while projecting a signal receivable in Hyperspace - but that was enough.
Relays deployment allowed to create stable 'paths' between systems. While long range travel was still incredibly time consuming due to the need to fly through almost every seem between the start and end points, it massively improved the speed, predictability and safety of Hyperspace travel.
The result is an opening of numerous new options for Mankind's already massive extrasolar exploration. Until now, every Hyperspace journey was a major danger - there were cases of ships disappearing merely because of some previously undiscovered phenomena. From the moment the Relays were brought online, these random sudden deaths of entire ships were essentially gone. For quite a while all ships disappearing in Hyperspace were either part of the Survey Corps or suffered due to technical malfunction or human error. As a result, hyperspace traffic was more or less safe and reliable.
Neuroamplifier and Neurosuppressor Created
2223, Cradle Sector
First generation of neuroamplifiers and neurosupressors is created in an answer to the Stormtouched discovery. While the existence of psychic powers was conclusively proven, they were all pitifully weak. Telepaths could read thoughts only by literally touching the target's head with their head - that's how far the range went. The other superpowers worked about as good. And those that did work good were accompanied by utter lack of control and (often) insanity.
Neuroamplifier is a common term for an entire array of cerebral implants chained into one system, and with a rather complicated but not sentient overseeing AI that uses direct brain stimulation to amplify the psychic power from useless to useful level. It is also used to monitor side effects of the power usage, to avoid cerebral hemorrhage, strokes and other nice things. Neurosuppressor is similar but works in exactly opposite way, suppressing uncontrollable powers by forceful silencing of altered neurons.
First generation is rather crude (side effect of, if the gossips are true, experimenting on highly unstable less fortunate Stormtouched), however they are a milestone in the history of modern parapsychology. The further progress is much slower, as the awakening of powers is extremely rare. However it slowly becomes more and more common as the time passes.
Rosetta Incident
2225, Hydra System
Rosetta incident was a most unfortunate attempt to awaken and interface with the Aurum computer system in a newly discovered outpost on a barren moon of Hydra-IIIa. The highly advanced (but not sentient) AI codenamed SI/ROSETTA was created and uploaded with advanced abilities to adapt and make decisions - it was deemed enough to pierce the computer defenses (and decrypt the language while doing so).
While Rosetta succeeded in breaching and analyzing the data vaults of the outpost, it went insane in the process. Despite being explicitly programmed to protect humans, it went on a rampage, hacking through the systems of the ships orbiting Hydra-IIIa and causing self-destruction of all of them save for SCS Tannenberg, which was used to shot down the transport vessels orbiting the currently colonized Hydra-IV, before ramming the ship into the surface, disrupting the currently very fragile atmosphere and causing deaths of everyone on the planet.
Yet another esoteric gossip was born of the Rosetta Incident. Some claim that Tannenberg contacted the Hydra-IV colonists before killing them all. That message was then supposedly picked up by the Commonwealth' officials. With the Commonwealth' main database destroyed during the Fifth World War and the backup bases pillaged by a lot of people, one cannot say for certain what the message. One version (contained in the so-called Rosetta Fragments) seemed to indicate that whatever the SI/ROSETTA discovered on the Aurum databases, it made the SI decide that killing as many humans as possible was the only way of helping them.
Battle of Serenity-VIII
2226, Hydra System
Battle of Serenity-VIII was a military disaster for the Solar Commonwealth. The battle started with two survey ships founding a ship similar to the fabled Ark in the Hyperspace near Serenity system. They boarded it of course and stole a number of Gene Artificer modules. Then, however, they discovered an incoming ship that failed to answer to Friend/Foe identification. One ship approached the incoming ship and was promptly blown into pieces from outside of the effective range of its weaponry. The other loaded the Artificers and began fleeing as fast as impossible.
Serenity system - with its naturally Earthlike world, a number of terraformable planets and moons and sizeable asteroid belts - became a notable hub of Commonwealth' navy presence outside of the Solar System. Twelve warships were in the system when the fleeing survey ship jumped out of the Hyperspace, with pursuing unknown ship right beneath them. The survey ship was blown apart quite soon, with the pursuer then attacking the Navy squadron near the gas giant of Serenity-VIII. The end result was a massacre, with the attacker (much later identified as a Banshee frigate) not even receiving a hit throughout the engagement. Attacker retreated into the Hyperspace. Gene Artificers were later salvaged from the wreck of the survey ship (however at least one was gone, picked up by an unidentified private ship).
The massacre near Serenity-VIII caused the Commonwealth to launch a military build-up of unprecedented proportions. Rather than a fleet composed entirely of small and fast ships used mostly for search & rescue, a new fleet was to be assembled on a basis of a core of much larger ships, designated battleships and typically constructed to fit the large transport vessels in size. Making them 2,5km in length. They became the precursors of the capital ships. The former warships were reclassified as frigates. A middle-class of ships, designated cruisers (that later were to become an ancestors of destroyers and cruisers alike) were also created.
Humanity 2.5 Project starts
2228, Cradle Sector
Progressives - the supporters of more proactive improvement of humanity - achieve majority in the Commonwealth' Senate. This is caused by a number of issues, from a discovery of new Gene Artificers to all the vastly different worlds discovered during this expansion phase, with at least some of them seemingly better suited for inhabitants of a notably different biology than human average,
This leads to the launch of the so-called Humanity 2.5 Project - which in turn led to creation of Variants. Initially everything went well. Unfortunately, the scientists became the victim of their own success. The growing hype and expansion of the progressive side led to loss of control. Project leaders, scientists and the politicans supporting Humanity 2.5 became hostages in front of popular support. Why threaten your own career by being the one to announce to the raging crowd that their hopes and dreams are impossible, when you can dmove even more funds into the project and hope that it succeeds?
First programs were firmly grounded in facts, resulting in subspecies genetically tailored toward facing certain common hazards or obstacles in habitable extraterrestrial worlds. As time passed, the programs grew weirder and weirder, having more to do with popculture than with cold scientific facts and potential applications.
The result weren't going to be nice.
Brilliance Massacre
2229, Neptune Subsystem
A remaining denialist terror cell (with just a tad of a help from more radical preservationists) launches a terrorist strike against a scientific city of Brilliance on Triton. The dispersion of a paralytic gas through the arcology ventilation system causes almost 15 000 people to die. It is directly caused by the start of Humanity 2.5 Project, and only the fact that it was rushed prevented the terrorists from killing everyone on Triton.
The attack (together with a dozen lesser ones penetrated from 2228 to 2235) fails to stop the Humanity 2.5 from projecting as planned. In fact, the attacks from the denialists (fervently hated by the progressives for being believers of outdated ideas and superstitions) make progressives even more relentless in their campaign for greater genetic diversity.
As a side-effect of the Brilliance Massacre, the Humanity 3.0 Project started in secrecy, taking full advantage of current numerical superiority of the progressives in the Commonwealth's leadership. The result is also the growth of internal strife, as the preservationists grow increasingly embittered by their status of an embattled minority.
Humanity 3.0 Project starts
2230, Neptune Subsystem
A brand new level of attempts to improving Humanity, Humanity 3.0 was a brainchild of a number of most radical Progressives that somehow managed to gain enough support in the aftermath of the Brilliance Massacre to be actually pushed through - to future's humanity eternal sadness. Rather than merely an attempt to use Gene Artificer to improve or alter human genome, Humanity 3.0 wished to use Gene Artificer, advanced neural implants and neural interfaces, and speculative parapsychic research to create whole new meanings of being human.
The idea was to break through the Wall of Faith by forcefully altering Mankind - after all, if it got just a bit smarter, they could reach the point where Singularity (at least the robotic one) can actually occur. That was the genesis of the transhumanists. Each of their Lines was in fact a form of field testing of various potentially Mankind-changing technologies. Once sufficient data would be gathered, the plan to eventually launch Humanity 4.0 Project, during which the best combination of the best parts of all Lines was to be combined into an eventual, post-human form.
The result of Humanity 3.0 was the creation of transhumanists. From its save haven on Perseus (and even safer haven on Firefly IIIa), the project continued according to schedule. By the end of year a number of transhuman projects was finished. While the results can and probably should be abhorred due to the future events, it was certainly the height of Humanity genetic, cybernetic and parapsychic might.
Oceanian War
2231-2245, Southeast Asia/Oceania
The tensions on Earth seemed to be waning after the African Wars ended, however this process was temporarily delayed in the Southeast Asia and Oceania regions. Indonesia's recent rise to power and its slow expansion (done by political and economic means rather than militant) put it on the collision course with the Socialist Federation of Oceania (composed of Australia, and New Zealand).
The resulting conflict become a proxy war between powers of the region, with the Chinese Federation, Japan, United Republic of Korea and Republic of India picking their sides and funneling their funds into the conflict that was still economic more than a military one (though it had its own fair share of military engagements and skirmishes). It is also the perfect picture of how far the ancient pre-WW4 political structures dissolved - as the Japan and India supported the Oceania, while the Korea and China supported Indonesia. A match-up impossible until quite recent times.
In the end the war Indonesian victory, though a minor one. No border corrections were made, and no country has fell. China and Indonesia, however, changed the Indochina region into their playground, while the Japan fell into a temporary economic and political crisis and lost Okinawa due to local secessionist sympathies enflamed by heavy casualties of Okinawan troops during one of the few regular battles of the war.
The Oceanian War is often considered 'last of the national wars of Terra' by modern historiography. Majority of the war was politically and economically stable and developed, with their surplus (or just dissatisfied with the state of affairs) population leaving the planet to settle in the colonies. There were some regional skirmishes, but as a whole the Earth' nations has mostly grew up from the internecine conflicts.
Hyperlanes Discovered
2232, Cradle Sector
Second massive achievement of contemporary hyperspace research is finally achieved, as a group of Commonwealth's researchers succeeds in locating and breaching a Hyperlane. Naturally occuring (or not) hyperspace route of extremely high yet perfectly stable spatial compression, allowing Mankind to almost instanteous travel between two distant points.
The result of this discovery is further growth of Mankind's space expansion. To this day, Mankind was restrained to areas surrounding the Solar System. The distances grew overtime, until the border moved too far away from the center - even with FTL drive, the distances were simply too large to maintain a cohesive economy and politics.
Hyperlanes and the resulting establishment of star sectors managed to alleviate this problem. The two hyperlanes discovered near the Earth offered two completely new 'starting points' for expansion, which could be reached from Earth in a sensible timeframe. The fracturing of Human Space alongside the sector borders was inevitable, however each sector was going to remain small enough to be at least theoretically governable.
Of course, it turned out to be a temporary solution. Soon more hyperlanes were discovered in the two newly settled star sectors. And then even more in the resulting star sectors. By 2800 Human Space is composed of close to sixty star sectors and four hundreds subsectors (their discovery a much later feat and each of them much smaller than a sector), making all dreams of centralized interstellar governance of Human Space into a complete madness. One shared by a majority of Mankind.
Seskans Encountered
2233, Sector 03
A survey ships detects activity on the surface yet unnamed world. It is soon established to be a hideout of a seskan warlord, still populated by his robotic legions and defended with mighty MAW batteries and ground-to-space missile silo. Once its defenses are destroyed by a joint effort of Commonwealth Marine Corps and Navy, the xenologists spend months uncovering its secrets.
The hopes of an actual first contact are soon squashed, as it becomes apparent that the seskan species is most likely long gone, with their remaining settlements maintained by robotic means for at least several centuries, with no contact with willing seskans. The hopes of finding a living seskan still linger, only to meet a brutal end during the waning years of the Commonwealth, when the burned husk of seskan homeworlds is found in the North American Oversector.
The analysis of seskan self-replicating robotic servants yields valuable insight, opening talks about the possibility of a megastructural engineering and self-replicating constructions. The results of attempts into that fields are varied, to say the least, especially as the Wall of Faith becomes an increasingly omnipresent issue, slowing down research on more and more fields.
Hope Project started
2236, Sector 02
Megastructural engineering was something that many humans dreamed about almost ever since Mankind expanded into space. However before it could actually be realized, Mankind had to barge through many obstacles. Numerous exploited star systems with robust economies, and a save and reliable FTL connection and ability to delegate majority of construction to machines with self-replicating and at least adaptive traits - it was the absolute minimum. Minimum achieved recently.
The decision was made to start a construction of a ringworld megastructure in a Sun-like star known as Hope in the Sector Two - it had several worlds, but none of them really appealing to colonists, even if they were to be terraformed. As a result, even if they were to be dismantled for materials, it would be a small loss for Mankind.
Of course, there were still large issues with the construction. It was going to take at the very least four hundred years for the construction to finish, and there were no known materials durable enough to be used in actual construction of the ring. However it wasn't needed for the first stage of the project, the creation of necessary infrastructure without touching the ringworld itself.
The habitats for workers were steadily assembled on the surface of Hope-III, while the recently achieved technology for self-replicating and adaptive constructions was employed in order to construct the partial Dyson Swarm, a scaled down megastructure in itself. Clouds of self-maintenanced, self-repaired and self-constructing solar correctors were to swarm the star, siphoning up to 5% (within a century of self-replication) of star's energy output, serving as a potent source of essentially free energy to be used to power the Hope Project and the star lifting, an extremely power-hungry method of gaining usable materials from the star itself.
Metallists Encountered
2238, Sector 03
[ustify]A cluster of toxic worlds is found by survey ships during their exploration of areas beyond the hyperlanes. After the toxicity is found to be deliberate and a number of ruins is found on the surface of those worlds (most of them forever impossible to be terraformed due to amounts of heavy metals, radioactiveness and various toxic chemicals in their atmosphere and soil), xenologists scramble to investigate.
The result of a number of scientific expeditions to the so-called Dominion of Rust region is a discovery of the first signs of the metallist civilization. Later on more remnants are found, small enclaves scattered in a seemingly nonsensical pattern throughout much of the Human Space.
Analysis of the metallist technology yields valuable insight on increasing the industrial output, useful to those completely disinterested in keeping their environment intact. Worlds like Io achieve major improvement in their production capabilities. The process of moving the large-scale industry into dedicated Industrial Worlds grows in intensity.Silinruls Encountered
2240, Sector 03
More slime-strewn worlds are found throughout the newly discovered parts of Galaxy. All of them carrying signs of past habitation, with population estimates often in billions. Theory of outside biological attack becomes increasingly unlikely. Finally a ruined fleet anchorage is detected in newly discovered system, the ship design indicating that it belonged to the same civilization as those slime-covered worlds.
From there, a sizeable part of the Silinrul Empire history is deduced or discovered, and the events of Darkening and the subsequent Shoggoth Plague become the answer to the Fermi Paradox. Despite the ages that passed the Silinrul structures are reasonably intact, offering valuable insight into the construction technology, greatly improving the odds of Hope Project succeeding.
Once the full history of madness that brought Silinruls into extinction circulates throughout the Solar Commonwealth, the remaining preservationists receive a number of powerful arguments on dangers of extensive cyborgization and genetic tampering. Soon they began gaining ground, despite furious progressive counteroffensive.
Third Expansion Phase starts
2240, Human Space
With recently discovered areas of space behind the hyperlanes (and the hyperlanes behind the hyperlanes) properly mapped and surveyed, a yet another expansion phase could finally begin. Unlike the worlds surrounding the Solar System (200ly in diameter), the new 'star sectors' were typically smaller, ranging from 75 to 150 light years.
It was unique due to influx of Variants and transhumanists that made for approximately 15% of the colonization fleets. Both typically inhabited small clusters of systems (2-3, depending on the number of colonizable worlds), typically under their own governance (though it still answered to the Commonwealth). It was seen as an unfair advantage by many humans, for whom transsystem subsidiary governments were highly discouraged in order to combat threat of potential secessionism.
The official reveal of transhumanists also whipped preservationists and the remaining denialists into a frenzy. The result was one of the most intense period of debates in the Senate of the Commonwealth. The slow weakening of the progressives become apparent.
Mechanist Hierocracy Established
2240, Sector 03
A multi-system dominion of the Cybernetic Line of transhumanists is established in what is later to become Forge Sector. Cybernetic Line saw a new form of Humanity as a meld between between humans and machines. They were known for an extensive cybernetic upgrades, to the point where their 'elders' were little more than human brains in a customized bodies of steel and silicon.
It was soon changed into major industrial powerhouse, churning out starships and other goods in rapidly growing numbers. In the following years, the Mechanist Hierocracy became the largest industrial center in Human Space (without counting the Terra), resulting in their growing political importance. Mechanists took full advantage of that and both their popularity and the fact that they were the oldest of the transhumans to act as speakers for the entire transhuman cause.
It was the mechanist' relentless lobbying (together with fearless opposition from the preservationists) that had the progressive-controlled Senate agree to expand the transhuman dominions to a size much larger than the Variant ones. As a result the Variants never managed to separate themselves culturally nor be independent politically enough to develop any secessionist tendencies.
Hiver Convergence Established
2243, Sector 06
The so-called Ascendence Line of transhumanists was a closest that humans (or any other known species) ever came to creation of hivemind. Hivers were at first glance humans, however of little individuality. All memories were transplanted throughout their entire subspecies with the use of advanced biotechnology. As if to make them even less understandable to baseline Mankind, they were also asexual and multiplied by a various 'biopools' that spawned new entities periodically.
Following a typical theme with transhumanists, the fact that they played according to their biological or cybernetic advantages has allowed to quickly expand their numbers and powerbase. Also causing a notable level of enmity between them and both baseline humans and Variants, as the rapidly expanding Hiver industrial and research powerbase led to them slowly establishing a de facto domination over the entire sector.
It was a journalist's secret that the original idea for the Hivers included an actual hivemind, however technological inquiry into a a possibility of inducting telepathic skills into the general population ended with complete failure. As a result, all sorcerous transhuman designs were scrapped.
Virtual Consensus Established
2243, Sector 05
The Virtual Line of transhumanists followed the idea that was pretty widespread among the sci-fi writers for centuries. Virtuals seeked perfect unification of Humanity and Machines - by means of humans uploading their conciousness into the machines and interacting with Real World only via technology.
They created a number of Virtual Hubs, gladly taking over inhospitable moons and planets so far away from their star that they couldn't sustain plantlife. The resulting Virtual Consensus was composed of millions of Virtuals living in artificial utopias of the Hubs, while expanding their infrastructure via remotely controlled drones.
The integration between virtual and real world reach completely new levels in Virtual society. The great popularity of this Line among fans of videogames (who became the main source of 'converts) greatly contributed to that fact. After a decade has passed, the Virtuals were counted among the disproportional part of videogame development and computer industry of the Solar Commonwealth.
Dominion of the Pure established
2243, Sector 09
The so-called Pure Line of transhumanists was probably the closest that the Humanity ever came to 'Humanity 3.0'. The Pure adhered strictly to the 'perfect' human form, however one improved to perfection. Every one of the Pure was faster, stronger, smarter and more aesthethically appealing than overwhelming majority of Mankind 2.0. The best among them surpassed the best of 'baselines' by far.
Unfortunately while they were initially the most humanlike and accepted transhumanist Line, they quickly drifted apart out of perfection-induced loneliness. Dominion was a materialized utopia - rational, orderly, and with a government purely uncorruptable, and with its arts, philosophy and science thriving more than it did in the Commonwealth. After some incidents, even the most staunch of the preservationists had to admit that the self-isolationism of the Pure was understandable.
Dominion of the Pure had slightly closer ties with other transhumans, but even on that field it was rather reserved. As a result the Dominion's participation in the greater Commonwealth most limited to some rare cases of various products of arts that ended up leaving the Dominion. A side effect of that was the Commonwealth's total lack of understanding of combat power that the Pure could wield.
Immortal Union established
2243, Sector 09
The Immortal Line of transhumanists was a line utilizing advanced cloning technology and brain-upload technologies to freely 'switch their personalities between highly customized human bodies. Each Immortal was given up to 5 bodies (more for those of higher standing), with their world possessing an entire biofactories constantly busy cloning new, personalized bodies. As long as an Immortal wasn't in a body that died, he could remain in the world virtually forever.
Naturally, there were moral issues of cloning and a small sliver of Mankind achieving de facto an immortality, at least for as long as they remained connected to the network of whatever planet or ship they were on (or their 'black box' remained intact). There were arguments, there were protests, but eventually progressives forced the issue on. As a result, immortals were counted among the more shunned groups among the transhumans.
The Immortals soon excelled in various life-threatening lines of work, and their propensity for extreme sports become their second (after potentially unethical foundation of their very existence) defining feature in the eyes of the Commonwealth' population.
Genetic Wars
2244-2266, Human Space
Genetic Wars were a period of unrest and regional guerilla campaigns that greatly helped in digging the deep rift between the transhumans (and to a much lesser degree Variants) and the rest of Humanity. They also weakening the Commonwealth right before the beginning of the War of Purity. While the official transhumanists and Variants had their own enclaves under self-governance rule to avoid them being used as some 'supersoldiers' (or worse), some people succeeded in doing exactly that.
It is believed that Genetic Wars were caused by the 'missing' Gene Artificers from the Battle of Serenity-VIII. They were used to create genetic templates that wouldn't receive an approval of the Solar Commonwealth' Commision of Genetic Ethics. What's more, a combination of a secret deployment of gene-altering retroviruses and a regular clone factories was enough to allow a small armies of de facto supersoldiers to be created. And with the Commonwealth' increasingly disjointed ship production, many of the wannabe warlords succeeded in procuring small fleets of warships from a less-than-official sources.
The end result was a long period of guerilla campaigns made by various 'genetic warlords', many of them political radicals (or simple criminals and madmen) that decided that they couldn't get their needs satisfied under the Commonwealth. With some of their 'supersoldiers' often turning out to be a frighteningly dangerous opponents (though never in numbers enough to topple the Commonwealth), the war was much more bloody that anybody expected it to be when it started.
Variant-17 Found Corrupted
2245, Human Space
Variant-17 (all conclusive data of their form disappeared later during the fall of the Commonwealth) of Mankind is considered 'genetically corrupt' after a outbreak of widespread genetic disease that drives this Variant to extinction. It wasn't the first healthcare crisis in Variant history, but this one was simply too large for the progressive government of the Commonwealth to suppress.
Gene Artificer was never created with vast alterations of target's form in mind. While it was completely capable of that, it was merely a side effect of its genesplicing abilities. Mass usage of Gene Artificer to create countless Variants and Lines turned disastrous when many of them began displaying signs of genetic disorders and diseases previously unknown to Mankind. As a rule, the earlier Variants and Lines (created while it was the scientists who decided what to create next) were more stable, while the latter (designed to appease the mob) suffered more.
At this point the process of a creation of new Variants was officially scrapped and those already created were examined in details. Out of 47 Variants created before year 2245 merely nine were discovered to be fully stable. Twenty-two died out or were forced to receive a reversal Gene Artificer treatment, turning their second generation back into baseline humans. The same fate happened to 12 genetic transhuman Lines, with only Pure, Immortal and Ascendence Lines proven to be fully genetically stable (machine-oriented transhumanists had no such problems).
The result was a massive hit to progressive cause, and further strenghtening of the preservatist opposition. While on the peak of support for the progressives more than 70% of Mankind supported their cause, this number was now down to 55%, with preservationists forming majority on numerous extraterrestrial worlds.
Robotic Technocracy established
2245, Sector 04
Following a mind-uploaded nerd-equivalent of a doctrinal schism, a group of Virtuals switches en masse to a completely new cybernetic Line of their design, creating the first Robotics. They settle on the opposite side of the Human Space, where their country soon receives numerous new converts from the general Solar Commonwealth's population. This is enough for them to swiftly catch up with average development level of the transhuman enclaves.
Robotics use extensive brain-uploading just like Virtuals, but stay loyal to the real world. They house their consciousness inside customized robotic bodies. Human-like mostly at the beginning (and among the modern descendants of the Unforgiven), and definitely not human-like during the War of Purity and among the transhumans of Discord.
The Robotics were soon famed as very competent engineers, unafraid of radiation, all but the most extreme of mechanical damage and even the vacuum of space, where they could easily operate without the cumbersome suits on them. In fact, living in space seemed to somewhat of a cultural thing for them, resulting in open-'air' construction elements of spaceborne habitats designed by and for the robotics.
Overseers Assembly established
2246, Sector 10
Overseers Assembly was a late-transhuman Line created through a vastly different approach to the issue, taking advantage of both the cybernetic technology and the sociological research. The result was the usage of extensive cybernetic implantation and virtual's augmented reality technology in order to - together with a sociological modern designed to promote communal and austere behavioural pattern) in order to establish a perfect, efficient and almost zero-waste communal society. With machine doing almost all work.
The Overseers Assembly wasn't the first attempt in Mankind's history to establish a utopia. Unlike its predecessors however, the Overseers managed to achieve something resembling a success. It is not a success that everyone finds palatable, and for the first four years there's almost 55% of the citizens ends up resigning and leaving the project. Over time, however, certain form of stability is achieved. The resulting society resembles a weird cult for many of the outsiders, however.
Overseers end up being the smallest and least successful of the Lines, due to both starting late and lacking any significant advantage over baseline transhumans - their society is well-organized, peaceful and generally content, which is not something useful when you want to catch-up with someone much more powerful than you. In the end they are looked down upon both the Solar Commonwealth' and the transhuman enclaves.
Sedna Disaster
2248, Outer Solar System
An experiment with a hyperspace goes horribly wrong and the entire planetoid of Sedna is swallowed by the Hyperspace. Sedna during the recent years become the focal point of hyperspace research in the Solar Commonwealth, due to its convenient location (as a part of the Solar System, but one distant enough that Hyperspace Drive could be used freely and without interferences.
This event becomes Mankind's first contact with a Hyperspace Planet. Like many others, it ends in a complete massacre. The population of the research station on Sedna's surface dies or goes insane and then dies. The soldiers send into the Hyperspace in order to discover if there's anything to save suffer grievous casualties and are forced to retreat without saving anyone. With more than 15 000 people dying, it's one of the largest critical research failures in history of Mankind's science.
The result of the Sedna Disaster is not only disappearance of Sedna from realspace and many deaths, but also end of practical hyperspace experiments - with lack of theories regarding Hyperspace rendering theoretical work impossible, this means halting of Hyperspace research as a whole. This ban lasted until the end of the Solar Commonwealth, and its severity making many doubt if massive human casualties were the actual reason for it.
Commonwealth Armed Forces Reorganized
2250, Human Space
In the light of the campaigns against the genetic warlords suffering serious setbacks, Commonwealth was forced to reorganize its armed forces. Each star sector was to receive a single Fleet (the number of fleet = the number of the sector) composed of a number of battleships with cruiser and frigates as escorts, together with a sizeable detachment ('Army Group'), though their numbers varied greatly) of the Commonwealth Army and Marines.
What's more, a lesser Task Forces were to be placed in key areas throughout the sector, composed typically of a squadron or two of cruisers and frigates as an escort (together with a smaller detachment of Commonwealth Marines), to be used as fast-response units. Every inhabited system was to receive at least a squadron of frigates to serve as early warning system for the task forces and fleets. In case of alien attack (or to act as reserve force), the sector with a Solar System in the middle was to receive an additional fleet, known as Reserve Fleet (but unofficially also as Home Fleet or Battle Fleet). The result was a massive military build-up.
Transhumanists were allowed to form their own navies, just smaller and expected to help the local admirals of the Commonwealth Navy. At least in a way it was done to allow the transhumanists (objects of a rather furious attacks) some measure of self-defense... and to appease them. Obviously, it caused even more furious reactions, and as partially was responsible for the alienation of transhumanists. Even the more politically extreme of the Variants began gravitating towards baseline Mankind. What's more, the rapid growth of preservationist sympathies throughout the Commonwealth's didn't spare the military. Significant part of the recruits used to boost the Commonwealth' armies and fleets belonged to the preservationists.Battle of Hydra
2255, Hydra System, Sector 03
The reorganized 3th Fleet of the Commonwealth Navy succeeds in dealing devastating blow to the forces of Reaver, the most prominent (and probably most sadistic and bloodthirsty) of the warlords of the Genetic Wars. During past five years of his rampage through Sector 03 space he has managed to carve out a sizeable dominion of fourteen systems. He achieved this by a combination of personal brutality, intellect, strategic skills and legions of genengineered supersoldiers. He also succeeded in defeating the Commonwealth Navy in several prior encounters, amassing a large fleet from captured and repurposed vessels.
The battle started with a brief encounter between two task forces (3-5 and 3-7) and one of major Reaver's fleets (111 vessels of various size, mostly small). After it, both task forces (composed of 17 cruisers and twenty seven frigates) ran towards the edge of the system, with the warlord's fleets at their tail. Then situation changed completely, as when the pursuers caught up with the escapees at the very edge of the system, 3th Fleet - composed of four battleships, twenty-seven cruisers and almost one hundred frigates) emerged from the Hyperspace. Soon almost entirety of the warlord's fleet was annihilated.
Unfortunately, while this battle was a turning point, it was by no mean the end of Reaver. He was finally defeated seven years later. But he himself (together with his little 'court' and at least two supersoldier regiments) disappeared into the wilderness beyond, with his descendants resurfacing during the Unification Wars as the Crimson Freedom. What's more, the Commonwealth' investigators find evidence pointing towards Reaver possessing one of the lost Gene Artificers. It disappeared together with him.The D-Gate Network discovered
2256, Hydra System, Sector 03
An Immortal Union' survey ship finds a D-Gate (first ever discovered jumpgate). That alone would be shocking, as jumpgates allow for instaneous travel between either two points or even a multitude of them. Here, however, after passing through this relay-type multidirectional jumpage they discover what is much later known as Discord. A massive derelict space station, a treasure trove of technologies (most of them later designated as darktechs)... which included an ability to manufacture additional D-Gates.
Due to worsening relationship between the transhumans and humans (and the Immortal Union massive backlash due to cloning and mindswapping technologies they use), the discoverers decide to hoard this technology and do not announce its discovery to Humanity at large. As the political situation worsens in the years before the War of Purity, other transhumans are gifted their very own D-Gates, greatly contributing to the massacres of the early periods of the War.
Much later gossips indicate that the transhumans descend into increasingly redhanded madness began after the station behind the D-Gates began being used as a meeting point for their leadership. Some of them (like High Mechanist Adar FC-12) refused to visit the place, typically after their first visit during which they found the place 'eerie' 'foreboding' and 'wrong'.
The Exalted Conclave established
2258, Sector 09
Biologists of the Dominion of the Pure succed in creating an artificial sorcerer. The height of the pre-War of Purity transhuman technology, and a sign that the idea of improving Mankind offered a fair chance of breaching the Wall. It infuriated the preservationists, as they opposed the entire idea of transhumanism - and transhumans designing and creating new transhumans without human oversight was akin to robot designing and creating new robots without human oversight. A danger. It even irritated the progressives, as it was done with little regard to Commonwealth's political situation.
The numbers of the members of the Exalted Conclave never surpassed three hundred, due to how costly the conversion process was. As a result, they were never granted their own enclave, and instead existed as a NGO with rights identical to the transhuman enclaves. The Dominion never decided to share the know-how with anyone else, resulting in majority of the data destroyed during the late years of the War of Purity. The future Mankind and the Discord managed to recovers bits of it, enough to have some limited achievements in recreating the process by year 2800.
The Exalted possessed powerful and stable powers (equal to future Infernoes, though some suggesting that they were in fact on the level of mythical Supremes). They were a rare but dreaded sight on the battlefields of the War of Purity - not due to their mental strength but because of growing insanity of their members, seemingly accelerated with every prolonged stay on the Discord station.
First Stage of Hope Project ends
2260, Sector 02
After twenty-four years of multiplication, the pale recreation of the Dyson Swarm that surrounded the star of Hope become strong enough to officially start the stage two of the construction effort. The construction of the actual ring could now start, due to recent development of a number of hyperresistant materials with necessary properties (achieved mostly due to analysis of Silinrul and Metallist ruins). The habitats for the workers were also finished.
As the second stage officially started, the massive energy produced by the swarm of energy collectors was used for star lifting - a procedure of extracting extreme ammounts of solid materials straight from the star. These materials were to be properly refined in hundreds of highly automated factories and metalworks scattered throughout the Hope-II world and then used to assemble the ringworld - starting from the ring itself, to serve as foundation for the resulting massive habitat.
The second stage was estimated to last for around one hundred years and was to be immediately followed by stage three, which was the assembly and fine-tuning of the habitable space (estimated to last for two hundred years). However the fact that recent technologic development accelerated the stage one from fifty years to thirty-six was a source of a great optimism for the people working on the project.
This achievement is considered to be one of the greatest feats of the Mankind's Golden Age - one of the greatest and, unfortunately, one of the last ones.
War of Steel
2262-2264, Sector 03
A genetic warlord known only as 'Purifier' launches a regular invasion on the Mechanist Hierocracy. he was the second most cunning, charismatic and powerful warlords after Reaver, and he commanded a restored derelict (that he dubbed the Symphony of Flesh) carrying a potent superweapon classified much later as a Silencer - an extremely power non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse generator capable of decimating electronics systemwide with each fire. While unfortunately also knocking out itself, albeit temporarily.
Purifier commanded not only his own supersoldier legions but also a sizeable number of radical preservationists and ancestors of future biopurists (humans disliking the idea of cybernetic enhancements, and prefering natural flesh) that joined him due to his anti-cybernetic and anti-transhuman rhetorics. He already managed to establish a twelve-system wide domain in the sector, defeating a number of Commonwealth's commanding officers (and persuading few more to join him). Now he was ready to use it, together with the Symphony of Flesh, as means to an end.
The Mechanist Hierocracy would have fallen, if not for the fact that the Symphony of Flesh was located and engaged by Mechanist forces in the Hyperspace. As a result, it was damaged and abandoned, believed to have disappeared in the Hyperspace. At this point three of thirteen systems of the Hierocracy system were already knocked out and mostly occupied, with three on-going ground battles that the Purifier was winning.
Without the Symphone of Flesh the Purifier's armies were stopped and finally pushed back by the Mechanist forces. His fleets were scattered, many of the squadrons continuing to wage guerilla warfare. Purifier himself was believed dead, killed by a mechanist warform while leading a ground assault on Mechanist' positions (a successful one, but his death ruined most of that success). This war also become one o the last straws that were to cause the outbreak of the War of Purity, as an admiral in charge of the Commonwealth's fleets was a staunch preservationists, and he refused to send help to the Hierocracy. Instead he treated it as a distraction for the Purifier's forces, taking advantage of that to decimate the warlord's logistics and reconquering lost Commonwealth's worlds.
War of Purity [2266-2278]
General Description
War of Purity was a disaster. A bloody, terrifying disaster that scarred Humanity to no end, said scars visible even today, almost five hundred years after the deed was done. Approximately thirty two billions of humans lived at the start of the war, this number essentially getting down to fourteen billion at the end of the war. Dozens of worlds were destroyed, and all the bias and gossips about the transhumans plotting the downfall of Humanity found their eternal justification.
Transhumans saw an increasing anti-transhuman bias (and the rise of the preservationists) as a sign of unavoidable genocide. In a way, they saw themselves as Jews in the last years before the Holocaust. Humanity hated them. Humanity tended to destroy things it hated. The result was obvious. The only way they could prevent that was by striking first, taking advantage of the D-Gate that allowed them unparallaled coordination, their unity that allowed them to prepare in secrecy, and their transhuman 'powers' that offered them various advantages. After almost a decade of secretive military build-up, they struck.
Of course, the sheer scale of paranoia among the transhuman leadership was suspicious. There are no signs of preservationist shadow cabinet planning a genocide - save for a minuscule fringe percent (that mostly ousted themself by supporting the Purifier) preservationists wanted a cessation of the 'Humanity 4.0' plan and reintegration of transhuman enclaves - the general idea was that all humans, even the descendants of the transhumans, should have a free choice of whether to become a transhuman or not (instead of peer pressure forcing it in the transhuman states). The result of that were numerous conspiracy theories arosing, each of them weirder than the last. In the year 2800 Mankind is roughly divided between 'transhumans did it because they are evil monsters' and 'there was some outside cause for the war' factions, with roughly equal numbers.
The term 'War of Purity' comes from the war-opening speech of the envoys of the Hierocracy (in fact of the entire transhuman alliance) that mentioned how Humanity's attempts to maintain some 'fickle purity' of form was cause of so many disasters in the past.
Events
Initial Events
The Day of Sorrow
28.03.2266, Sector 04
Day of Sorrow is the term for the initial transhuman assault, planned to succesfully cripple Commonwealth's ability to fight back without (with one exception) attacking their currently superior fleets and armies. There was only one way to do that - they had to destroy Humanity's demographic and industrial superiority, while simultaneously decapitating its leadership.
Twenty-four industrial worlds and population centers were marked for destruction, including Earth, Venus and Mars. The methods varied from nanite missiles to bioweapons and ships crashing into the planet with high speed and construction tailored to survive high speed atmospheric entry with little damage. Outside of Solar System every attack succeeded, however due to relatively low population of colonies merely close to one billion humans died. Solar System would increase that number more than tenfold, if attack succeeded.
Terra was saved by a ready to departure colonization ship SCS Tianzhou ramming into the transhuman kill-ship on a collision course with Earth (it was the only ship in right position, and the captain decided that lives of himself and 15 000 colonists is a small price to pay to save 18 billion inhabitants of Earth). Earth industry and manpower being still there managed to save both Venus (from an outbreak of self-replicating nanomachines tailored to realize the gray goo scenario) and Mercury (from a major atmospheric damage that almost managed to revert the planet to its scorched form).
The attacks occured right after two envoys of the Mechanist Hierocracy turned out to be a highly customized cybernetic warforms, whose 'message from the Hierocracy' resulted in death of every member of the Commonwealth's Senate, government and High Council. Despite Earth and other worlds of the Solar System being saved, the Commonwealth was successfully decapitated. Similar attacks targeted all sector governors, sizeable parts of the sectors' Low Councils, many high profile admirals and generals, and higher ranked members of various interstellar transport corporations. As the result, close to 50 percent of regional governments, close to 65 percent of military officers (Lieutenant General and Comodore or higher) and leadership of about 96% of interstellar corporations was eliminated within 24h. This changed the decapitation strike into surgical removal of nervous system.
Less noticeable but even more painful part of the Day of Sorrow were the large-scale hacking assaults perpetrated primarily by Virtual and Robotic hackers. When the Day of Sorrow ended, what remained of the Commonwealth's leadership was essentially blind. Demographic censuses and economic data required to collect taxes, databases of criminals and terrorists, crucial logistic plans and data, numerous technological blueprints and research data - all of that was gone. During first months of the war entire squadrons of Commonwealth's ships didn't receive reinforcements, nor supplies, simply because no member of the Commonwealth's leadership that survived the massacre was aware of their existence.
Simultaneously to the Day of Sorrow attacks, massive (if still numerically inferior to the Commonwealth) transhuman fleet constructed and stored in Discord emerged from it, and began conquering the Human Space world by world.
Aran Singh becomes a military dictator of the Commonwealth
02.04.2266, Solar System
With the government dead and a state of emergency painfully obvious (even if none of those who could declare it were still alive), the viceadmiral Aran Singh declares himself to be a commander-in-chief of the Solar Commonwealth's Armed Forces and the de-facto head of government for the duration of the crisis. This is met with almost no opposition, as the Viceadmiral Singh was the only surviving admiral of the Commonwealth Navy within the Solar System.
The previous commander-in-chief and entire High Command was massacred when Virtual hackers turned the security of the Navy's headquarters against itself. The commanders of the First and Reserve Fleet were wiped out from captain level above when another group of hackers sneaked a videofootage of the Hyperspace into the feed of their emergency conference, driving every single person present on the bridges of every single warship in the Solar System insane. Viceadmiral Singh, the commanding officer of the 3rd Battle Squadron of the First Fleet survived because the shuttle that was bringing him back to his flagship from Earth suffered from communications malfunctions and he didn't join the conference.
Due to the emergency turning out a bit more complicated that everyone imagined, Viceadmiral Aran Singh remained the de facto absolute ruler of 95% of Mankind for the duration of twelve years.
The Transhuman Crusade Proclaimed
23.04.2266, Solar System
As the news of utter obliteration of a world of Freedom-II (together with almost five hundred million of its inhabitants) during the Day of Sorrow reach Earth, the religious authority of the Roman Catholic Church proclaims the war against the Transhuman Alliance as a modern crusade. This proclamation is caused by approximately 25% of the Freedom population being Roman Catholics or other Christians.
While no forces are mustered directly by the pope, all spiritual benefits of crusades (such as plenary indulgence to those who died in it) are apllied to every single human raising their arms in defense of Mankind without tainting its honour by war crimes. As more and more news of massacres reach Earth, numerous other religious figures of different branches of Christianity, Islam and a number of different religions (from larger, like Buddhism, to much smaller, like Zoroastrianism) proclaim the war to be their equivalent of a crusade and urge all ablebodied adherents to participate in the war as much as possible.
With religions going through a period of resurgence ever since the end of the Culturcide, this proclamation helped whip the Solar System into shape. Religious authorities also de facto joined the war, focusing their efforts on relief actions to those most afflicted by the fighting but also doing their best to motivate as many people as possible into military services (at least while it was still theoretically voluntary). This movements resulted in their influence growing greatly as the war continued.
ATIS Deployed
25.04.2266, Human Space
The technology behind the self-reproducing solar collectors of the Hope Project had more than one application. The special R&D team composed of Robotics and Virtuals (with few Mechanists and Immortals) managed to prove that. The massive numerical superiority of the Solar Commonwealth's Navy had to be countered, but even more crucial thing was the need to cripple the Commonwealth's superior industrial output.
To achieve that, the ATIS was created. Autonomous Trade Interdiction System. A network of autonomous (and self-replicating) factories capable of producing few simple designs of SI-driven warships and starfighters. It was spread throughout the Human Space through a series of well-hidden D-Network Jumpgates, with each such fabricator soon creating new ones.
Small warships produced by the ATIS were no match for even the weakest of the Commonwealth's ships... but those ships weren't their targets. ATIS units prowled the Hyperspace and launched suicidal attacks on enemy transport vessels (and various industrial installations in the outer parts of star systems). Naturally computers this small weren't particularly bright, forcing their programmers to use wide definitions. Having to decide whether the target ships is passenger ship or a cargo vessel (and whether the outer system installation was a closed dome colony, tourist destination or a asteroid mine) would be too hard. So instead, they were programmed to target everything that wasn't identifying itself with transhuman identification codes.
The end result of ATIS deployment was close to one billion civilian casualties (due to destroyed outer colonies and civilian ships, plus famine on many worlds de facto blockaded by ATIS without ability to feed their population) and shrinking of Solar Commonwealth's industrial output by close to 20% of its pre-war capabilities. They also forced the Commonwealth to delegate significant part of its forces into keeping its logistic routes clear from ATIS drones.
Northern Quadrant [Early Engagements]
Battle of Sphinx
05.11.2266-09.12.2266, Sector 08
Out of all the transhuman states, the Immortal Union had the easiest job to do. Adm. Anastasya Adamovič, the commander of the 8th Fleet of the Solar Commonwealth, was successfully assasinated right at the beggining, together with overwhelming majority of the 8th Fleet command rooster (it was the most successful fleet decapitation after the First and Reserve Fleet). For the first five months the three Battle Groups of the Eight Fleet operated de facto independently, as none of their commanders recognized each other's authority - and all three saw themselves as adm. Adamovič replacement.
This changes only after the Third Battle Group under Viceadmiral Sukarno was broken and scattered by the the Immortals in the Battle of Furya. The Viceadmiral Friedrich and Viceadmiral Shin-Il decided to cooperate and take advantage of the critical weakness of the Union's forces following the high casualties suffered by them during the Furya battle. The plan was simple - directly assault the core worlds of the Immortals, and destroy their orbital infrastructure before they can rebuild their fleets.
The idea was for the Viceadmiral Friedrich' forces to draw enemy attention, while the viceadmiral Shin-Il will arrive once the initial engagement is over and the enemy's munition stores and fuel banks will be mostly empty. Unfortunately, the Immortals correctly foreseen this plan. The vadm. Shin-Il's reinforcements was diverted through the hyperspace relay route through which they were to arrive in the Sphinx' system being altered. Without proper means of navigating in Hyperspace without trusting the relays, Shin-Ils forces arrived at the correct time, but to a neighbouring star system. By the time they understood their mistake, and arrived in Sphinx, the battle was already over.
Contrary to the origina battle plans, viceadmiral Friedrich's forces failed to retreat as planned. Unawarily to the Commonwealth's, the Union amassed gigantic number of starfighters in the system. When vadm Friedrich's forces pulled back from the battle, they went under massive starfighter assault that began decimating their weakened formation. 1/3 of Friedrich' fleet was destroyed, 1/3 escaped and 1/3 surrendered (a bad move, but it was hard to know how far the transhumans were really going in their... enthusiasm). What's worst, the captured ships were used to pretend to be a retreating part of Vadm. Friedrich's fleet and successfully pulled the arriving vadm. Shin-Il's forces into a trap, though not well enough for the commander of last active battle group of the Eight Fleet to not escape with majority of his ships intact.
Despite the captured ships being destroyed in the failed ambush (together with a significant part of Immortal' fleet), this battle decided the fate of the campaign in the Eight Sector. Theoretically the forces of the Commonwealth in the sector were still stronger that remains of Immortal' fleet, but they lack ability to replenish their losses due to ATIS system decimating local supply routes. Immortals in the meantime were boosted with significant reinforcements from the Pure, and began overwhelming the entire sector. Half a year after the Sphinx battle, Viceadmiral Shin-Il evacuated to the Sector Three together with everything flyable in the sector, only to get caught in the Iron Cage.
High Mechanist Adar defects
06.2266, Sector 03
Adar FC-12 was a high ranked naval officer of the Mechanist Hierocracy. He was notably estranged from the Hierocracy leadership following his refusal to ever visit the area behind the D-Gate again. After the full scale of transhuman assault (and the Day of Sorrow) became known, he led a failed coup attempt to stop what he saw as 'madness' that threatened the future of the transhumans by confirming all biases and stereotypes about them in the eyes of Mankind.
Despite the coup failing he successfuly escaped, in his exile followed by a sizeable detachment of the Hierocracy Navy. He launched a guerilla campaign against the steadily progressing Mechanist fleets. During the course of the war he has became a representative of all transhumans that rebelled against the Alliance and sided with the Commonwealth, that were soon dubbed the 'Unforgiven' by the baseline Mankind.
While naturally extremely distrusted and typically receiving the worst jobs, their steady loyalty during the war was a longtermly successful plan. And as the insanity of the Transhuman Alliance' leadership grew steadily, more and more transhumans defected and joined the Unforgiven. This movement grew even stronger when the tides of war started turning against the transhumans and their offensive was finally broken.
Iron Cage established
09.2266, Sector 03
The crucial part of the Transhuman Alliance plans for the war in the Northern Quadrant was the need to cut off the Commonwealth' units operating in the area from potential reinforcements coming from the Solar System. As a result, it was the Sector 03 were majority of the Transhuman' reserves were located during the first year of the war. Their plan was ambitious.
As the fights were still raging, the Hierocracy send the bulk of its forces towards the sector's capital. It took advantage of significant part of adm. Kornatiev's Third Fleet being engaged in a attempt to assault the coreworlds of the Hierocracy and assaulted the Destiny, the capital system of the sector. While the planet wasn't attacked, massive minefield was deployed right next to the hyperlane exit. The Mechanists also destroyed the orbital shipyard, taking advantage of the crucial mistake pre-war Commonwealth's expansion planning.
The fleet anchorages, shipyards and military logistic centers necessary to run a fleet were typically located in the capital system, which - once again typically - also housed the hyperlane exit through which Mankind arrive to the sector. When Mechanists assaulted that complex - and blockaded majority of the Third Army Group on the capital world's surface - they essentially cut off the logistic center of the Third Fleet together with any hopes for receiving supplies from Earth. They also denied admiral Kornatiev chances for actually invading the Hierocracy, as majority of his ground forces was now locked on the Destiny-III.
it was a risky bet. If it happened few years later, admiral Kornatiev would have simply glassed the Mechanist worlds'. But since it happened at the early stage of war, the Third Fleet was instead decimated during the (ultimately futile) attempts to break the Mechanist' blockade. Within two months, broken remains of the Third Fleet were imprisoned in the sector-wide cage, caught between the anvil of the blockade fleet and the hammer of new ships and armies manufactured within the Hierocracy worlds, which began slowly overtaking the rest of the sector.
Iron Cage broken
12.06.2267-17.06.2267, Sector 03
Within nine months, the Commonwealth's assets in the Northern Quadrant were essentially annihilated. Caught between rapidly growing forces of the Mechanists and Immortals, with their supply lines broken and their remains under perpetual assault of the ATIS drones, and the the entire sector still remaining a deadly trap. Even with remnants of the Eight Fleet arriving to the sector, the Commonwealth's forces were still not strong enough to break free.
At this point admiral Kornatiev was in charge of a massive fleet of flying pieces of junk, their decks filled with surviving Commonwealth's military personnel, and followed by numerous vulnerable civilian vessels filled with refugees. He still had some ships capable of combat, but as a whole the only thing that keps the Junk Fleet save was the fact that the Mechanists were too busy conquering the sector world by world, and simply didn't bother to divert enough forces to mop-up the Commonwealth's Navy remains.
The situation was changed when a ragtag group of cornered mercenaries, soldiers who couldn't find their destroyed units, survivors from the Purifier's army and even some Unforgiven has managed to do the impossible. While the Junk Fleet was trying to stay alive, and the Mechanist focused on planetary invasions, this group has managed to track and recover the Symphony of Flesh, the Purifier's flagship. The ship was in horrible condition, but they managed to fly it back to the Junk Fleet's concentration region. There all the remaining engineers of the Adm. Kornatiev's forces pooled their skills and all the scrap they could found into an attempt to repair it.
The Symphony of Flesh arrived in Destiny system on the 12.06.2267 and immediately fired its superweapon, burning its own systems in the process (permanently, this time). Mines were burned out in an instant, and the Mechanists' fleet was knocked out in a safe distance from the hyperlane. That's when the Junk Fleet forces began entering the system and flying with the highest possible speed towards the hyperlane.
Mechanists' managed to reactivate their ships in time to intercept the fleeing fleet, though not before the fastest of the Junk Fleet ships safely jumped out of the sector. The Mechanist's attempt to assault the bulk of the Junk Fleet failed, as their ships were engaged in combat by group of best preserved warships under direct command of Admiral Kornatiev. Knowing full-well that they can't hope to win, the Commonwealth's forces charged at the enemy and engage them in a close range firefight while focusing their fire on the lighter and thus faster Mechanist ship. While Kornatiev's entire task force was annihilated in the battle, close to 67% of Mechanist's cruisers were destroyed while further 22% received varied degree of damage, typically forced to fly slower than normally (instead, exactly 0% of the Mechanist's battleships were destroyed or damaged).
Mechanist's battleships failed to catch up to the Junk Fleet (mostly due to spending two days repairing their computers after the Symphony's blast). The remaining ships managed to catch up, but they were only few of them left. Because of that, 79% of the ships of the Junk Fleet managed to escape back into the Sector 01. With them, few hundred thousand of trained military personnel and three million of refugees reached safet. What's more, close to 30% of the surviving ships were actually warships damaged beyond the ability of field repairing. With access to proper shipyards, majority of these ships were soon returned to service and bolstered the remaining forces of the Commonwealth.
Following the retreat of surviving forces of the Eight' and Third Fleet, the entire Northern Quadrant fell to the Transhuman Alliance.
Western Quadrant [Early Engagements]
The Pure's Blitz
04.2266-08.2266, Sector 09
Dominion of the Pure's true military might remained concealed from the Commonwealth' attention almost ever since the Dominion's establishment. Unknowingly to the universe at large, the Pure were hiding both their true numbers (its population growth was three times as much as officially reported) and the scale of its military build-up and how dangerous a single of its Perfect warriors could be. Discovering that a single soldier of the Dominion could engage an entire infantry squad on equal grounds was both painful and morale-shattering to the Commonwealth's 9th Fleet of Admiral Pedro Quesada.
Following severally painful defeats both on the ground and in space, the 9th Fleet and its accompanying ground forces are mostly scattered. The Commonwealth's forces in the Ninth Sector collapse with humiliating speed, and last remnants of organized resistance are broken within merely four months. Even the attempts of the remaining Commonwealth's personnel to engage in guerilla warfare were swept aside rather quickly. By the end of the year, only few worlds in the sector still continue to putting up resistance.
This speed allows the Pure's to delegate a growing part of their forces to act as the Transhuman Alliance' general reserve force. Supported by the members of the Exalted Conclave, the Dominion's space navy and its Perfect's are soon visible on every front of the War of Purity. The result are more and more disastrous defeats of the Commonwealth.
Fall of Sector 05
12.2266-09.2267, Sector 5
Sector 05 was a sector that shouldn't have fallen to the Transhumans. It was the region where the last four empires of the genetic warlords were located, and due to the need of finally squashing their little domains the Fifth Fleet was the second largest military force in the Commonwealth's space (with only the Reserve Fleet being 10% larger than it). What's more, due to sheer luck, the Fifth Fleet wasn't crippled in any way by the Day of Sorrow assault. By the time end of the 2266 it also started receiving reinforcements and supplies from the Sector 01, as the contact with Earth was finally reestablished. What's more, seeing the dire state of affairs, the commanding officer of the Fifth Fleet (the Admiral Kaneko Hisako) decided against trying to reassert their military rank and agreed to listen to orders of the Viceadmiral Singh.
The campaign against the Virtual Consensus seemed to have been succeeding, with several early victories. Soon the hyperlane leading to Sector 09 was secured and reinforced, the resulting blockade being enough to deter the Dominion of the Pure's attempt to fight its way out of its sector. Then, however, the disaster struck - just as the Virtuals planned right from the start, with even their defeats being a conscious and complicated set-ups.
Following a significant brain damage that admiral Kaneko suffered while a child, she received a set of intracerebral implants that brought her out of brain damage-induced coma. The hackers of the Virtual took advantage of that. Once everything was prepared, a Virtual installed itself unto her implants, essentially taking full control of her body and leaving her unable to do anything. Soon the orders were sent - orders that while sensible at the first glance, left elements of the Fifth Fleet critically vulnerable to an attack by enemy who was fully aware of the orders they received.
Seven weeks later admiral Kaneko's plight was discovered, but it was already too late. The Virtual infiltrator escaped after frying her brain, and the Fifth Fleet stopped being an organized combat force. As the Dominion of the Pure's fleet barge through the hyperlane (its exit now devoid of defenses), the four genetic warlord pooled their forces together with the still combat-capable elements of the Fifth Fleet. The result was the Battle of Noricum-IV (12.04.2267-15.06.2267). The desperate last stand of the Fifth Army Group and the supersoldier legions of the warlords (supported by whatever warship was found with still working weapons system and propulsion) ended in complete defeat. It however allowed the decimated remnants of the Fifth Fleet to retreat deeper into Commonwealth's territory, its ships soon repaired and personnel used as reinforcements for still fighting armies and fleets.
Eastern Quadrant [Early Engagements]
The Asimov Massacre
28.03.2266, Sector 04
The Robotic Technocracy was by far the most outnumbered of the transhuman states. The Overseers Assembly couldn't be trusted, which meant that the Robotics had to secure two sectors pretty much alone - and they were much weaker than the Hiver Convergence, who also had to secure two sectors. As a result, it had to knock out local garrison of the Commonwealth instantly and completely. The result of the plan was the Asimov Massacre.
The Admiral Zuri Okonkwo of the Fourth Fleet of the Commonwealth had no reason to be wary of the arriving fleet of the Technocracy - after all, the Technocracy was a part of the Commonwealth, and the news about the Day of Sorrow were yet to reach the 4th Fleet main anchorage over the Asimov-III world. The news the technocrats were bringing were preposterous - a sudden appearance of a number of powerful genetic warlords in sector 04 was almost inconceivable, but the warlords were known to do pretty crazy things. Thus, he allowed the much smaller fleet of the Robotics to join his forces, in a preparation for a proper answer to the new threat.
When technocrat' ships joined the tactical network of the Okonkwo's ship and got close enough, they unleashed a massive hacking assault exploiting hundreds of vulnerabilities detected during past few years by robotics and virtual programmers and never reported to the Commonwealth's leadership. Entire fleet - ten times larger than the combined fleets of the Technocracy - was instantly knocked out. The attackers turned the computer systems of the Commonwealths' ships against their own crew. Entire decks were vented into space. Security systems attacked and massacred the crew members, while various 'malfunctions' filled rooms with poisons, radiation or had their simulated gravity systems go into lethal overdrive.
While the Okonkwo's ships were busy trying to figure out what was happening or repel the hacking assaults, the technocrats began boarding one ship after another, wiping out the survivors and seizing the ship for themselves. Any ship whose crew retook control of its systems was instantly obliterated before it could attempt an evasive maneuver or power up their shields, with technocrats firing from an insanely short distance. Within seven hours 90% of the Commonwealth's warships in the sector were annihilated, with not a single human from the admiral Okonkwo's main fleet surviving. The Robotic Technocracy' fleet also managed to triple its fleet, while gifting equal numbers of captured ships to other members of the Transhuman Alliance.
The only solar warships that escaped the Asimov system was the 23th Cruiser Squadron under Rear Admiral Elsa Vorontsov (a rare case of Variant - in this case a feline - who rose so high in Commonwealth's fleet), which was busy with military exercises on the edge of the system. The squadron fled the system and become a focal point around which groups of smaller warships used by the System Defense Forces of the sector and surviving Commonwealth's personnel could gather. The resulting ragtag fleet of survivors began launching guerilla campaign in order to delay the Technocratic conquest of the Fourth Sector's colonies.
The Overseers Schism
08.2266-04.2267, Sector 10
The Overseers were the most human of the transhumans, which however didn't stop many of them from supporting the Transhuman Alliance. They, too, felt oppressed. They, too, felt that things had to change and that the transhumanism was the future. The protranshumanists among them saw themselves as a defining model for the Humanity 4.0 society, free of superstitions and harmful individuality. The opposing side still remained loyal to their human nature.
The result of this radical division was a regular civil war breaking the Overseers' Assembly in half and pitting the transhumanists against the Commonwealth's loyalists. The war further grew in intensity when the 10th Fleet of the Admiral Zahaad al-Mansur decided to reinforce the loyalist side, in a hope of securing the sector before the Robotic Technocracy could finish its conquest of Sector 04 and break through the hyperlane into the Sector 10.
The victory of the loyalists seemed certain when adm. al-Mansur worst nightmare came to fruition. He moved his forces to assist the loyalists without knowing just the size of the adm. Okonkwo's defeat. He was yet to receive news about that, and all he knew was that the Transhumans attacked the Commonwealth. His movement against the Overseers was due to him wanting to sector his sector. And then the forces of the Technocracy broke through his rearguard defending the hyperlane, thrice as strong as he expected them. Worse, Sector 10 was rather underdeveloped, and admiral al-Mansur' fleet was the smallest of them all.
The result was a disastrous defeat of the Commonwealth' in the Battle of Irem (03.01.2267-09.01.2267). With adm. al-Mansur dying, his forces were scattered and the loyalist side of the Overseers' civil war was promptly defeated. Following this achievement, the Technocracy's forces retreated back into the Sector 04 and focused itself again on conquering the remaining pockets of Commonwealth's defenders. With its internal enemies silenced and adm. al-Mansur death, the Overseer conquest of the sector could continue without delays.
Southern Quadrant [Early Engagements]
Sector 06 Takeover
28.03.2266-29.07.2266, Sector 06
The entire Southern Quadrant was one more region that simply shouldn't have fallen. Hiver Convergency was only a single - if well developed and economically powerful - transhuman state forced to cover for two entire sector. Sixth and Seventh Fleets of the Commonwealth's Navy were powerful forces, which should have simply focus their forces and annihilate the Convergency (whose entire Navy summed up to 1/10 of the two fleets). Instead it was the most smooth takeover of them all.
The Convergency introduced its sleeper agents to the Sixth Fleet' personnel, and local planetary governments for more than twenty years, ever since its own inception. Of course, initially it was simply considered a form of longterm security of the Convergence. The agents were members of the Convergency that received forged identities and fake memories and were introduced to the local population, with their interests tailored so that they would enter politics or armed forces of the Confederation. These agents were never meant to be activated (and were in fact unaware of their own nature) unless the Commonwealth' planned to invade or destroy the Hivers. But when the Convergence began preparing for the War of Purity, the situation changed.
Newer recruitment techniques were much more direct and succesful. Officer after officer and politician after politician were secretly brainwashed. The newest (and never introduced to the Commonwealth' at large) memory-implantation device (used to keep all members of the Convergence mentally 'up to date') could actually transfer memories and even general personality, superimposing them on the preexisting mind. The result was Hiver living in a non-Hiver body, with full access to his overwritten' host memory and a number of behavioural traits inherited from them. What's more, thanks to the Hivers' using archeotech technology recovered from the Discord, the whole process lasted less than ten minutes. As a result as long as you were alone in a room with an undercover Hiver for at least ten minutes, you were practically guaranteed to be rewritten.
Result of close to five years of such procedure (and earlier fifteen years of the original sleeper agent placement) was the successful replacement of thirty percent of the Sixth Fleet' officers, and of ninety percent of planetary governments' members that survived the initial assault of the Day of Sorrow. As the result, the converted officers staged a 'coup'. Admiral Adams was assasinated, and his (converted) replacement instigated a true witch hunt while seeking his murderer. Every officer and crewmembers taken to interrogation returned freed from suspicions... and as a new Hiver.
The plan didn't succeed entirely. A rookie spaceman serving aboard a SCS Trebuchet (a flagship of the 3rd Battle Squadron of the Sixth Fleet has awakened as an Empath during the return journey from a recent engagement against Hiver fleet. A failed attempt to silence him has exposed the truth to a group of security officers that were the ones to accidentally interrupt the silencing. Within four hours, all the ships of the task force were torn apart by firefights and summary executions, as the infiltrators were ousted and eliminated.
The 3rd Battle Squadron - now controlled by Lieutenant Commander Lazlo Mihailovic, former chief engineer of the SCS Katana and the oldest ranked officer of the 3rd Squadron that wasn't replaced by the Hivers - returned to the Sixth Fleet. With no other options left, Lieutnant Commander Mihailovic played va banque and contacted the Fleet right after entering the capital system of the sector while pretending to be a Hiver infiltrator that survived the purge conducted by crewmembers that discovered the infiltration by accident. When the fleet's answer confirmed that it was controlled by Hivers, the 3rd Squadron reversed course and disappeared in Hyperspace. Three months later it arrived in the Sector 02, the news they brought in resulting in successful purge of hiver infiltrators that managed to sneak their way into the Second Fleet command structure.
Sector 07 Isolated
09.2266, Sector 07
There were no transhumans in Sector 07, as the two Lines that settled there were wiped out by the genetic corruption. As the result, the sector was only temporarily crippled by the Day of Sorrow, and become a potential source of troubles for the Hiver Convergency. What's worse, there were no hiver infiltrators active there, as due to the center of Mankind's studies on the sorcerers located in the sector, the risk of exposure was too large. In the end, a different approach was needed.
Rather than facing the entirety of the Seventh Fleet in open battle, Hivers decided to successfully lock the enemy in the Sector Seven, allowing the rest of the Transhuman Alliance to focus their efforts on conquering the Core Worlds. It was achieved by a well-planned 'smokes and mirror operation', allowing the Seventh Fleet to defeat and destroy a small Hiver reconaissance fleet that tried to barge into the Sector 07. The contents of the computer systems were carefully filled with fail messages, navigation data and combat orders indicating that the Core Worlds were already taken over.
The commander of the Seventh Fleet - Admiral George Harrison - fell for that. Instead of trying to march north he instead decided to dig in. Within three months the hyperlane exit on the side of the Seventh Sector was changed into a deathtrap. The Convergency occasionally repeated the show by throwing groups of warships into the defensive positions of the Seventh Fleet, pretending to be searching for any sort of weakness. While admiral Harrison quickly began suspecting something, this tactic successfully kept him isolated until the end of the Coreworld Campaign.
False War
29.07.2266-15.07.2267, Sector 06
While the hivers managed to infiltrate and replace members of the planetary governments of the Sector 06 and take over the Sixth Fleet, they couldn't just randomly invade the Sector 02 and march towards Earth. The population and regular soldiers of the many planetary garrisons were still normal humans, who would certainly topple their own governments if it tried to surrender to the transhumans without a fight.
The result was almost a year long False War. A long series of staged military engagements, each and every one of them resulting in the Hiver Convergency victory. Sixth Fleet was officially destroyed in early battle (while in fact it was relocated back to the Hiver coreworlds), allowing the Hiver fleet to besiege worlds of the sector one at the time. Each planetary invasion had to be a victory, as all officers in charge of defending the worlds were de facto hivers. The battles were great and dramatic, but the defenders were almost perfectly prepared and made brilliant moves... that the invaders always knew how to counter. And when the battle was over, the prisoners from the losing side were silently converted into hivers, replenish the loses the attacker sustained.
Within a year, all worlds of the Sector 06 were seized. With their garrisons now serving the Hiver Convergency - and the Commonwealth' aware of the infiltration 'trick' - there was no need to keep the masquerade anymore, especially as it caused significant delays and setbacks in industrial production due to numerous efficient and reliable drones having to masquerade as humans. Within a single day, the former infiltrators showed their true to the world. While this greatly sped up the process of conversion, it also meant that entire worlds rose in (largely unsuccessful) rebellions. With Hivers controlling seizable part of their population, the rebellions were slowly suppressed by their regional hiver population. The main forces of the Hiver Convergency could now march towards Earth.
Core Worlds [Early Engagements]
Terra Mobilizes
2266, Terra
While Solar System received a lot of boons due to the space expansion, Earth remained largely as it was. It was a biggest population and industrial center, however unlike pretty much every other world of the Commonwealth it was never unified. While bickering largely died down, it was still a rather troublesome part of the Commonwealth. Significant part of its operations on Earth was attempting to mediate between the remaining power blocs in order to keep things steady down there.
When Terra was almost nuked by the Transhuman Alliance, things changed. In a way, that very thing made the transhuman defeat inevitable. Earth was pissed off - enough to get over their small issues and focus on their joint big issue. For the first time since Fourth World War Earth geared for a truly great war. Probably for the first time since the World War II it was 'win or die' on their side. And for the first time in history, entire Earth mobilized to fight on the same side.
Of course, the terran armies lacked combat experience and even trained personnel, due to the world greatly demilitarizing as the local wars mostly died out. Because of that it was going to take Terra a while to fully mobilize. But when that happened, the relatively small Commonwealth Army was bolstered by seemingly endless amount of national armies personnel (endless especially as most countries suddenly remembered that conscription was a thing). Terran industry was modified to focus on a total war, churning out weapons, ammo and supplies in a number that the entire Alliance together couldn't hope to equal.
Due to relatively slow speed of mobilization, the Transhuman Alliance could still win if it managed to overwhelm the Core Worlds before the Commonwealth could take advantage of its growing numbers. It was going to take them at least two years to finish conquering the outer sectors, which was a necessary prerequisite for an assault the Core Worlds. However, the time was slowly playing in Commonwealth's favour.
In order to slow down the mobilization, numerous ATIS fabricators were deployed throughout First and Second Sector. Many transport vessels and troop transports were destroyed as a result.
Star Forge assembly begins
01.2267, Hope
One of the biggest mistakes of the Day of Sorrow was the fact, that the transhumans didn't decide to destroy the Hope Project staging ground. Perhaps they planned to finish it after the war, perhaps they didn't think of it as a threat. This came to bite them in the end, as it took the Commonwealth' only three months into the war (and into the ATIS attacks) to realize the true potential of the Hope system. And few more months to begin realizing it.
The star lifting and the existing refining facilities that were used to assemble the ringworld were promptly turned towards military construction. Shipyards were hastily constructed throughout the inner system, and every single surplus shipyard worker (especially those that managed to flee from the falling outer sectors) was send to this industry center (dubbed Star Forge in official documentation). With almost unlimited resource production right next to them, and everything placed deep into the system (which, together with giant fleet garrison, offered full security from ATIS drones), the result was the largest construction facility in entire history of Mankind, unchallenged until the beginning 29th Century.
This installation (while still growing) prove crucial in refitting and repairing the decimated remnants of the outer sector fleets. It was only the beginning, as by 2273 85% of warships joining the Commonwealth's fleet were assembled in the Forge (and that's despite all remaining shipyard complexes throughout the Commonwealth's space being furiously expanded.
A the growing capacity of Star Forge's industrial output become known, the transhumans amped up their preparation for the Core World attack. However even with the D-Gate network, the ship transfer is a slow process, especially as the outer sectors were still plagued by guerilla warfare from surviving elements of the Solar Commonwealth. As a result, the start of the Coreworld Campaign was delayed until the first months of 2268.
Core Worlds Campaign [Preparation Phase]
Commonwealth' Forces Regroup
04.2267, Core Worlds
Once the outer sectors fell, the Core Worlds (composed of sectors 01 and 02) were left critically vulnerable. The Commonwealth's armies were demoralized and suffered casualties approaching 80% of their pre-war numbers. What's more, the had to face attacks from all direction at once. The hardest battle was going to occur in the Sector 02, where the hyperlanes leading to the Western, Eastern and Souther Quadrant intersected. However there was also the Northern Quadrant, with a hyperlane leading to it located merely one hundred and seventy light years from the Solar System.
While many staff members and field officers demanded immediate counteroffensive, Viceadmiral Singh decided to go on a defensive. Offensive carried too many risks, and defensive designed to delay the transhumans for as long as possible was the best option for the side which had time on their side. What's more, the three hyperlanes leading from the Sector 02 to the transhuman territories were placed on the sector's edges. With the Sector 01 hyperlane and the Hope system placed in the middle, the Commonwealth's garrison could cycle its reserves around all three battlefronts, finally gaining an upper hand in mobility (for the first time during this war).
The bulk of Commonwealth's forces began to regroup towards the Sector 02. The defense on the northern front was left to the now-repaired survivors of the Junk Fleet (now reclassified into the Third Fleet) together with Unforgiven reinforcements (a very heatly contested decision). The lynchpin of this delay operation was the world of Vigilance, which was transformed by the Tenth Choir sect into Mankind's first Fortress World. Placed right next to the hyperlane exit (which was a single hyperjump away), it was going to be a massive boulder standing in the Transhumans' way.
Soon the orders were issued, and the fleets and armies began to move. The decisive battle of the War of Purity was on the horizon.
Warrior 2.0 Project starts
04.2267, Neptune Subsystem
The battles in the Outer Sectors made it increasingly clear that even the heavy infantry of the Solar Commonwealth was no match for the transhumans warriors during the ground battles. The Dominion of the Pure' Perfects were merely the most painful example. Some of the heavily customized warforms of the Mechanist Hierocracy equalled tanks in sheer firepower. And even the transhuman soldiers on the more human level (primarily those serving the Overseers Assembly, Immortal Union and Hiver Convergency) had some special quirks that made them a potent threat at least slightly surpassing regular human soldiers.
The Solar Commonwealth had to change that. It's one and only strength in this war were the endless numbers it used to counter the overwhelming quality of the Transhuman Alliance. If the difference was at least slightly smaller, the quantity of the Commonwealth could be employed much more successfully. Once the Commonwealth recovered from the initial shock, its military began gathering every single specialist on bodily augmentation and military equipment development to Triton. Cybernetic and biological scientists, famous augmentative surgeons and geneticists, and even the Unforgiven transhumans and the captured genetic warlords pardoned of their war crimes.
The result of the Warrior 2.0 Project was creation of the first Enhanced - human supersoldiers taking advantage of technologies developed by human, transhumans and the genetic warlords. The technology was still crude, and many surgeries failed - often lethally. While initially (from the development of working prototype around March 2287) the risks were acknowledged and limited the procedure to merely few perfect specimens, the discovery of the Humanity Ascension Program changed that. Before the war ended, approximately nine hundred thousand volunteers died or were permanently crippled during failed augmentation process.
Core Worlds Campaign [Southern Front]
Initial Engagements
06.03.2268-17.03.2268, Sector 02
All three fleets of the Transhumans (the Hiver Convergency Fleet from the south, the joint forces of the Robotic Technocracy and Overseers Assembly from the east, and the joint forces of Virtual Consensus, Dominion of the Pure, and the Exalted Conclave from the west) has breached the hyperlane defenses in a single day, a notable (if pointless) feat of coordination. What follows are three battles. Battle of Fortitude (between the Robotics, Overseers and recreated Fourth Fleet of the Commonwealth), Battle of Clarity (between the Dominion, the Consensus and the First Fleet), and Battle of Nobility (between the Hivers and the Second Fleet).
All three battles ended with the Commonwealth' forces forced onto retreat and suffering significant casualties, however not without causing a fair degree of devastation among the transhuman forces. The biggest problem for the Commonwealth was how long the battleship assembly lasted. Despite the Star Forge fully operational for more than a year, it simply wasn't enough for first battleships to leave it. Cruisers and frigates were now a legion, greatly helping in suppressing the results of the ATIS deployment, but in terms of the actualy heavy-hitters the Commonwealth Navy was lacking. Even with 62% of pre-war battleships being destroyed during the campaigns in the outer sectors, and further 15% captured by the transhumans (primarily the Hivers and the Robotics), the Commonwealth still had numerical superiority - but too small for victory at this point.
As the victorious transhumans began besieging nearby settlements, the Commonwealth' forces retreated to the nearest systems, with the more damaged ships retreating to the Hope system for repairs, and the ships of the Reserve Fleet filling in the holes. The cycle of vicious ground warfare and the numerous battles (with the Commonwealth' forces retreating whenever the total defeat seemed a possibility) continued on and on as the transhuman forces continued their slow march towards Hope and the hyperlane leading to the Sector 01. During the following almost two year long campaign no less than sixty seven major fleet battles occured in the Sector 02, all of them ending with Commonwealth's minor defeat and further weakening of transhuman forces.
Battle of Kant
11.12.2269-17.11.2269, Sector 02
Following twenty one months of brutal warfare on the southern front, the forces of the Dominion of the Pure and the Virtual Consensus succeed in predicting the First Fleet' point of hyperspace exit in the Kant system. As the result, the Commonwealth forces enter the system only to find themselves facing an overwhelming transhuman forces while their systems and crews are still disoriented by the hyperspace exit.
The only thing that saved the First Fleet was the rapid and decisive response of Viceadmiral Zosimo Arriaga, the commander of the 1st Battle Group of the First Fleet. His forces were placed at the front of the formation, making his position perfect for an all out assault at the center of enemy formation. With the transhumans startled by that maneuver, he managed to focus majority of the transhuman firepower on himself long enough for the 2nd and 3rd Battle Groups to retreat into the Hyperspace, defeated and with heavy casualties but without being completely annihilated.
Battle of Kant was the breakthrough that the transhumans attempted ot achieve for almost two years. With the First Fleet defeated and in full retreat, the forces of the Dominion and the Consensus rushed forward towards the Hope system. With the Reserve Fleet mostly depleted and the remaining operational groups of it filled mostly with green recruits still in-training, Admiral Anika Ose (the commanding officer of the entire southern front) is forced to call the Second and Fourth fleets back, in order to defend the Star Forge, one of the two pillars (together with demographic powerhouse of Earth) holding the decimated Commonwealth' alive. As a result, all transhumans forces head with maximum speed towards the battle that was going to decide the fate of Sector 02.
Battle of Hope
09.01.2270-23.01.2270, Sector 02
Battle of Hope was the decisive battle of the southern front. Following the disastrous defeat during the Battle of Kant, Commonwealth' forces on the southern front pull back from the battlefields throughout the sector and converge in the Hope System, in order to defend the Star Forge (the current center of warship assembly of the Commonwealth), correctly deciding that transhuman will not take that occasion to sneak through nearby hyperlane into Sector 01.
The transhuman forces (fully aware that every passing day means more and more ships constructed or repaired in the Sky Forge and send into the field) rushed to Hope with maximum speed. As a result, they didn't join forces before arriving in the system, and instead arrived there from different directions. This was a fatal flaw, one of the very few trump cards that the Commonwealth could rely on. If the transhuman were allowed to join up, the battle would be lost.
With the Hiver and the Robotic/Overseer fleets arriving from 'southeast' and 'east' respectively (and the Virtual/Pure fleet ariving from the the 'west'), Admiral Ose decided to repel the the two fleets without giving them time to merge - or, which would be much worse, have one of the fleet arrive with full missile racks and artillery magazines while the Commonwealth's forces were busy engaging the other fleet. As the result, Second Fleet under admiral Roberto Fernandez received one of the most demanding orders in history of wars in space.
While forces of the Reserve, 1st and 4th Fleet accelerated towards the Robotic/Overseer fleet, the Second Fleet moved towards the Hiver forces. Hivers expected delaying action, primarily a missile duel with some limited artillery engagement from a long distance in order to empty their magazines. Instead admiral Fernandez charged at the Hiver fleet in an attempt to get as close as he could. With no option of destroying enough ships to make the Hivers back off, his ships focused on damaging as many enemies as they could, switching their fire to another ship when only their previous target received few hits. They continued firing until last of their weapons were destroyed, with the entirety of the Second Fleet annihilated within thirty minutes. In exchange, merely 5% of the Hiver fleet was destroyed, but 89% suffered various degrees of damage.
The Second Fleet launched their fighters an hour before the battle started, and so did the the other three fleets. The cloud of fighters created as a result moved to join up with the Second Fleet' fighters, and towards the decimated Hiver fleet. With their point defense artillery massacred, a third of their ships immobilized and the rest slowed down, and the sheer number of fighters incoming, the resulting battle was one-sided massacre - and for the first time in this war the transhumans were on the receiving end. After the bombing run concluded, merely 20% of the Hiver fleet managed to retreat, though not before evacuating as many of their brethren from the heavily damaged ships as they could. The decision to not destroy the wrecks (due to transhumans expecting this battle to be their victory in the end) turned out to be a major mistake.
The joint forces of the Reserve, 1st and 4th Fleet succeeded in defeating the Robotics and Overseers, though it was by no mean a decisive victory. 80% of the transhuman ships survived and retreated, but after spending their entire ammunition, missile and evasive thrusters' fuel on that battle they were out of the battle as surely as the Hivers. Unfortunately, the same could be said about the Commonwealth's forces. And there was still one more fleet of the transhumans.
The Virtuals and the Pure met no resistance during their approach to the Hope-II. The shipyard complexes burned, and so did the habitats on the planet surface. It was something that the Commonwealth' expected and prepared for, but it simply lacked ships to evacuate all of the shipyard workers and their families before the bettle started. This result in death of approximately five million civilians during the bombardment. The half-finished warships fled the shipyards and moved deeper into the system, apparently attempting to organize last stand near the system's star, defending or at least delaying the destruction of the unfinished ring and the infrastructure necessary for the star mining. Shipyards could be rebuild, their workers and engineers could be replaced, but that infrastructure was crucial - and restoring it would take decades. So the transhuman fleet approach it, expecting an easy job cleaning up the remnants. Then it started burning.
Unknowingly to the transhumans, the Commonwealth' expected battle to occur in the Hope system and prepared accordingly. There were more usages for the network of solar collectors capable of harvesting 5% of the a star's energy output than ringworld construction and star lifting. Ever since the Star Forge went online, it used a small part of its industrial capability to assemble special sattelites that were then put among the solar collectors. When the transhuman fleet came close, the collectors realigned and send the energy they collected - in a form of laser ray - towards those sattelites, which gathered it and send it towards a single transhuman ship. This incomplete Dyson Laser installation carried enough firepower to instantly (and explosively) melt a battleship which came too close to it.
It took transhuman two minutes to understand what was happening - and in these two minutes they lost seven battleships, including their flagship. One minute later they opened fire, attempting to destroy the satellites, only to discover that they possessed their own thrusters and managed to avoid majority of the return fire. The remaining part of the transhuman fleet fled, losing 67% of their battleships (and saving the remaining 33% only by using their own cruisers as shields).
The battle of Hope ended, becoming the Solar Commonwealth's first major victory in the war. A disastrous and bloody victory, but one that at least temporarily shattered the Transhuman Alliance fleets in the southern front. First Fleet was repaired and send north in order to hopefully break the siege of Vigilance, while the Reserve and 4th Fleet (bolstered by quickly finished ships that survived the battle by hiding in the dyson laser's shadow, and the reinforcements from the Solar System) immediately launched a counteroffensive and began regaining ground.
Core Worlds Campaign [Northern Front]
Battle of Ice
04.03.2268-23.05.2268, Sector 01
The start of the Core World Campaign was announced when joint fleets of the Immortal Union and the Mechanist Hierocracy (under commant of Elast FC-64) barged through the Sector 03 - Sector 01 hyperlane in force. Led by a handful of monitors they managed to fight their way through the fortifications placed near the exit, though not without suffering notable casualties. The forces of the Commonwealth's 3rd Fleet (under command of Admiral Gervaise de Villiers) pulled back after emptying their missile storages (losing twice as many ships as the transhumans) and a number of starfighter engagements.
Unlike the typical space battles up to this point, the Battle of the Icee was the first truly long space battle in history of Mankind. Rather than go all out and retreat, the Third Fleet retreated to the Ice-VII orbit. As the transhuman fleet began laying waste to the only inhabited world of the sector [the Ice-III], the Commonwealth's side began deploying starfighters in order to strike at the transhuman resupply ships arriving through the hyperlane.
Whenever transhumans attempted to engage the Third Fleet, it simply relocated. On two occasions the transhumans managed to chase the Commonwealth's forces from the system, only for them to return soon later, approaching the system from the different side. It was avoiding direct confrontation due to the transhumans having numerical superiority - and because at this point Commonwealth could field enough smaller ships to at least keep the crucial military supply routes safe (despite that, close to 15% of transport ships taking part in that operation were destroyed, a testament to ATIS power). Every round, missile and fuel tank expended by the transhumans weakened them much more than similar expenditure weakened the Commonwealth.
The planetary garrison (significantly strengthened by terran reinforcements) held for almost three months, despite earlier transhuman conquests rarely taking more than a month. When the defeat of the garrison was made certain, the 3rd Fleet managed to pull the transhuman fleet far away from the world for the unexpected Unforgiven task force to exit Hyperspace and force the remaining blockade forces over the Ice-III, evacuating the remaining members of the garrison. Once the planet fell, the Third Fleet retreated to the world of Vigilance.
While much less known than the Vigilance battle, the Battle of the Ice was in fact a proving ground of the delaying tactic that was to going to become the standard modus operandi of the Commonwealth's fleet in the northern front.
Battle of Vigilance
12.06.2268-12.04.2270, Sector 01
An especially important and notable engagement that was the biggest cause of the northern front delay. Vigilance-II was a rocky world of limited ecosphere located near the Cthulhian Cluster - where the hyperlane connecting Sector 01 with Sector 03 was later discovered. TIt was settled by a large and fairly successful apocalyptic Christian cult - named the Tenth Choir - whose founder had a 'vision' of God telling him to colonize that very world and prepare it for some unspecified war that would decide the fate of Humanity.
Initially it was thought that he referred to the Cthulhian Cluster mysterious ancient bioweapon' owners. Discovery of hyperlane and the fact that there was nothing dangerous beyond that changed that interpretation to merely a war whose nature was going to be revealed later on. The end result was a cult that grew to almost 500 000 members... and spend decades changing their world into Humanity's first Fortress World. Fortifications lines capable of withstanding everything sort of a nuke were erected. Underground supply lines were carved. Numerous well hidden caches of weaponry and resources were hidden worldwide in preparation for the guerilla warfare. Pretty much inhabitant from the age of 12 up was trained in combat and survival. When the War of Purity began, the current leader of the cult had no doubts that it was the war that they all prepared for.
When the Northern Quadrant fell, the forces of the Mechanist Hierocracy and Immortal Assembly succeded in breaching the hyperlane defenses, Vigilance was garrisoned by almost five million soldiers of the Commonwealth Army, Chinese Federation, Visehrad Alliance and North American Trade Union under the command of general Shen Jie. They were pleasantly surprised when a barren rock they were supposed to garrison turned out to be a sophisticated maze of well-thought fortifications, additionally armed with numerous earth-to-orbit missile silos that were going to make an orbital bombardment extremely painful. All they had to do was to place their artillery and heavy weaponry in right places (plus have some tanks for counterattacks), and the entire world became a fortress.
What followed was a twenty-two months long brutal trench warfare. Initially Elast FC-64 didn't consider the Vigilance to be an all important battlefied. It was merely a useful world to ease logistics during the march deeper into the sector and towards the Solar System. However, once the neighbouring systems fell (while Vigilance still held) he began being increasingly fixated on taking the world down, at any cost.
Day after day additional clone legions of the Immortal Assembly and mechanical nightmares of the Hierocracy were unleashed upon the planet. Day after day attacks were repelled by the defenders. Even when they were pushed out of their fortifications, the attackers were mercilessly harried by the native population conducting almost constant hit-and-run tactics. Three times the blockade of the world was breached by a raiding task forces of the Commonwealth Navy and the loyalist transhumanists of Adar FC-12. Each time it was a one way street, with the raiders capable only of delivering millions of tonnes of supplies before needing to flee from the besieging fleet, but not of evacuating anyone.
The defense of the Vigilance lasted for twenty-two months and ended with pyrrhic transhuman victory. All defenders and the entire planetary population died in combat, by commiting suicide or by transhuman vengeful wrath. However it also caused massive casualties to the transhuman side (almost equal to the the defenders, despite attackers' typically much greater quality), delaying their offensive for months, and allowing the Commonwealth to launch multitude of succesful raids greatly lowering the Alliance numerical superiority in space on the Northern Front. Even further delays were caused by Elast C-64 demotion and fights between Hierocracy and Assembly over the seat of commander-in-chief of the northern front.
Following the end of the War of Purity, Vigilance was never recolonized. Instead, it was changed into a massive memorial site for the defenders.
Second Battle of Vigilance
16.07.2270-21.07.2270, Sector 01
While the Battle of Hope shattered the transhuman forces in the South and allow Mankind to move an entire fleet (if massively weakened) north as reinforcements, it turned out to be too late for the defenders of Vigilance. But whil they couldn't be saved, they could still be avenged. Joint forces of the First and Third Fleet emerged from Hyperspace and defeated the main Mechanist-Immortal fleet that was trying to use the strategically placed system as their center of operation in the Sector 01. Within four months, the Mechanist-Immortal forces were pushed away from the Sector 01.
With this, the Northern Front was over. Mechanist and Immortals lost too many ships to try to hold the ground, destroyed either during the Second Battle of Vigilance or numerous skirmishes surrounding the First Battle of Vigilance. They were forced to pull back in order to regroup and refill their ranks. Commonwealth's forces in the north were equally decimated, and simply didn't have enough strength left to push into the Sector 03. Especially as Commonwealth' was refocusing their efforts back to the Sector 02, in order to finally push the transhuman back from this sector (where they controlled 40% of colonies, and 75% of star systems - the disproportions caused by their rush towards Hope when they lacked time to conquer any planet en route).
While the southern front continued waging battles until first half of 2271, the Coreworld Campaign was officially over. The Solar Commonwealth succeeded in repelling the transhuman forces, without losing either of the two pillars supporting their resistance (though the Star Forge had its' production temporarily halted). While the transhumans were defeated and suffered large casualties (several times smaller than their opponents, but with their limited industry and manpower, the Commonwealth came on top here), they were far from being defeated. They could now exploit all the conquered Outer Sectors, and while their leadership expected a period of Commonwealth's initative, it also started numerous research projects and secret operations that could hopefully neutralize the Commonwealth's new found power.
Stalemate
Liberation of the South
23.01.2270-12.09.2271, Sector 02
The situation in the Sector 02 effectively reversed following the Battle of Hope. Now it was the Solar Commonwealth that had strategic initative and the transhumans were the ones trying to delay the enemy offensive. While sixty seven major fleet actions were needed to reach the Hope system, it took seventy-two additional battles of varying degree of intensity to finally push them out of the sector. Some of the fiercest battles of the war was waged here, as the transhumans fought desperately in order to avoid their newly connected realms from being forcibly disconnected - which would make the future Second Coreworld Campaign much harder for the transhumans.
The transhumans efforts were in vain. While the Commonwealth lost approximately two and a half ship per one that the transhumans lost (and the casualties ratio was even worse during the ground warfare), these were the casualties that the Commonwealth could suffer through. Commonwelath was recruiting ten times as many soldiers as the Alliance, and even with the Star Forge inoperational it still produced three times as many ships (and as the new shipyards were constructed in the Hope system, this number slowly grew to seven times as many).
The casualties sustained would have broke the Commonwealth morale if not for the sheer scale of the moral outrage and fury caused by numerous attrocities that the transhumans conducted. Mankind was out for blood. As the terran countries continued to mobilize, entire armies were fielded and a growing percentage of population joined the war as soldiers. It is estimated that more than 1,5 billion soldiers fought or died for the Solar Commonwealth during the War of Purity, meaning that the Commonwealth fielded three soldiers for a single citizen of the Transhuman Alliance. With around one hundred million members of the Transhuman Alliance' army, this meant 15:1 numerical superiority.
Once the enemy forces were pushed out of the sector, the war temporarily slowed down as the Commonwealth was busy preparing for the final offensive into the outer sectors. Then things went significantly downhill.
7th Battle Group mutinies
14.02.2270, Sector 02
Following a successful mutiny of a significant part of its members, the 7th. Battle Group of the Robotic Technocracy' Star Navy surrenders to the Solar Commonwealth forces. The direct cause of the mutiny is the order to conduct a full scale orbital bombardment of a world where an open rebellion of the Commonwealth' citizens forced the small Alliance' garrison to abandon the surface. As the Commonwealth's task force secured and liberated the planet, the 7th Battle Group is allowed to join the Unforgiven. As a result, their forces grow large enough to be officially considered a regular fleet, resulting in the official creation of the Fifth Fleet of the Solar Commonwealth, composed entirely of the loyalist transhumans.
The mutiny is a part of a tide of desertions plaguing the Transhuman Alliance' forces in the aftermath of the Battle of Hope. The fleeing transhumans blame the transhuman leadership, claiming their actions to be increasingly insane and bloodthirsty, with the true scale of the Day of Sorrow and other attrocities (such as ATIS deployment) concealed from the transhumans at large. Majority of the Solar Commonwealth ignores this as an attempt to shift the blame onto someone else, but further actions bring some credence to these stories. These testimonies together with those of High Mechanist Adar are later on used as justification for theories about some unspecified third party manipulating the Transhuman Alliance.
This tide is eventually squashed when the families of the deserters began being publically executed whenever a desertion is confirmed. With this methods the Alliance managed to remain politically coherent until the times where its war effort began collapsing entirely.
Humanity Ascension Program starts
20.03.2270, Sector 02
The defeat of the transhumans in the Coreworld Campaign had the Alliance locked in a serious dilemma. There were billions of Commonwealth' citizens living in the transhuman-occupied worlds. The Alliance armies were massively strained by the need to keep this worlds controlled properly. It is estimated that during the early 2270, close to half of the ground forces available to the Transhuman Alliance were kept as occupation forces. Even with fifty million soldiers delegated to this duty, the garrisons were spread thin and the remains of Commonwealth military that were left on the wrong side of the front kept causing disturbances.
The Transhuman Alliance decided to get rid of that issue, starting the Humanity Ascension Program. The largest act of systematic genocide in history of Mankind. The settlements on the occupied territories were isolated from each other, and then eradicated one by one. Either by their arcologies being destroyed from the orbit, or by hackers of the Virtuals and Robotics hacking them and causing poisonous gas to be spread through the ventilation, or in rare cases by dedicated death squads. The isolation was so perfect than in few cases further down the road the there were cases of a settlement (sometimes with population counted with in few thousands) being liberated by the Commonwealth, only to discover that they were the last survivors of the population counted in dozens of millions.
The methods varied between the Alliance. Robotics and Virtuals favoured regular extermination. Immortals went that far too at the beginning, but when their casualties grow and they began running out of spare bodies they began forcefully altering kidnapped humans to serve as bodies for their troops. Mechanists tended to offer people to join them, before going down the extermination way if they refused (this changed to full-on extermination once it become apparent how many of the forceful converts takes the first occasion to escape into the Commonwealth). Hivers converted everyone they could, while the Overseers lobotomized everyone they could before jacking cerebral implants into the victim's brain, resurrecting them as 'citizens' of the Assembly as a part of deranged plan of fixing the problem of Humanity by getting rid of the free will and sapience as concepts. The Dominion of the Pure was the only power that didn't participate, limiting themselves to planetary blockades of human worlds in the Sector.
The Humanity Ascension Program is estimated to have ended in death of approximately twelve billion civilians, however due to destruction of pre-war population censuses and the Alliance' apparent lack of interest in counting the exact number of their victims, the estimated vary from nine to twenty-one billion civilians. Due to the Alliance wanting to suppress the knowledge of the HAP from the Commonwealth, the extermination was limited to the fully controlled outer sectors. Keeping the soldiers fighting on the frontline from knowing about that (in fears of 7th Battle Group mutiny repeating itself) was a good motivation for secrecy too.
Von Neumann raided
20.07.2270, Sector 04
Ragtag fleet of Commonwealth Navy survivors under command of Rear Admiral Elsa Vorontsov succeeds in its largest operation against the Transhuman Alliance forces. After a complicated series of diversive actions and a lot of trickery, she managed to draw majority of the Technocracy' fleet defending its capital system of Von Neumann away from it. The result is a raid that ends in complete destruction of the Technocracy' main shipyard complex, numerous industrial centers throughout the system, and a number of unfinished ships (including seven battleships and fourteen cruisers).
The result is a significant wrench being thrown into the cogs of the Technocracy' war machine. With the reinforcement delayed, the Technocratic forces fighting in the Sector 02 are pushed back at a significantly faster rate. The collapse of the frontline is stopped only by significant number of Mechanist forces joining the Robotics via the D-Gate network, a maneuver that occupies majority of it for few months and puts large strain on Transhuman logistics and long-range communications.
Despite stealing a lot of fuel and ammunition during the raid, the Rear Admiral Vorontsov' group is critically weakened by its limited supply of war materials mostly spent during the operation. The intensity of its guerilla warfare is significantly weakened, as the commander decides to be austere on the spending field, trying to maintain her fleet for as long as possible in hopes of help arriving from the Core Worlds.
Nanoplague Unleashed
07.03.2271, Solar System
The Solar System - and especially Earth - was a source of almost unlimited manpower for the Solar Commonwealth. There was close to eighteen billion inhabitants living there, so slightly more than a half of Mankind lived on its homeworld. With modern agriculture almost completely automated and the population fully ready to limit their need for luxury goods for until the crisis was over, the armies recruited from the Homeworlds were limitless.
Around 1,2 billion of 1,5 billions of Commonwealth's military personnel serving during the War of Purity was from Terra. Close to three billion inhabitants of Terra went through 23rd Century equivalent of a boot camp, which meant that even if the Alliance managed to wipe entire Commonwealth Armed Forces to the last soldier, Earth alone had enough people after basic military training to replace the casualties. Transhuman Alliance at its peak had one hundred million soldiers, and even if each of them could kill from two to ten human soldiers, this was simply not enough.
The result was an attempt to eliminate that trump card. Without ability to directly assault Earth, an indirect approach was taken. Transhuman infiltrator spread a disease throughout the Earth' population, a one completely different than all the past ones. Classic biological diseases were almost entirely eliminated due to modern nano-machine based cures, and structural anti-epidemic systems of arcologies. But none of this mattered in face of a first nanoplague in human history, a diseases carried by self-replicating nanomachines. Designed to mimic standard nanomachine cures and programmed to spread around without causing symptoms before a preprogrammed date, they dutifully expanded the number of infected for at least six months before the activation day came.
Within three months after the activation date approximately three billion and one-hundred twenty four millions of inhabitants of Terra perished. The need for quarantine caused significant delays in arrival of reinforcements to the active battlegrounds. Entire countries were wiped out from the map. The plague however failed to crush Terra, and when the quarantine was lifted the recruitment offices were flooded with tens of millions of recruits.
Southern Breakthrough
22.06.2271, Solar System
Admiral Harrison forces in the Sector 07 remained unaware of the battles that were waged in the Core Worlds. In fact, due to successful deception at the Hiver' side, they believe that Earth has fallen and they were the only surviving part of the Solar Commonwealth. The result of this belief was a truly furious effort of fortifying the hyperlane exit, while the local shipyard complex was busy constructing new ships. Everyone expected the overwhelmingly powerful transhuman armada to invade the Sector 07... but no such force arrived.
At some point it become apparent that something was seriously wrong. Instead of waiting any longer, the Seventh Fleet broke through the hyperlane, swiftly overwhelming the supposedly massive defenses. Majority of them turned out to be fakes, unarmed civilian installations made with civilian materials but designed to look to the occasional reconaissance group as unpenetrable line of defences. Soon the forces of the Seventh Army Group liberated nearby world (after almost falling for the Hiver infiltrator trick), and discovered some unconverted resistance fighters. At this point Admiral Harrison understood everything.
Soon the Hiver Convergency was forced to believably simulated the military collapse of its forces in the Sector 02 in order to move the bulk of its fleets and armies south, in order to halt admiral Harrison's offensive. For as long as the Commonwealth remained unaware of the Seventh Fleet existence, its forces were bound to focus on the remaining transhuman forces occupying the Sector 02 - instead of moving south and forcing the Convergency to fight on two fronts at once.
With the full power of the Hiver Convergency moved south, Admiral Harrison's advance was halted. Before that, almost 1/4 of the Sector 07 was in hands of the Seventh Fleet. Numerous worlds were liberated. Once 'healing' the Hiver infiltrators proved impossible, non-converted population was evacuated from conquered the worlds before orbital bombardment was employed, destroying all population centers while also denying the surviving Hivers any ability to leave the planet or become a threat otherwise. Dealing with the survivors was left for the times after the war.
Starchildren Exterminated
31.09.2271, Sector 04
Variant-7 (known commonly as the Starchildren) becomes first of twelve Variants driven to extinction by the Humanity Ascension Project. With no population in the Core Worlds and the Sector 07, the entire subspecies was gone once the Robotic Technocracy finished 'processing' their colonies. Several more Variants were almost driven to extinction, with their surviving population too small to maintain genetic diversity on their own, forcing them to bolster their numbers with new 'converts' once the war was over.
The successful extermination of the Starchildren is notable due to being so efficient. Sectors 04 and 10 had a relatively small population when compared to average one for the outer sectors. With the Robotics and the Overseers so quick and efficient in their extermination program, it soon becomes apparent that the days of the non-transhuman population of the Eastern Quadrant are counted.
This forced the Rear Admiral Elsa Vorontsov and her group of survivors to think outside the box, resulting in the end of the short stalemate that happened when the liberation of the Sector 02 concluded successfully.
AOS unleashed
15.01.2272, Human Space
The successor to ATIS - the Autonomous Offensive System - is finally brought online. Unlike the ATIS, the AOS spread entire networks of autonomous factories in numerous systems on the edges of Solar-Commonwealth controlled sectors (and within the Transhuman Space), automatically harvesting necessary resources and producing new drone-ships and combat robots. The height of the Virtual' programming, the AOS is the Transhuman answer to the Star Forge complex.
The resulting ships and soldiers are superior to their Commonwealth' equivalent... but only on paper. Their programming is far from being considered a true AI, making them lack creativity and thus be easily outmaneuvered by every decent commander. However significant part of smaller ships of the Commonwealth is once again forced to patrol the edges of controlled sectors in order to find the assembly plants that seem to be springing here and there. And the AOS ships constructed within the Transhuman territory could easily be 'crewed' by Virtuals, greatly boosting their combat prowess.
The technology itself is considered lost after the war ends. At least partially it was dependent on a recently discovered archeotech fabricator producing archeotech circuits composed entirely of nanomachines. Said fabricator could also partially reproduce itself, creating parts needed to assemble lesser fabricators, which became the basis of every AOS autonomous shipyard. What the Virtuals did was creating proper ship designs and programming for both the production facilities and the ships. And when the initial fabricator was destroyed during the last days of the Virtual Consensus, the AOS was effectively decapitated.
Before that happened, however, the transhuman forces received significant boost. Slowly growing as the time passed.
Rear Admiral Vorontsov's Last Battle
22.03.2272, Sector 04
With the extermination of the Eastern Quadrant population almost finished, there was no one left to support the Rear Admiral Vorontsov' squadron - and no one left to be protected by it. As the intercepted transhuman communication seems to indicate that the Commonwealth was still not aware of the Humanity Ascension Program, Rear Admiral decided to finally execute the plan that she was preparing for quite a while.
Her entire task force was annihilated during suicidal and apparently desperate charge towards the hyperlane. It was, however, a part of the plan. Her entire fleet changed into large pile of slowly cooling down junk - but a slowly cooling down pile of junk that continue to move towards the hyperlane exit. When the whole thing got close enough to it, a minuscule ship built inside hull of one of Rear Admiral Vorontsov's ships powered up their engine and burst out from the wreckage, disappearing in the hyperlane before the ships guarding it managed to react.
The ship contained message from Rear Admiral Vorontsov to the Vice Admiral Singh, describing the Humanity Ascension Program in details. It is said that Vice Admiral saw it, he locked himself in his quarters for three days. Once that period ended, he called in a press conference, and showed the message to the world. The last campaign of the war - one that was going to take almost eighteen years - has started.
From now on, every transhuman ship, installation and colony that encountered Commonwealth's forces received message containing Rear Admiral Vorontsov' last transmisison and a single offer of surrender. Those who refused to surrender instantly, had no further occasions to do so. From now the war was going to be a guilt-free war of extermination on both sides.
The Push Back
Northern Offensive Starts
21.07.2272, Sector 03
Once the necessary regrouping (done with maximum possible speed) was finished, the time has come for the Commonwealth' to strike back. This time it was no longer a matter of cautious assault, but of overwhelming strength applied with maximum possible speed. There was a genocide of unbelievable - even after so many billions dying due to ATIS attacks and the nanoplague or being converted into Hivers - proportions occuring out there. It had to stop as fast as possible.
With the Eastern Quadrant lost, there were three other directions. The Sector 06 had only one transhuman power, but the discovery of the Humanity Ascension Program made the Commonwealth's leadership understand that the infiltration probably wasn't stopped with only military and political personnel. As the speed of conversion was something that the Commonwealth was aware of, it didn't take a lot of counting to understand that the number of survivors in that sector is probably minimal. Only two directions were left, and the northern side was eventually chosen due to its proximity to Earth.
Combined forces of the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Fleets forces their way through the hyperlane and begin a campaign of systematic liberation of human-held worlds and extermination of all transhumans that failed to surrender immediately. With the Mechanists' relatively low speed of extermination and large pre-war population, merely 45% of the Sector 03 inhabitats were exterminated before they were liberated.
Battle of Jewel
11.09.2273-19.12.2273, Sector 03
The Mechanist Hierocracy and the Immortal Union pool their forces together in a desperate attempt to stop the relentless advanced of the Solar Commonwealth' forces. Within two weeks their fleets are completely defeated after the First and Third fleets weakened them and emptied their ammo racks right before the Fourth and Fifth Fleet entered the system. The remaining almost-three months are a vicious ground battle.
It's also the first battle of the War of Purity where the number of the Enhanced (created via Warrior 2.0 Project) participating surpassed ten thousand. While overwhelming majority of the soldiers of the Solar Commonwealth were still normal humans, there were now enough Enhanced to act as fast response reserve force, quickly arriving to counter any significant group of truly elite ground troopers of the Transhuman Alliance. Even with growing number of robotic soldiers of the AOS, the transhumans' supremacy during the ground battles begins to crumble.
The number of the Enhanced soon turned out to grow much faster than the AOS drones could multiply themselves, resulting in a string of transhuman defeats. This string (save for few rare successes fuelled with growing desperation) was going to continue until the end of the war.
Humanity's Last Battle
14.11.2273, Sector 03
During one of the many ground engagements of the Battle of Jewel, Colonel Nasser Nazir of the New Islamic Caliphate army dies while leading a counterattack against transhuman force that broke through the frontline and attacked his command post. This relatively minor event (during Jewel battle one close to two million soldiers of the Commonwealth died) becomes slightly more famous later down the line.
This is because in the aftermath of the War of Purity a general check of Commonwealth's records uncovered the fact that Colonel Nazir was the last known members of the baseline Humanity 1.0 homo sapiens. Since he went through genesplicing treatment early on, all his children were born as 2.0s. While there are chances than in some remote region of the Middle East some 1.0s survived for a while later (while living separately from the Commonwealth's society as a whole), Colonel Nazir's death is considered to be an official moment of 1.0's subspecies extinction.
Due to the entire subspecies in the process of dying out even before the war, this particular extinction isn't considered to be inflicted by the transhumans... at least officially. Those with greater dislike towards the transhumans tend to hold them responsible either way.
Star Forge destroyed
01-03.02.2274, Sector 02
The Star Forge's production of ships was simply too large for the Transhuman Alliance to counter. Too many warships and transport vessels were leaving the Star Forge each month - it alone surpassed the entire Alliance' production capabilities three times at this point. Even with generally much better quality of the Transhuman ships (one transhuman ship equalled 1,5 to 2 human ships depending on the Alliance's country in question) and much heavier casualties on the human side, it was simply not enough. Even the AOS failed to counter that, as its production rate of heavier warships was abysmal.
All attempts to sabotage or destroy the Star Forge thus far failed, at best slowing down or halting the production temporarily. With the Mechanist Hierocracy in the state of collapse, the Transhuman Alliance was pushed into the corner. Their last attempt was one born entirely out of extreme desperation. An entire (if average in size) fleet was slowly transferred into the region via hidden D-Gate. When enough ships arrived, they assaulted the Hope system in order to act as a diversion.
When they drew the garrison fleet away, second, smaller group, arrived in the system. It was composed of four slightly larger than normal battleship with some escorts (in order to keep starfighters away). When after a few days it managed to enter the Inner System, its true purpose was exposed to the world. The battleships weren't armed - instead they was filled with massive collection of best communication and hacking tools available to the Alliance. Including one million Virtuals and Robotics, all of them best hacking specialists available to the Alliance.
Together with a database of discovered (and purposefully left unused until now) vulnerabilities in Commonwealth's systems, it was enough to launch an all-out cybernetic assault at the Commonwealth's installations in the Inner System, with the star lifting facility being its main target. Despite the ferocity and scale of the attack, the Commonwealth' expected such an operation - the computer security of the Forge was the best in the Human Space, surpassing even the one of the Solar System. As a result, the attack was finally repelled and all vulnerabilities fixed following forty-eight hours of ceaseless programming battle, with the Transhuman' forces delayed by few minutes and the Commonwealth' programmers having physical access to their mainframes being the main reason for the victory.
Unfortunately, all of that was for naught. While the major assault targetted the star lifting facility, it was merely a diversion. While the eyes of the Commonwealth's programmers were focused on that battle, the Transhumans managed to silently seize control of close to 40% of the Dyson Swarm installation. It was enough for them to - in the third day of the battle - use the dyson laser to destroy the star lifting facility. Once that happened, the controlled sattelites turned against the uncontrolled ones, the resulting struggle resulting in destruction of 65% of the swarm.
As a result, the Star Forge essentially ceased to exist. The shipyards were still there, but their supply of resources was cut off. Without access to the star lift, the Commonwealth' simply didn't produce (or couldn't deliver due to lack of transport vessels and the ATIS attacks) enough resources to keep the shipyards online. The ships whose production was interrupted either moved to another shipyards (if they could move on their own) or were scrapped. The Commonwealth's ship production dropped from five times the Alliance' one to merely two times. While this could decide the war if done few years earlier (especially before the Coreworld Campaign), it was simply too late. Commonwealth' had enough ships to (with their ability to repair damaged ships near the frontline undamaged) crush the remaining forces of the Alliance, unless they for some reason tried to go fully on defense.
With the Commonwealth' determined to annihilate the Alliance, this was not the case.
Mechanist Hierocracy' destroyed
05.06.2274-12.06.2274, Sector 03
With their fleet's desperate last stand ending with crushing defeat, the Commonwealth's forces (composed of the First, the Third, the Fourth and the Fifth Fleets together with four Army Groups) reach the worlds of the Mechanist Hierocracy. While the defenders of the world prepare for the ground warfare in order to stall the Commonwealth' assault, the situation ends up slightly differently.
The situation repeats with each world. Rear Admiral Vorontsov' last message is played. Three hours are given, in order for the inhabitants to decide if they are willing to surrender unconditionally. Each time, a relatively small part of the world that wants to surrender is banished from the world, in order to not act as a fifth column (and with it counted in millions, trying to guard them with soldiers would mean a potentially critical weakening of the defense). When the process ends, there's no planetary invasion. Instead the armageddon starts.
Each world of the Hierocracy is sterilized by extensive orbital bombardment. The Commonwealth' fleet was accompanied by a numer of planetary bombardment ships, filled to the brim with the strongest nuclear warheads in the Commonwealth' arsenal. As hundreds of bombs (each of them dozens of megatonnes in power) slowly eradicate all signs of life from the world, all attempts to communicate done by the planetary inhabitants are ignored. Soon enough they cease altogether.
To say that this action makes the members of the mostly transhuman Fifth Fleet feel bad is an understatement of epic proportions. However at this point the changes in behaviour of significant part (if not majority) of the transhumans of the Transhuman Alliance were increasingly visible. Even the loyalist transhumans were startled by the speed and scale of this process. The Fifth Fleet didn't participate in the bombardment, but it helped evacuate those inhabitants of the Hierocracy worlds that wanted to surrender.
Alliance' Last Offensive
09.07.2274-29.01.2275. Sector 02
In order to stop or at least delay the Solar Commonwealth's march north, transhuman forces composed of two major groups (Consensus and Dominion from the west, and Technocracy and Assembly from the east) attempt to assault the Sector 02 from two sides at once. Through overwhelming application of superiority in quality, they succeed in winning both the Second Battle of Clarity in the west and the Second Battle of Fortitude (in the east). However, despite defeating the border defenses and engaging numerous planetary garrisons in prolonged siege battles, the end result is failure.
The campaign failed to draw significant forces south. After few months of delaying actions, the forces of the Second Fleet defeated both transhuman fleets in separate engagements, using the vast stores of spare parts of the now-defunct Star Forge in order to repair their ships between the battles. The side effect of this battles was the critical weakening of the Transhuman Alliance and decimation of a significant parts of its strategic reserves, resulting in much weaker resistance encountered by the Solar Commonwealth in later stages of the war.
The Hiver's inability to join the offensive alerts some of the Commonwealth' leadership to some critical weakness in Convergency' ability to wage the war. The plans to take advantage of that didn't finish before it's complete military collapse, however.
Battle of Wand
14.08.2274-21.08.2274, Sector 08
The Immortal Union' defenses near the hyperlane leading to their sector are thoroughly destroyed by the advancing forces of the Solar Commonwealth. With the Hierocracy being the power behind majority of the northern transhuman' industrial power, the collapsing logistics and the increasing insanity of the Immortal' leadership changing the already unlikely defense into a complete impossibility.
The remaining warships of the Union are destroyed in few subsequent engagements, their lack of ability to efficiently ressuply and repair themselves greatly contributing to lack of even the most theoretical attempts of delaying of the Commonwealth' forces. The entire sector falls within four months, with the remaining elements of the Union either retreating into the Discord or preparing themselves for a desperate last stand in their pre-war worlds.
The fact that the war is ending becomes apparent to all but the most ferocious (and insane) members of the Transhuman Alliance. This by itself would offer some chances for the Alliance, however despite the talks about the post-war world already breaking and some cases of political strife between members of the Commonwealth, nobody was interested in hearing out the Alliance. Its destruction was something that every single inhabitant of the Commonwealth' agreed to. Even the most troublesome internal issues of the Commonwealth were secondary to that./justify]
Immortal Union destroyed
11.02.2275-21.02.2275, Sector 08
With the Union's fleet destroyed, the occupied planets liberated, and the overwhelming Commonwealth's forces approaching their homeworlds, the outcome of the Union's last battle seemed decided. What nobody expected was the fact that the battle would never happen. As the Commonwealth' forces arrive to the Union's core territories, a massive revolt occurs in every visited planet, led by Unforgiven-sympathizers among the Immortal population.
With Unforgiven busting open millions of Commonwealth prisoners used throughout the Union as workforce or entertainment, and the Fifth Fleet sending in their troops, the result of the battle is swift collapse of the remains of the Union' government and mass executions of about every person who participated in the war effort. It is estimated that during the following ten months, close to fifteen million Immortals were executed.
The Immortal Union was destroyed, but millions of its most radical members fled into the Discord, planning to use it as a staging ground for their continued war against the Commonwealth. They join the Mechanists who fled there with identical plans.
Battle of Shambala
12.03.2274-17.03.2274. Sector 02
Forces of the Seventh Fleet of Admiral Harrison succeed in dealing devastating blow to the fleet of the Hiver Convergency, destroying approximately 2/3 of its warships in a single engagement. It is achieved by subterfuge - before the battle started, the Seventh Fleet' infiltrators sneaked into the Hiver' station in the system. When the apparently victorious Hiver forces retreated to resupply, numerous nukes were sneaked aboard their vessels. Simultaneous explosions shattered half of the fleet, resulting in the remaining ships being forced to flee from the approaching Commonwealth's fleet and losing even more of their numbers to starfighter raids.
The result of the Shambala battle was complete collapse of the Hiver Convergency' war effort, a great achievements due to both sides possessing relatively equal numbers when the campaign started. It still takes almost a year to reconquer the remaining worlds of the sector, but at this point the Convergency is only capable of delaying the inevitable. If not for the Commonwealth's overwhelming the Alliance in other fronts, the reinforcements coming in through the D-Gate could change that, as Admiral Harrison lacked Enhanced and his manpower was scarce.
On 19.11.2274 the Commonwealth' main force arrives in the sector through the hyperlane. With its defences swiftly overwhelmed, it soon discovers that 4/5 of the sectors is in Commonwealth's hands. Once contact is established and it is confirmed that Admiral Harrison's forces aren't made of Hiver infiltrators, an almost month-long celebrations erupt through the Commonwealth's space. With Admiral Harrison and his Seventh Fleet in full control of the situation, the Commonwealth' forces send him twenty thousand Enhanced as support and return to Sector 02, planning to unleash their wrath on another front.
Eastern Campaign
14.01.2275-12.04.2276. Sector 04
The combined forces of four fleets of the Commonwealth fight their way through combined fleets of the Robotic Technocracy and Overseers Assembly and succeed in establishing a bridgehead in the Sector 04 (Battle of Diamond, 14.01-19.01). With the successful defense of its eastern territories deemed as unlikely, the Transhuman Alliance calls for a general retreat. Soon remaining personnel of the Transhuman Alliance is evacuated from the Eastern Quadrant into the Western one, with the fleets operating in the region attempting delaying engagements without major battles.
While the extermination effort was met with almost complete success in the Eastern Quadrant, it soon become apparent that the word 'almost' was complete. Numerous groups of the Robotic Technocracy managed to avoid total extermination at hands of the Commonwealth by fleeing their collapsing 'empire' with some surviving baselines and Variants that were kept hidden for many years. It is believed that the generally rather liberal-minded Robotics (contrary to much more communal Virtuals, their closest cousins) avoided intruding too much about the lives of their citizens. This allowed some of them to hide the supposedly exterminated humans in various outlying settlements, where the Robotics opposing the war and Humanity Ascension Program generally fled.
When this process became apparent, tends of thousands of Robotics and the survivors died in the attacks orchestrated by remaining active military forces of the Technocracy. This events become one of the many factors into the Commonwealth's post-war decisions about the fate of the Unforgiven.
The coreworlds of the Technocracy were destroyed, though majority of them was abandoned prior to that. The scale of successful evacuation surpassed the estimates on the D-Gate capacity, which led many to believe they were somehow forced into an overcharge, a look greatly reinforced by apparent collapse of their usage during last years of the war and in the direct aftermath of the war.
The Assembly managed to retreat in time, resulting in their sector being de facto empty once the Solar Commonwealth's forces arrived.
Hiver Convergency destroyed
04.2276. Sector 06
Forces of Admiral Harrison succeed in driving the Convergency back into its coreworlds, which are then subsequently destroyed with prolonged orbital bombardment. With the main forces of the Transhuman Alliance in the Southern Quadrant broken, the Seventh Fleet departs and joins up with the rest of the Commonwealth's main offensive fleet in Sector 02 following the fall of the Eastern Quadrant and long visit in still active shipyards in the region.
Few hivers theoretically still remain alive, locked in numerous worlds of the sectors that were decimated by orbital bombardment prior to the eventual collapse of the Convergency. However with their access to technology limited and their main spawn pools destroyed during the fall of their coreworlds, the entire subspecies is sent on a downward spiral to eventual extinction. Once the regional forces of the Alliance are broken, numerous death squads are sent to clear those survivors from their worlds.
At this point, only the Western Quadrant remained, and while the AOS managed to rebuilt majority of the Transhuman Alliance' forces, the war's outcome was essentially decided.
Western Campaign
28.09.2276-19.03.2278. Sector 05 and 09
[justifyThe last stage of the War of Purity was the all-out offensive into the Western Quadrant. It was a truly total war, as both sides mobilized their entire fleets and armies during that battle. Save for planetary garrisons on the worlds behind the frontline and Commonwealth's lighter ships used to counter the ATIS and AOS predations, almost every ship and soldiers present on both sides were thrown into the meatgrinder. The end was almost one hundred million casualties on Commonwealth's side, a great sign of the scale of the battles.
The forces of the Transhuman Alliance did everything they could to stop the assault, even despite their civilian population growing increasingly rebellious (though only on the Consensus side of things). It took sixteen months to break the Transhuman defenses (now supplied by ten million AOS drones a month), and even then the only side that was broken was the Virtual Consensus (supported with forces of every single Transhuman Alliance members, save for now destroyed Hivers). Following was an extermination of majority of Virtuals, with their entire hubs thrown into the local stars.
When the Commonwealth' forces entered the Sector 09, they encountered no further resistance. All local elements of the Alliance were disarmed and executed (or handed to Commonwealth) by the Dominion of the Pure. Which also reversed the genesplicing of local population, but also used the tens of millions of humans as hostages, inviting the Commonwealth to the ground battle against all remaining members of the Dominion on the world of Sky-V. Battle of Sky-V
27.09.2277-19.03.2278. Sector 09
The last battle of the War of Purity, waged between every single inhabitant of the Dominion (each of them a supersoldier in human standards) and the Solar Commonwealth' forces. It was a relentless and incredibly bloody ground battle. It was caused by the Pure taking few dozen million people hostage, claiming to place numerous nuclear bombs throughout the controlled territory, which would be detonated if the Commonwealth' forces tried to land or contact the inhabitants - and if they didn't attempt to fight the Dominion on Sky-V, or tried to use orbital bombardment to cut the battle short.
With Sky-V cold, windy and extremely uneven surface, the battle was mostly fought on close distance. In fact, it's believed that more than half of the casualties on both sides were caused by close quarters combat. Duels straight from the Middle Ages were much more common than artillery support, and the ammount of vehicles usable in such a terrain was close to zero. It is believed that close to twenty-seven millions of Commonwealth' troops perished in that battle, alongside every single of the ~fifteen million surviving Pure.
Once the battle was over, it was discovered that there were no nuclear bombs and the whole hostage situation was a bluff. The Dominion accepted the Alliance' defeat and seeked a warrior's death - through they inhuman logic they seeked to atone for how wrong they were during the war and what horrible attrocities were commited - with the support of the Pure. They decided to atone through death - but as people in love with beauty and aesthethics, they required even their death to be an aesthetic one. At least significant part of their eventual defeat (with Commonwealth losing merely twice as many soldiers as they did) due to their attempts to choreograph entire battles into beautiful ones (and ones that ended with their defeat, as that was the very point).
The battle of Sky-V resulted in extinction of the Pure, as they fielded every single of their remaining citizen (and lacked children, as they stopped reproducing following the start of the Humanity Ascension Program). With the remaining forces of the Transhuman Alliance herded into the Discord, the War of Purity ended. Now the Commonwealth' had to deal with the aftermath.
Fall of the Solar Commonwealth [2278-2332]
General Description
The Solar Commonwealth managed to survive the War of Purity - but at a truly terrible cost. The Mankind was decimated and ruined, suffering grievous casualties. Even without counting numbers, the changes to human mindsets and cultures were truly terrible. Mankind was terrified and scarred. Half of it was exterminated in the worst case of genocide in history - performed by those who were largely believed to be Mankind's future.
Progressives of old were wiped out, leaving the entire Mankind as preservationists of various levels of strictness and fanaticism. Some of them fanatic enough for a number of attacks targeting the Unforgiven to happen as the war ended. Fanaticism, hatred and doubts about the future were predominant throughout the Commonwealth's population - joined by their cousins, the depression and PTSD, both so predominant that even the 28th Century mental therapies failed to cope with their numbers.
The Solar Commonwealth' began collapsing, though it was a process barely noticeable at the beginning. It won the war, but winning the peace was a much harder thing. Especially as the number of enemies (both those inside and those outside) began growing, heralding the end of the much fought for peace.
Events
Military Command Reshuffled
04.2078-07.2078. Solar System
When the news of the conclusion of the Battle of Sky-V arrive to Earth, Viceadmiral Singh officially relinquishes his dictatorial rights and calls off the state of emergency and martial law that lasted for slightly more than twelve years. The Commonwealth-wide elections are held, including every level of government - the planetary governments, the sectoral Low Councils, the Commonwealth's Senate and the High Council. With the government in place, Viceadmiral Singh asks for an early retirement. He motivates his resignation with a need to emotionally recuperate after the war, while also claiming that a person who ordered extermination of entire worlds is in no moral position to remain part of the Armed Forces of the Solar Commonwealth'.
His resignation is accepted, however not before the Senate decides (through acclamation) to reward him with a specially created rank of a High Admiral, of which he is the first bearer in history of the Solar Commonwealth. Admiral Kornatiev, Admiral Fernandez, Viceadmiral Arriaga and Rear Admiral Vorontsov are posthumously promoted to a rank of Fleet Admiral (previous 'honourable' admiral rank, awarded twice in Commonwealth's history). Admiral Ose is the only new living carrier of the Fleet Admiral rank, as after a prolonged debate Admiral Harrison becomes the second (and last) bearer of the High Admiral rank. Numerous ground commanders (with General Sheng Jie chief among them) receive similar and mostly posthumous rewards.
With High Admiral Harrison resigning from service three months later, Fleet Admiral Anika Ose becomes the new commander-in-chief of the Commonwealth Armed Forces, tasked with the post-war clean-up.
The main reason for the resignation of the two High Admirals was their position and the fact that they become a center of something that could be compared to a personality cult (though it was more regional for HAdm Harrison). With twelve years passing since all democratic institutions were de facto closed, neither of them wanted to risk any further moves towards authoritarism. Fleet Admiral Ose, with her significantly lesser following and less love towards her among the military (she was a strategist, with little occasions to command forces in the field) was seen as safer choice in a society controlled by military to this degree.
Human Diversity Restoration Project starts
2278, Solar System
The devastation brought by the War of Purity wasn't limited to destroyed worlds and murdered population. It was a disaster on the field of genetics as well. Around half of Variants were exterminated, with the rest (save for one of two who had the luck of having significant population within sectors 1, 2, 7 or 9) being at the verge of being extinct. The old dislikes for Variants were swept aside by Rear Admiral Vorontsov's sacrifice, resulting in the Commonwealth's Senate allowing the follow-up to the once-banned large-scale genetic programs.
The HDRP' primary focus was using the newly developed technologies concerning genetics (developed or stole from the Transhuman Alliance) to create new Variant genetic templates devoid of their known genetic flaws, while also resurrecting at least some of the exterminated Variants. The secondary goal was to run properly large scale tests on the Humanity 2.0s' current state, in order to ascertain what sort of random mutations happened in the meantime and if any of them could be left or be used to improve the common template.
Unlike Humanity 2.5, the HDRP wasn't about expanding Mankind, and unlike Humanity 3.0, it wasn't about improving Mankind - at least originally. Mankind has swiftly prove that it's ability to learn on its mistakes exists, but is rather limited. The Human Diversity Restoration Project, unlike it's predecessors, wasn't a massive, singular organization that could go sideways as a whole due to groupthinking. Instead it was an umbrella term for a numerous genetic research projects overseen by a single council, which was supposed to evaluate every project on the basis of both ethics, possibility of success, and whether it was in any way useful.
Unfortunately, the seats on the council overseeing the project soon become an object of intense political warfare. While this time the demands of the public weren't taken into account, the political ideologies took its place. The result is a lot of a good things being achieved, all of them ending up overshadowed by another set of genetic controversions.
One Year Session
2278-2279, Solar System
The newly reinstated Commonwealth' Senate holds its longest continuous session in order to make crucial decisions and settle the aftermath of the War of Purity. It was a bumpy ride, with the debate champer torned apart by increasingly vicious debates. The strife within the Commonwealth' was announced to the world, and every transmission only worsened the situation. During the war many outlying settlement and even entire planetary colonies were de facto ruled with heavy hand and changed into personal domain of whoever was sent there to maintain public order. Such regional leaders had no problems manipulating elections in order to move themselves into the Senate. The autocrats were born, and they were going to be a source of problems until the very end of the Commonwealth.
While initially the session was to be one of many shorter ones, it was prolonged for almost a year in fear that there wouldn't another session, as the delegates would simply return to their domains and refused to return. On twelve separate occasions a group participating in the Session stormed out and refused to return, threatening to ignore one or more of the decisions - with furious negotiations needed to get them back into the fold. It was hardly an optimistic new start for the Commonwealth. In situation such as this, it should be considered a shocking success that majority of the things decided by the delegates had sense.
There were hundreds of lesser issues settled. Things like attempting to organize some sort of state-financed relief for the survivors in the Outer Sector (the finances were in such a shape that it was decided that the Commonwealth' would only help defend and support the private charities, religious and secular alike), psychological treatments for a significant part of the population, reorganization of the military and its partial demobilization, and so on. In the end the disagreements were focused on three different issues, each of them a really major one.
The first one was the treatment of the Unforgiven. Despite their help during the war, many saw them as a threat. Nobody expected the other transhumans to suddenly betray Mankind, and what if the Unforgiven were merely their backup plan? The wartime paranoia remained deep seated in Mankind even when the war ended. For a while it seriously looked as if the War of Purity was going to have a sequel, as the idea of ending transhumanism once and for all (by either assault, euthanasia or cessation of new conversions) seemed to be winning - the Unforgiven naturally didn't like that idea at all. Finally, after two months of legal battles and several intersecting PR campaigns, the Unforgiven were finally Forgiven, but also banished from the Human Space and into the soon-to-be settled Frontier.
The second issue was Terra. Before the war, it was treated as a third world country. A massive outlet for the goods produced by the really developed places (while also being a center of production of goods by corporation typically residing elsewhere), almost routinely drained of any educated and industrious people by the Commonwealth. It was seen as barbaric place, even despite the wars finally calming down for good right before the War of Purity. But during the War of Purity, it was Earth that saved the Commonwealth. And the countries of Earth demanded their own share of spoils for the three hundred fifty million dead soldiers and three billion civilians swallowed by the nanoplague. This, too, was to be settled by the Frontier.
The third issue, connected with the second one, was the recolonization of massacred Outer Sectors. The answer was also the Frontier.
Fourth Expansion Phase starts
2280, Solar System
The First Expansion Phase gave Mankind the Inner Solar System. The Second changed the entire Solar System into a place filled with life-bearing worlds and gave Mankind its Outer half. The Third one lasted until the War of Purity interrupted it. Now, it was time for the Fourth one to start, in hopes that it would somehow alleviate all the issues that the Mankind was facing. It worked in the past, after all. Why not now?
The currently controlled ten sectors were to become the Core Worlds of the Commonwealth. Kept under its direct control, and recolonized by people considering themselves to be citizens of the Commonwealth - primarily hailing from the numerous surviving extrasolar colonies and from the extraterrestrial worlds of the Solar System, which felt themselves to be mostly Commonwealth-compliant. No transhumans were to ever be allowed to tread these worlds again.
Six known hyperlanes projected outwards from the Core Worlds. After some debates, they were shared between the various regions of Earth. European states ventured beyond the Sector 05. Russian Empire and the Central Asia looked beyond the Sector 04. The rest of Asia - the sector 07 (it was discovered to be a three-way split, Middle East went towards the galactic east, the Far East towards the galactic west, and the Southeast Asia towards the galactic south). North America picked the hyperlane leaving the Sector 03, and the South America went beyond the Sector 08. Only Africa remained without their own space, but with discovery of a hyperlane reaching Outer Arm suggested that the way into the Scutus-Centaurus Arm wasn't far away (and it was a correct belief), so it was reserved for them.
Transhumans were to depart there as well. If there were few more outlying hyperlanes, they would probably get their own Oversector, but with everyone struggling for their own regions, they weren't allowed that. Instead, they were to spread themselves throughout the Frontier. Variants initially lived normally, but as the situation in the Core Worlds progressed, it started being less and less stable and welcoming towards those that weren't baseline humans. As a result, the Variants were soon applying for their own colonies, and by the mid-Unification Wars there was almost no Variant presence in the Core Worlds.
Unfortunately, the Commonwealth' soon began losing control over the whole movement. The colonies on the rapidly spreading Frontier were intended to be baubbles to keep the Earth's powers happyy by giving them an ability to wave their flags around to satiate their pride. Few could imagine what was going to happen, and those that did were ignored until the future events proved them correct.
Human countries were depopulated by the war - their population was still large, but there were many countries that were pretty close to disappearing (especially those hit really hard by the Nanoplague). Why would a country like that willingly decide to stay on Earth, when in space it could hope to seize entire star systems? Why one small slice of a planet filled with much stronger countries, where they could have ten worlds only for themselves? The wave of colonial fervour seemed to sweeping through entire Earth.
The result were going to plague the Commonwealth until its very end. Earth was still a massive produce of various goods - and now entire countries were getting depopulated, further worsening the already troublesome economic situation in the aftermath of the War of Purity. What's more, it soon become apparent that the process of leaving Earth was going to cause a notable internal issues in the countries, as it was mostly the more 'patriotic' side that was leaving, seeking freedom in space - the Commonwealth loyalists tended to stay on Earth, or apply for colonies in the Core Worlds. This caused tensions to rise.
Semann's Speech
2282, Solar System
Senator Semann (delegate of the United Lunar Republic) makes a long and well-remembered speech about the corruption devouring the Commonwealth from within. He cites multiple accusations about bribery and corruption that were swept under the rug (including names of the people responsible), and claims that the entire Commonwealth is slowly changing into a bureaucratic regime devoured by corruption, with its democracy being only a facade.
His biggest accusation was about numerous planets de facto changing into personal fiefdoms of various wartime administrators. At this point elections in many of them were only a facade that nobody really cared about - they were small authoritarian enclaves within the supposedly democratic Commonwealth, their representatives in the Senate voting according to their leaders' wish, together possessing enough political power to sabotage any actions against them. Earth was also repeatedly attacked, as the planetary governments' politic on the Commonwealth was a part of a problem. In fact, attempts to curb the autonomous position of the members was sabotaged by both sides equally, though for completely different reasons.
Semann accused the Senate and the High Council of inability to rule in peacetime, with twelve years of total military control taking its toll even when the military has finally stepped down. He failed to force any changes, nor un-sweep the cases of bribery and corruption he announced to the world. In fact he was sued for defamation by multiple of the accused, though less than half of the cases went through (the rest were shot down by the judges sympathetic to the Semann's agenda, and fully aware that the accusations against him are false, though politically-aligned judgments even on the supposedly democratic side weren't a good sign either).
The only long-term result was the split of the Senate between the Autonomists (seeking to reinforce the right to self-govern of various members of the Commonwealth, unfortunately including the colonies governed in an autocratic way), Reformists (a group, centered on Semann, seeking to reform the Commonwealth back into proper democracy) and the Terrans, representing powers of Earth. Despite Reformists being the largest group by far, the Autonomists and Terrans possessed enough votes to sabotage any attempt to reform the Commonwealth (the reason for Terran opposition was the Reformist interest in centralizing the entire Commonwealth, including Earth, and their dislike towards the Frontier being handed to Terran countries).
New Fleet Program
2283, Human Space
Commonwealth decides to finally readjust its fleets to the peacetime and the needs of the Fourth Expansion Phase. The result is the New Fleet Program, supported and spearheaded by the Fleet Admiral Ose. The idea is to lessen the strain the grotesquely oversized fleet is putting on the Commonwealth's finances, without limiting its force projection and without leaving the Commonwealth vulnerable in case the Transhuman Alliance somehow decided to go for a round two.
Majority of the capital ships are dismantled and used as a source of spare parts for the new ships. The remaining battleships are used a static defense force of system capitals. Cruisers are divided between the light cruisers (purely escort ships), heavy cruisers (used for combat recon, and as fast response force), and battlecruisers that take the former battleship role or countering any significant threats with overwhelming force (but much faster than their predecessor could respond) while also being useful in delaying actions. The frigates are de facto phased out of service aside from acting as couriers and reconaissance force, with their role as escorts mostly seized by newly created (and larger) destroyers.
Every sector is to be assigned a fleet, though one with lesser number of costly capital ships, and larger number of smaller ships in order to maintain peace, with the Reserve Fleet [now Battle Fleet] used as strategic reserve in case of an outside threat that managed to overwhelm the fleet guarding one of the sectors.
Human Diversity Restoration Program terminated
2284, Human Space
The HDRP wasn't a controversial thing at the beginning. Nobody protested the expansion (and bugfixing) of the standard Humanity 2.0 genetic template. Very few people protested the successful repairs of majority of recognized genetic defects in the surviving Variant templates. Even the resurrection of the almost-extinct and some of the extinct Variants wasn't exactly opposed, though many disliked the idea of Mankind entering that swamp again. Then, however, the HDRP began straying off its course, and significantly so.
The first truly controversial discovery was the fact that the new 'elven' template incorporate a number of genes borrowed from the Pure. It moved the second approach to real world elves from "pointy eared humans with slightly different body proportions" into "better looking pointy eared humans that are also smarter and have faster reaction time than baseline human", which was seen by the research project staff as a necessity to actually make space elves into what they should be. But it was something that the public managed to survive, due to less than 3% of the new Variant genes being transhuman in origins. Or at least that was the official version, as much later genetic testing discovered that the elven templated carried approximately 6,5% of Pure genes.
Mankind has also managed to - somehow - survive the creation of the Sculpts. These subspecies of baseline Mankind (not unlike Variants, though without leaving what can be considered a natural human form) were initially created according to 'purified' and slightly reshuffled original ancestry groups. An example could be a Germanic, Celtic, or Native American Sculpts, purposefully devoid of traits (typically aesthethical ones, so skin or hair colour, facial anatomy etc.) from external sources - treatment of genes hailing from different ancestral groups as something harmful that had to be eliminated was something controversial at best.
The protests were mostly calmed down when Sculpts that were completely new (which also slightly expanded the list of naturally existing hair and eye colour, and other similar elements). But then they happened again (though with different groups protesting) when few more were made, this time ones that tinkered with human genders and sexuality. And then someone decided to make a sculpt that makes people remain childlike for their entire life (even once being fully adult in terms of mind and sexuality), which was the starting point of the time where absolutely everyone was furious and demanded the HDRP scrapped.
What finally blew everything up was a wave of new projects which started suggesting large-scale genetic improvements to human genetics (sounding suspiciously similar to the arguments surrounding the Pure during their creation), and those that began tinkering with sexuality a bit too much. During the last days of the HDRP almost every political group and organization demanded it shutdown. The Senate finally obliged, but not before launching a proper review of the results of the project.
The result is numerous sculpts being de facto outlawed as unethical or too divergent from the baseline genetics. However some of them ended up being 'resurrected' later on, during the age of the Commonwealth's collapse, when some wealthy people with strange tastes managed to get their hands on some of the more controversial genetic templates.
Wagner-III raid
2286, European Oversector
European Polity's colony of Wagner-III is raided by a sizeable detachment of Transhuman Alliance ships, which took advantage of the D-Gate hidden in the sector by a well-hidden group of transhuman infiltrators. After overwhelming the orbital and ground defenses, the transhumans kidnap 30 000 colonists and disappear into the darkness beyond the system edge. Three months later a Commonwealth' Navy task force send to investigate finds a D-Gate. Unable to travel to the other side without a genetic key, the task force's commander orders the gate destroyed.
The Wagner-III is the start of a long list of transhuman raids, either on outlying colonies or on hyperspace traffic. They lack power to cause any serious damages to the Commonwealth's, as they are perhaps ten million survivors of the Alliance hidden in the Discord at this point. They could strike almost anywhere at will, but they are at worst a nuisance. They kept seizing humans (as lab rats, slave workforce, entertainment or forceful recruits), but that's how much they were capable of.
The real problem of the raids is that they reignite fear of transhumans, resulting in growth of xenophobia in Mankind, but also in demands for further military expansion. Every world out there demanded a Commonwealth' garrison, and the Commonwealth both couldn't do that (due to finances) and couldn't avoid doing that (due to politics). The results are half-measures and growing ammount of political arguments tearing the Senate apart.
The Year of Screams
2287, Human Space
Approximately six hundred seventy attacks by the mysterious banshees (previously known mostly due to their involvement in Gene Artificers' being seized by the soon-to-be genetic warlords) are recorded between 12.01.2287 and 19.12.2287. The reason for this sudden spike of activity is unknown.
There are no discernible patterns in the attacks. Warships, trade convoys, outlying industrial and research installations and even several colonies are struck, with close to three hundred thousand victims. Due to banshees' overwhelming firepower and resistance to attacks, all attacks are successful without a single casualty on the attacking side. Nothing is stolen, as all that the banshees' were interested in was destruction.
Mankind mobilized for its first apparent war against a truly external threat only for the attacks to suddenly cease. Despite more than five hundred years passing since the Year of Screams, it never repeated - and no reason for it was ever discovered.
Nemea-IV raid
2288, Core Worlds
A coalition of several pirate bands launches an unexpected assault on Nemea System, one of the few industrial and ship constructions centers outside the Solar System that survived the War of Purity. They take advantage of the garrison force training in a distance from the world. Before those forces return to defend their base, it is thoroughly pillaged. Besides rapes, kidnapping, and stealing of everything valuable, the real problem lies elsewhere.
Pirates stole seven almost finished cruisers, two War of Purity-era battleships that were about to be scrapped, and twenty-two frigates (either refitted, repaired or scrapped during the raid). The captured ships spread throughout the blackmarket (save for the too unwieldy-battleships, later on discovered to be used as stationary pirate bases), resulting in the human pirate activity tripling in the following years.
The result is a further growth in the scale of problems faced by the Commonwealth' Armed Forces, and further growth of political issues tearing the Commonwealth's leadership apart. It becomes increasingly obvious that Commonwealth' requires some urgent changes, however the political crisis continues to paralyze the government and parliament when only a reform is attempted.
Fleet Admiral Ose assasinated
2289, Titan
Fleet Admiral Ose, hero of the War of Purity and a commander-in-chief of the Solar Commonwealth, is successfully assasinated with a bomb planted on the personal shuttle. FAdm Ose remained a cornerstone of the Commonwealth' military for years, her authority and relentless persecution of corruption within the Navy and Army alike keeping the Armed Forces out of politics.
The reason for the assasination remains unknown, despite furious investigation. It is only much later than ties are made between this incident and the insidious secret cult spreading throughout the ranks of the Battle Fleet. For now, however, the mutual accusations and the lack of Fleet Admiral Ose causes increasing division between the Commonwealth' Armed Forces leadership.
What's worse, the new leader of the Commonwealth Armed Forces - Admiral Piers Vinke, previous head of the 2nd Fleet - is much more ambitious than his predecessors. The result is an another powerful player within the Solar politics, though one mercilessly sabotaged by numerous powerful clicques spread throughout the Army and Navy alike. Naturally, this does not help the Commonwealth' ability to maintain order within its borders.
First Interstellar MMO
2290, Human Space
New World Online, the Mankind's first truly interstellar VRMMO is created. It becomes a resounding success, while also acting as a 'proof of concept' for the entire new generation of Virtual Reality games. Within few months the NWO reaches almost every human settlement that isn't struggling to survive.
With lack of FTL communication, it of course wasn't a 'literal' interstellar VRMMO. Instead, every planet and large orbital installation had its own counterpart in the game world. The biggest difference between NWO and its predecessors was the large decentralization of the game world - every world and installation was a unique place, with local inhabitants being able to fill the resulting framework with their own, unique creations. The hardest part was suppressing blatant cheats in such a system - it was achieved by regional SIs assessing creations and automatically balancing things when for example too many people got too much experience points from some creature.
The technology is perfected over the following centuries, though majority of changes are reather limited as the VR technology hits the Wall of Faith. However the tensions caused by the VR companies trying to wiggle their way through the bans on both the 'perfect' VR and the Hyper Reality remained a common problem until the end of the Commonwealth.[/justify\
Inheritance Wars start
2291, Earth
The troublesome political situation on Earth escalates further as more and more colonization missions leave the planet. The first official 'battle' of the resulting Inheritance Wars was the one waged between the Solar Commonwealth and European Polity over the former territory of northeastern Holland. As majority of the population of the local Polity' memberstate left for Frontier, the people that remained were in majority Commonwealth's sympathizers.
The result was an attempt to leave the Polity and become part of the Commonwealth's directly, something that even the normally extremely decentralized (and theoretically a confederation) Polity had issues with accepting. Its leadership attempt to block the secession (in fear of provoking more such incidents in the future) resulted in the Commonwealth' High Council attempted to use this situation as a bargaining chip in order to gain a leverage against the Terran governments.
Which turned to be a major mistake. Not only it antagonized the Senate and the High Council (with the former being staunchly against this move, with even Reformists having doubts about violating the territorial integrity of the member states), but the latter at some point understood that it can no longer bail out. The relations between Polity and Commonwealth' reached an all-time low, the small dot of land become direct part of the Commonwealth (which few people out there considered to be worth the hassle) and what's worst, more groups in the future used this case as a precedent to attempt secession from their Terran countries to join the Commonwealth' directly.
The result was a start of the Inheritance Wars, a long period of battles fought in courts, in parliaments and on the streets, which further antagonized Terran powers and the Commonwealth, making their representatives get even more obstructive while also tiring the Commonwealth financially without providing any significant longterm gains.
Battle Fleet goes renegade
06.06.2294, Solar System
In one of the least expected and understood events in Mankind's history, significant majority of the Battle Fleet suddenly goes renegade and scatters throughout the Human Space. Almost two hundred cruisers and frigates end up as pirates, and fifty-two capital ships are hidden in various places for future use (and typically sold to the highest bidder during first days of the Unification Wars) or seized by the Transhuman Alliance. In one fell swoop one of the three largest fleets of the Commonwealth - and one acting as its strategic reserves - disappeares, together with almost three hundred thousand servicemen.
The result is an earthquake, its tremors felt on every level of the Commonwealth's bureaucratic, military and political structure. Investigation soon discovers that while many of the security organizations in the Commonwealth (from the police to the military counter-intelligence) encountered some sort of clues indicating something wrong happening within the Battle Fleet ranks, their stubborn refusal to share their findings with each other led to the true scale of the problem remaining unnoticed until it was too late. The result of that were mass layoffs, that soon turned into a regular purges of the military leadership.
For now, the reassesment of evidence gathered proves that some sort of well-organized secret society throve throughout the Battle Fleet ranks ever since the early War of Purity (it was the safe estimation, as some of the intelligence seemed to indicate that it was much, much older). The core elements of the society (its inner 'cult') soon resurfaces as the pirate group known as the Silent Sorrow, its ships preying on the hyperspace traffic with uncanny efficiency and brutality.
Admiral Vinke seizes power
11.2294, Solar System
Admiral Piers Vinke was in position to take full advantage of the crisis caused by the Battle Fleet dispersion. His aggresive rhetorics helped him sway many citizens of the Commonwealth, and he had power to control the resulting investigation, leading to flag officers opposing him being removed from service in the Solar System. With the First Fleet controlled by his supporters, and the Battle Fleet out of the picture, he was now the uncontested supreme leader of the Commonwealth' Armed Forces.
The result was Admiral Vinke de facto seizing control of the Solar Commonwealth. He one-sidedly announced himself as a dictator, citing the on-going political and security crisis in the Commonwealth as an emergency forcing him to do that. He gained significant following in his move, as many people were tired of the chaos, and saw the Senate as incompetent and incapable of facing the issues due to being in a state of de facto legislative gridlock for several years (with only some minor things pushed through).
The Senate was dispersed, and new government was installed, filled with military officers and civilian supporters of admiral Vinke. The protests against the end of democracy were fierce and erupted almost immediately throughout the Solar System (and then spread from there), however with Admiral Vinke control over the military and law enforcement, they met with limited success. The main blow to the regime was going to come from elsewhere - from the military itself.
The Long Crisis starts
2295, Human Space
The Commonwealth' was in rather peculiar financial situation ever since the end of the War of Purity. It was forced to shoulder massive debts during he war, though those were almost uniformly with an interest rate set to the level of inflation - during the War of Purity it was obvious to everyone that it's a war that, if lost, would end Commonwealth and its' prevalent political and economic system. The banks were willing to risk their economic survivability if the alternative was their certain doom.
However the war ended, and the problems persisted. For almost two decades the situation was bad, but manageable. The Commonwealth' felt relatively stable if troubled, and this maintained relative stability on the markets. THere were short bouts of secession and financial crises (mostly due to banks who overextended on their loans going down, due to the Commonwealth' failing to repay debts towards them fast enough). It was turbulent, but manageable - majority of the bankruptcies caused problems on planetary scale at worst.
The situation changed for the worse with Vinke's ascension. From now on, all periods of stabilization in the Commonwealth were temporary and too short to matter. Perpetual political instability and Commonwealth's almost permanent financial problems overshadowed the markets, causing recurrent financial and economic turmoil that was, in turn, worsening the already bad situation of the Commonwealth. And the transhuman and pirate raids shattered and reduced the previously thriving interstellar trade, forcing many planetary economies to turn inward. With the taxes on that trade being a large source of funds for the Commonwealth, it's problem with solvency worsened further.
The situation wasn't all that bad. The 'Long Crisis' was in fact a period of almost continuous economic growth, with especially the colonization market thriving. However the growth failed - at least in the Core Worlds - to match up to the population growth. For the first time in a while, part of Mankind was facing poverty. The poor demanded help from the Government, which not only drained it financially even further but also caused increasingly overtaxed megacorporations to start turning against the Commonwealth's Government (especially when it reached the point where it started threatening their survivability). Resulting in rebirth of the socialism and even further political strife between them and the capitalist-oriented elements of the Government.
The Long Crisis was, in short, a period of economic and financial turbulences that lasted (with varied, but typically slowly growing intensity) until the Commonwealth's ultimate collapse.
Fratricide War
2295, Solar System
When admiral Vinke rose to power as a dictator of the Solar Commonwealth with the First Fleet behind him, there was only one major group of opponents to the new regime left in the solarian military. The Second Fleet and the Second Army Group accompanying it, under joint command of Admiral Imua Henare. While the remaining eight fleets of the Core Worlds sided with Admiral Vinke or remained neutral, Admiral Henare's forces were large enough to be able to stand on their own.
The result was the start of a six-months long Fratricide War, the first out of many civil wars were going to slowly tear the Solar Commonwealth' into pieces in the follow years. For now, the situation was fairly tame. Supporters of both sides still considered each other part of the same Navy, and majority of them saw the 'war' as a conflict of competences between two high ranking officers (as the authority of Admiral Vinke as military dictator was shaky at best). There was a number of skirmishes, but most of them weren't exactly military engagements - it was better to describe them as two sides pretending to fight against each other, while doing everything they could to not wound anyone.
The fleets flew around, seizing or losing the star systems without battles. The weaker defenders left the systems when only they saw the attackers arrive, letting them 'seize' the system until they returned with reinforcements, repeating the process. Of course, this could only work for a limited time. The result was the Battle of Faith, during which a task force from the 1st Fleet entered the system only to find itself right in front of the task force of the 2nd Fleet that was about to leave the system. Both sides panicked and opened fire, resulting in deaths of twenty-seven thousand servicemen, including the commanders of both task force (that happened to be brothers, earning the 'war' its name).
The war ended five weeks later, when Admiral Vinke was successfully assasinated by a group of democrats that somehow remained a part of Commonwealth's military leadership despite Vinke doing his best to force his every political opponent to resign from service.
The Two Year Crisis
2296-2298, Solar System
With Admiral Vinke out of the picture, the democracy could be restored. The 'emergency elections' were held within the Solar System. Rather than choosing new (or old) members of the Senate and the High Council, the military officers responsible for the restoration of democracy decided to elect a commitee of one hundred politicians that were supposed to be tasked with interim governance of the Solar Commonwealth (before the 'proper', Commonwealth-wide elections). The reason for that was hope that said interim government would apply serious modifications to the voting system, in order to avoid the Senate and the High Council being politically gridlocked to death. Again.
This was, in essence, an attempt to assasinate democracy in order to save democracy. Letting thirty precent of Mankind choose the voting system for the remaining 70% was anything but democracy. As a result, despite the looming threat of another dictatorship (as Admiral Henare seemed oddly slow in proclaim support for the new government), the democratic side was split in half. The Commitee for the Restoration of Democracy resided on the Titan, while the Provisional Government (led by Viktor Semann) resided on Luna - and both governments saw themselves as legal heads of the Commonwealth. Both sides hoped for democratic reforms, but were mutually hostile due to the ways of introducing them.
Soon it turned out that there's going to be third side in all of that, as Admiral Henare announced herself to be a military dictator of the Commonwealth and the commander-in-chief of the solarian military for the duration of the crisis. Then she demanded the both governments to stand down, in order for the general elections to be done under military protection. With the First Fleet command structure in tatters following Admiral Vinke's assassination, the only thing that stopped Admiral Henare for marching all the way to the Solar System was the fact that she was assasinated one week after her announcement.
The result of this assasination was a political split tearing the Second Fleet in half, a split so bad that it also split the First Fleet. The result of the turmoil was the democratic-minded ship captains converging in the Solar System, and becoming the 'new' First Fleet under Admiral Célestin Lémieux, while the autocratic side moved to the Sector 02 and become part of the Second Fleet under Admiral Graham Macleod. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the First Fleet refused to obey orders from both the Provisional Government and the Committee for the Restoration of Democracy, maintaining strict neutrality while defending the capital system of the Solar Commonwealth from the autocrats (and both transhumans and pirates), trying to keep clear from politics.
The whole Navy realignment of ships was possible only because the Commonwealth' wasn't in a state of a civil war - to this day, all victims of the political turmoil in the Commonwealth were people who died in the Faith battle and few assasinated admirals and politicians. All sides eyed each other suspiciously and demanded to be listened to, while the loyalty of the outlying systems remained in constant state of flux. Nobody fired at each other, very few people were detained, and when a ship decided to join another side, it was allowed to go (unless the situation was detected early enough, and the ship could be sized without opening fire at it and without violence). The horrors of the War of Purity were still fresh, and why their hampered restoration of the old Commonwealth, they also made another (potentially massive) civil war a prospect horrible for everyone.
The crisis - with three governments trying to govern the same country - last for almost two years. It ended when the Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and Provisional Government reached consensus. General elections were held. The voting law itself was unchanged, however the law regarding the day-to-day operation of the Senate was changed. Rather than allowing individual votes, all future voting was to be done by block. In short, a system of political parties was to be resurrected, in order to split the pre-Vinke gridlocked system of three main groups (the autonomists, the terrans and the reformists) into more of smaller factions. In order to appease Semann's Provisional Government, this law had to be confirmed by the elected Senate, or it would automatically be rendered moot after next elections.
The elections were held, and the new system was confirmed - though whether it worked remains debatable even in the 28th Century. The new Senate was divided between twenty-seven political parties. The new government was made of a coalition between Viktor Semann's New Commonwealth Party and Yao Xiaoli' Conservative Democracy. The former party seeked further incorporation of the Solar System countries and limitation of regional autonomies, while also being decidedly democratic. The latter party could be summed up as descendant of democrats among the autonomists, disliking the idea of centralizing the Commonwealth and promoted the regional autonomies, but wanted them to follow the common law and remain democratic (in short, it looked to return to the pre-War of Purity system). The numerous differences between the two parties were obvious,
This marriage was a marriage of necessity, as the Law and Order party (composed of majority of more functional autocrats, including majority of the supporters of Admiral Macleod) would be the one forming the ruling coalition if New Commonwealth Party failed to achieve that. As the result, the ruling coalition's stability and ability to get things done was limited, though to a lesser degree than pre-Vinke government.
Other notable parties were the Human Purity Party, Progressive Party and the Good Will Party. The first one was a precursor to future bioconservatists, fervently opposing the normalization of cybernetic implants and further genetic modifications, claiming that enough was already done on that field (with disastrous results), while being economically centrist and socially conservative. The actually anti-transhumanist and anti-Variant groups later on ejected from it and forming their own True Purity Party. The Progressive Party was its polar opposite, being a political front for the former Unforgiven and descendants of the progressives of old, supporting further genetic improvements and considering that the clue of their political platform (it tended to be slightly socialist on other fields). The Good Will Party was, in the meantime, the political grandchild of the Union of Progress and Freedom, being a common banner under which socialists (democratic or not) gathered, criticizing the capitalism and demanding reorganization of society and economy according to the socialist principles.
Following the general elections, Admiral Macleod's forces stood down, though not before the admiral received various guarantees regarding his position in the Commonwealth Armed Forces (and amnesty for himself and all of those that followed him). The result was the end of the Two Year Crisis, with another civil war narrowly averted. With politic division still visible on every layer of society, and the new commander-in-chief of the Commonwealth Armed Forces (Admiral Lemieux) not in a position to trust his new second-in-command (Admiral Macleod) the Commonwealth was far from being stable.
Human Population Reaches 25 Billion
2298, Human Space
While the War of Purity was a disaster of unimagineable magnitude for the human demography, it wasn't enough to drive Mankind' extinct. What's more it was immediately followed by a demographic boom of a previously unseen proportions. Partially it was relief, a sort of 'survivor's high'. Partially Commonwealth's conscious pro-demographic policies and partially the fact that at this point majority of Mankind fully switched towards the 2+5 family 'standard'.
Within twenty years since the war ended, the casualties sustained by Mankind were mostly healed. The population dropped from 32 billion down to 14 billion during the war, climbing back to 25 billion with no signs of stopping. The population was much more decentralized (due to Frontier beginning to contribute significantly to the process), however this was going to further improve the situation later down the road.
Despite the on-going crisis in the Commonwealth, the population kept growing. It helped prolong the post-war economic turmoil, but in the end it was going to contribute to its solving. It was going to be too late for the Commonwealth itself, however.
High Council Massacred
14.03.2299, Titan
A strike team manages to infiltrate the hall where the High Council of the Solar Commonwealth' resides, resulting in all councillors present getting assasinated, and the strike team eliminated by the security which arrived twelve seconds later. The attackers turn out to be Enhanced discharged from the military which turn mercenary, hired by someone within the higher ranks of the Commonwealth Armed Forces. Gossips insist that Admiral Macleod was the one responsible, but officially the Internal Security Bureau failed to identify the person responsible.
The result of the massacre is an intensification of a secret war occuring behind the scenes of the Solar Commonwealth. Data theft, assasinations, political corruption, physical violence during protests become an increasingly common sight thoughout the Commonwealth's politics. Side effect is a growing number of political armed groups, some of them semi-official, and of numerous Enhanced being used as assasins and bodyguards.
The Commonwealth's politics are growing increasingly primitive and brutal, with numerous growing populist movements, street violence, corruption scandals and political backstabing grow in number, and the crisis is slowly growing.
SI/MOLOCH rampage
01.06.2299, Human Space
Despite the War of Purity ending, the Transhuman Alliance' remnants considered themselves to still be waging that war. SI/MOLOCH was a newest achievement of the Virtual and Robotics programmers, created in the Discord and slowly disseminated throughout the Human Space.
Its eventual activation causes mass-scale electronic 'malfunctions', typically actively malicious. Mercury was almost scorched to death when its orbital mirror realigned itself. In several other cases, the first true offensive SI of Mankind, have actually succeeded in its large scale endeavour, devastating seven Garden Planets. It also destroyed numerous space installation. The end result is almost two hundred million casualties within two weeks.
The AI/MOLOCH soon becomes a semi-perpetual threat throughout the Human Space, due to the surviving ATIS drones being used as carriers of the 'disease' - on numerous occasions planetary infonetworks are assaulted by the AI/MOLOCH instances in the wake of ATIS attacks.
Hector-III crackdown
12.08.2299-14.08.2299, Sector 04
The largest drug bust in Mankind's history is conducted, with close to three hundred thousand members of massive drug cartel arrested or killed through a joint operation between the Internal Security Bureau, Commonwealth' Navy and Army, and the local law enforcement units. Due to the drug cartel deploying Enhanced, an equivalent of an infantry division with heavy equipment and several small warships, the bust resembles a small battle.
This event was only a small part of a prolonged war that the Commonwealth' was waging against the rapidly growing issues of drug and hyper reality abuse in the aftermath of the War of Purity. The biggest problem - that the Commonwealth eventually failed to fully suppress - was the Cold Trade. At the height of the crisis, close to one billion citizens of the Commonwealth lived permanently in the virtual world, their bodies consigned as a payment for their virtual (and often hyper) reality life, and used for medical experiments, prostitution or as organ farms.
Despite the numerous crackdowns, the Cold Trade and standard drug abuse remain a plague. The trauma of the War of Purity broke many people, and with the post-War of Purity crisis lasting for more than two decades with no signs of stopping more and more people simply decided to abandon the world.
Ecumenic Riots
11.01.2300-17.06.2300, Core Worlds
Various religious organizations within the Commonwealth has earned a significant position throughout its society in the aftermath of the War of Purity and the massive relief action once it ended. Some religious groups used that as a staging ground for their expansion into the market, others got cozy with the autocrats and others were simply trying to use their influence in order to campaign for various political changes in the democratic communities.
The Solar Commonwealth's government was far from being happy about this situation, but for a long while nobody was keen on stepping on that landmine. However the raise of political movements demanding the clear separation of religion and state (essentially a secular and moderately anti-religious government). Secularists in the Senate managed to push a number of laws limiting the ability of the regular organizations to project their influence over the regional governments.
The result was an approximately five months long riots that raged throughout the entire Human Space, during which majority of religions (muslims, Christians of most denominations, buddhists and many lesser religions) fought the same war side by side. Riots were only one side of the battle, as it was accompanied by political campaigning, protests and legal battles, but due to their intensity they gathered the attention of majority of people.
In the end, the anti-religious laws were scrapped. No further attempt to broke the religious groups stranglehold on the regional politics were made before the collapse of the Commonwealth. The religious groups never managed to influence the Central Governments due to being divided between many mutually opposing groups - their number rather than decreasing continued growing during the period. However the situation with the regional governments was much different, and the religious influence on local communities remained strong.
The Ecumenical Riots split the religious side between the moderates (majority group who abhorred rioting) and the radicals (who at this point saw the Commonwealth as a tool of whatever evil entity their religion believed into, made into reality to restart the ancient persecutions. However similar situation happened to the secularists, which began radicalizing rapidly (with especially Good Will Party almost equalling the religious communities with the autocrats). The tensions between the religious groups and the secularists were one more war that kept tearing the Commonwealth with varied intensity throughout its dying years.
Indenture Law Crisis
17.01.2301-22.06.2301, Human Space
With the Commonwealth' in the almost perpetual state of crisis, numerous autocrats doing what they want with the population under them, and the government growing increasingly impotent in face of numerous interstellar megacorps, the issue of personal debts become a real problem.
Due to a successful PR campaign, the 'emergency' law allowing forced labour in order to pay back the debts is voted in. The idea in general made sense, at least in times of such economic troubles. With a citizen amassing enough debts to not be able to pay them back, they were supposed to work for either the creditor or the government. The debtor was to receive some basic living upkeep in form of accomodation, food and so on, his debt slightly cut down (as at this point the debt's interest can no longer grow faster than the inflation rate) with each month. WIthout access to money on their own, the risk of people like gamblers or drug abusers further worsening their debt was significantly reduced.
Furious protests by socialists, Christians, and republicans quickly throw the wrench into the law, and the creative reinterpretation of the law's records led to the whole thing ending where it had to. It took the Senate almost a year to notice that what they did was de facto a reintroduction of slavery in the indenture servitude form, as people could now be traded around as an addon to their debts being sold and bought.
The law is naturally scrapped quickly at this point, and the whole thing is considered a major mess-up on the Senate part. Major, but not the only one, as the legislative process in the post-War of Purity Commonwealth is full of improvised laws turning out to be full of loopholes that even a braindead person could exploit.
Unfortunately some autocratic colonies (and even some democratic ones) decided to keep or reform the law, brazenly ignoring the Senate on that field.
Sector 09 Secession
13.07.2301-02.12.2301, Titan
Following the indenture law crisis, the Low Council of the Sector 09 decides to officially secceed from the Solar Commonwealth, announcing that remaining any longer a part of country allowing such a travesty of a law is a moral impossibility. The secession turns out to be a brief, yet serious crisis for the Solar Commonwealth.
The Sector 09 was one of the two Outer Sectors (now considered to be a part of the Core Worlds itself) that avoided getting decimated during the War of Purity. Unlike the Sector 07, it was actually captured by the Transhumans, but with Pure's gentle occupation it was almost undamaged. This meant a large and stable population, almost entirely on the democratic-reformist side, and with the Ninth Fleet that was the third most powerful fleet once the Battle Fleet was gone (ex aqueo with the Seventh Fleet). Thus, the secession was a major crisis.
Eventually the First Fleet arrived in the Sector 09, which together with some negotiations (and the official ban on indenture, though one ignored by many) managed to settle the issue without a military conflict. The Sector 09 is brought back to the fold. It is the last such crisis that is resolved peacefully.
Riots on Titan
13.04.2300-12.12.2300, Sector 09
Following a law project granting megacorporations limited extraterritoriality, the neosocialist protests on Titan explode into three weeks long regular street warfare, between supporters of several political parties that are supporting the law, opposing it, or just want to see the world burn.
The extraterritoriality - essentially making the megacorp a recognized autonomous and extraterritorial 'colonial governments' under the Commonwealth - was intended to give the corporations a fighting chance against numerous (and often violent) protests that were recently tearing their property apart. The neosocialists fought them in their entirety, the purists opposed the cybernetic and genetic research, and so on. Bombs were thrown or launched, with terror attacks occuring almost daily throughout the Commonwealth. It suppressed the economic development, one of the few things that could help stabilize the Commonwealth.
The riots are suppressed after the three weeks of warfare due to all sides engaged in the warfare beginning to deploy armed militia instead of rioters. Marines soon patrol the streets, and the martial law is announced - in the end it remains in place on Titan for the remaining years of the Commonwealth. The law is scrapped due to fears of escalating the tensions.
Frontier Rearmament Proposal
13.01.2301, Human Space
Before the War of Purity started, more developed of the frontier worlds were allowed to maintain their own warships, typically frigates, for a patrol duty and search & rescue missions. They were also often used to 'fish' for competent crewmembers for the local Commonwealth Navy detachments. When those ships were mostly conscripted during the War of Purity, this custom essentially died together with half of the Mankind.
Now, with the situation on the frontier areas increasingly endangered by raids, the proposal was put up in the Commonwealth' Senate to to allow at least the Frontier systems to possess their own cruisers. This would allow them to put up a notable self-defense, lessening the strain on the Commonwealth Navy.
Despite the proposal passing through the Senate (narrowly), it wasn't implemented as the bureaucracy was panically afraid of secessionists movements using those ships (in the aftermath of the Sector 09 affair), which would only further worsen the already bad situation. While in that particular case the bureaucracy was rightly afraid of that, it failed to take into account the fact that each successful raid was a serious blow to the authority of the Commonwealth.
Pirates and Transhumans Cooperate
19.04.2301, Human Space
As if some undescribable powers conspired to ruin the Commonwealth, another startling discovery was made. One of the task forces assisting colonization attempts in what was soon going to be called Northern American Oversector found a D-Gate and placed a number of cruisers around it in a preparation for an ambush of the transhuman ships that come through.
To the task force' flag officer surprise, it's not transhumans that emerge from the gate. Instead, it's a small squadron of pirate ships, some of them former Commonwealth' ships of the Battle Fleet. This proves that recent surge of pirates and other armed and dangerous miscreants were so successful in avoiding capture due to being supported by the transhumanists and their D-Gate Network.
Once the issue becomes a journalist's secret throughout the Commonwealth, the pirates and transhumans stop their attempts to cover their cooperations. From now on, the pirates are using the D-Gate network freely, striking wherever and whenever they want.
Good Will Revolution
27.05.2301, Titan
Despite the Senate and High Council abandoning the idea of granting megacorps the extraterritorial status and calling off the indenture law, it was done too late. Certain groups were already too tired and too radicalized to care. WIth numerous revolutions in the making, it was no longer a question of whether one would happen - but only when, and who would be the first to try.
The winner of the race was the Good Will Party. Their revoluton managed to move over ten million of armed supporters onto the streets throughout the Solar System, including two hundred thousands on the Titan. Majority of the cities on Titan within ten hours. The leadership of the Conservative Democracy was massacred by the neosocialists militias. The Capital Spire - with majority of the High Council and Senate hiding there - continued to resist the attacks, and the siege continued for hours.
Finally the army moved in. The delay was caused by Admiral Lemieux dying when the Navy headquarters were bombed by the revolutionaries, and Admiral Macleod taking a while to establish his full control over the First Fleet. His marines managed to lift the Spire's siege, but when he departed there in his shuttle (probably to inform the senators that it's time to make him into the military dictator of the Commonwealth), his plans were cut short when an overlooked neosocialist AA laser battery melted him off the skies.
This caused almost four hours long crisis. While the marines were reconquering Titan city after city from the collapsing Good Will Party' forces, High Councillor VIktor Semann was attempting to take control of the First Fleet (demanding, coercing or even trying to bribe its commanders), which had him face the First Fleet' commander, Admiral Zygmunt Ostrowicz. While no fan of Macleod (and chief source of the delay) and a democrat, he was thoroughly tired of the prolonged crisis, and saw the source of them in the Senate's weakness and lack of decisiveness.
With Admiral Ostrowicz finally winning the struggle, the result was the de facto end of democracy in the Solar Commonwealth. While the High Council and the Senate remain where they were, Admiral Ostrowicz has the loyalty of the largest military force in the region, enough to be able to 'suggest' laws and personnel decisions. The period of military dictatorships starts.
Admiral Ostrowicz' Reign
2301-2316, Human Space
The biggest irony is that the first of a long list of military dictatorships (and usurpers trying to gain that status) was actually a staunch democrat. Admiral Ostrowicz saw the Commonwealth's democracy as flawed and on the course leading to an eventual self-destruction. He took advantage of Admiral Macleod's death to seize the control not to destroy the democracy, but to try to save it from itself.
His reign was the last significant period of stability that the Solar Commonwealth lived through before its eventual dissolution. The legislative gridlocks were circumnavigated if needed by Admiral Ostrowicz, the ban on the indenture was enforced throughout the Commonwealth's space with the authority of the Commonwealth's Navy behind it, and numerous more things were achieved through the guiding hand of Admiral Ostrowicz.
Admiral Ostrowicz' forces also began dislodging the autocrats, enforcing democracy on the colonies that remained controlled by local dictators. During the last six years of his reign, his popularity grew so much that even previously hostile Viktor Semann began cooperating with Admiral, if only to be able to observe him from a shorter distance and be ready to counter any attempt to dismantle the remnants of democracy.
Then, however, Admiral Zygmunt Ostrowicz - already quite old when seizing power, though rather energetic - died of natural causes. The result was that his attempts backfired. His successors were soon going to turn out to be much less fond of democracy, beginning the downward spiral towards the eventual collapse of the Commonwealth. And the Ostrowicz's coup teached the inhabitants of the Commonwealth that the best road to control over the country is through military rather than through elections. Truly, Hell is paved with good intentions. And even mentioning restoration of democracy in your last will might not be enough in an age of perpetual political crisis.
Ostrowicz' Military Reforms
2301-2303
Admirał Ostrowicz inherited Commonwealth' Armed Forces in the state of political fracture and constant internal bickering and in-fighting. Worse, it was increasingly involved in politics, something that even Ostrowicz himself wasn't free from. It was in a need for some urgent reforms, especially as internal troubles were slowly weakening its ability to repel Discordian raids.
Ostrowicz' reforms were mostly administrative ones. During three years entire personnel of the Solar Commonwealth' Armed Forces were reviewed with the Internal Security Bureau's help. Several hundred thousands of them (majority of them officers) were layed off due to being corrupted, harboring dangerous ambitions or being incompetent. Many administrative changes were also made.
These reforms had managed to temporarily reignite the fighting spirit in the Commonwealth's Armed Forces and focus it on something actually beneficial to the Commonwealth' as a whole. However they weren't repeated. And even before Ostrowicz's death first signs of the old problems creeping back into the Navy were slowly visible - mostly because the source of problems was outside military.
Identity-III raid
13.04.2304-19.04.2304, Sector 04
A Leisure World of Identity-III becomes a target of a joint operation of the Commonwealth Armed Forces and Internal Security Bureau. The Identity-III planetary government refused to adhere to the indenture ban, and has taken advantage of indenture to change itself into a den of immorality catering to autocrats, megacorp personnel and anyone else without a moral spine.
The entire planet was occupied by the Commonwealth Army and Navy, with close to half a million people detained and banished into a newly established penal colony. Indentured workforce is freed, and the Identity-III comes under direct military control until the collapse of the Commonwealth.
The entire operation is Admiral Ostrowicz' attempt to scare the autocrats into submissions while also forcing the remaining indenture-enabling countries to submit to the central government's authority. This attempt has mostly succeeded, and within two years indenture is mostly gone from the Commonwealth. Especially as the ISB releases detailed data on what exactly was happening on the Identity-III and who was found to be visiting the world in the past. It is estimated that close to three million people were eventually imprisoned under various charges in the aftermath of the operation.
The unfortunate side-effect was a potent blow to many megacorps who turned out to have links to the Identity-III affair. The economic tsunami was temporary, and many megacorps managed to quickly rebuild their public image (which wasn't hard due to Commonwealth' population general apathy). The real problem was subsequent rebirth of the Good Will Party as the Movement For Equality, whose increasingly radical anti-capitalism campaign led to further economic turbulencies, riots and - much later - even regular warfare between the socialists and corporations.
Cold Trade Suppression
2304-2306, Human Space
A series of increasingly radical anti-Cold Trade laws (pushed forward on Admiral Ostrowicz' insistence) together with fervent and often military actions against the perpetrators managed to finally crack the entire phenomena. The ammount of person in the Trade drops from one billion in 2304 to less than two hundred million in 2306, a remarkable achievement.
The crackdown was done by the reorganized Commonwealth' Armed Forces and due many often only superficially legal actions by the army, law enforcement and the Internal Security Bureau. While undeniably a noble effort, the Cold Trade issue was merely replaced with another problem. The 800 000 000 inhabitants that were pulled from the Trade's clutches require extensive psychological help in order to reintegrate with the society.
While this alone was merely a nuisane, the real problem came when the remnants of the Cold Trade began relocating to the Discord. This process ended with the forces already presence on the station gaining some ties with the Commonwealth' organized planetary crime. While the criminal syndicates behind the Trade didn't like Transhumans more than the Mankind did, but in the end they followed in pirates' footsteps.
The reason was a rapid growth in smuggling and organized crime throughout the Commonwealth. Increasingly brutal crackdowns during the Ostrowicz' reign has managed to keep them within reasonable scale (and, from some point onwards, with a tendency to slowly decrease), but once he was gone the problem erupted out of control.
Battle of Alaric-V/First Discord Raid
15.04.2308-22.04.2308, Sector 05
Alaric-V was the brainchild of Admiral Ostrowicz, and a battle often seen as a prime example of subterfuge and trickery needed to achieve a devastating victory in space. It is also considered to be one of his greatest successes, and probably one of the few without any long-term negative side-effects.
Early in 2304 Admiral Ostrowicz launched a long-term campaign of disinformation that lasted for years. Alaric-V was introduced to the world (through controlled leaks) as a secret refuge of Admiral Ostrowicz, filled with goods he secretly sequestered in order to serve a his retirement fund. Ostrowicz reacted for speculation about its nature as a corrupted politican would, with crackdowns and censorship. Discord, of course, learned about it.
Despite a large task force of the Commonwealth Navy stationed there, the whispers of fabulous wealth hidden on Alaric-V were too tempting to not attack it. As a result, the Alaric-V became the target of largest Discord raiding operation to date, with close to three hundred ships (including twenty-seven battleships) participating. Instead of a treasure they found a deadly trap.
Every single settlement near Alaric-V was a fortress - or concealed warship, waiting to take off. Attacking fleet was lured into the inner system and - once it managed to defeat and push the garrison fleet back - then the trap sprung. The defeated fleet quickly resupplied, dozens of fresh warships joined, and the Discord' forces found themselves with their ammunition stores empty in the middle of hostile system.
In the end they might have fought they way out of the system, if the pirate complement of their armada didn't lose its cohesiveness. Battle-hardened and fanatic forces of the transhumans and the Silent Sorrow were left critically vulnerable by that dispersion and were soon massacred. In the end not a single raiding ship managed to leave the Alaric-V system. But that wasn't enough.
The Commonwealth' forces in the system managed to secure numerous genekeys required to traverse the D-Gate Network and managed to learn the details of how to use them from some of their prisoners (that were then thrown out of the airlock). The result was the first Mankind's assault on the Discord itself.
While the Commonwealth' forces were finally repelled by the Discord' inhabitants, the defenders suffered grotesque casualties in the process. The Transhuman Alliance remnants lost majority of their strenght following successfull orbital bombardment that carved kilometers-deep holes in the segments of the station they occupied. It is estimated that 80% of the Transhuman refugees died. Pirates and other miscreants suffered only marginally lower casualties.
The result was the Discord' activity dropping tenfold in intensity for next ten years, and the transhumans lost too much of their numbers to remain the sovereign leaders of the Discord. The result was the establishment of the precursors of the Council of Woes, which transhumans occupying 1/3 of seats (with the tendency for that number to drop as time passed and more groups settled in Discord).
First Palace of Sin
2310, Human Space
The birth of first interstellar MMOs had its downsides. Following the Identity-III raid the pursuit of hedonistic decadence didn't wane. With the guilty pleasures denied in the real world by Ostrowicz' strict and morally conservative regime, alternatives had to be found. And, as in many similar cases, it didn't take long for the alternatives to become a problem.
The primary 'alternative' was the Palaces of Sin (or in short sinpalaces/sinpaces). Why bother with real human beings and irritatingly dangerous chemicals, when you could move all that into a virtual space? Incredibly detailed and hedonism-oriented simulations becan springing everywhere. Sometimes as independent creations, sometimes as places hidden deeply in various normal VRMMOs. There were ways of getting very close to full translation of stimuli, as the megacorps has managed to gain a lot of leeway on that field in the previous decades.
The sinpalaces were enough successfully suppressed. In fact the will to actually fight against their creation lasted only until the end of Ostrowicz' regime. The real underlying problem of the sinpalaces was general apathy, pessimism and hedonism of the masses and wealthy alike (at least in the Core Worlds). The crisis lasted for too long, and slowly sapped vigor out of the population. The political moderates were increasingly paralyzed by that, resulting in political radicals and ambitious admirals fighting civil wars while observed with little interest by the apathetic planetary populations.
Star Charter Discovered
2313, Sector 29
Around year 2313 the Survey Corps of the Solar Commonwealth gained access to the Star Charter, a detailed astrographic outline of the sectors that were now considered Human Space. The Star Charter included sectors existing beyond the territory explored by the Survey Corps, hyperlanes yet to be found and hyperspace conduits that weren't going to be usable for hundreds of years. There were also hyperlanes marked as 'forbidden' - Survey Corps' compliance of these warnings resulted in delaying human contact with alien species for at least two centuries.
Its existence become known to Mankind as a whole following the destruction of the Capital Spire in Titan during last years of the Commonwealth. Someone rummaging through the rubble found remnants of mostly fried database of local Survey Corps bureau, with Star Charter on it - and uploaded it into the local infonetwork. Data stamp on the Charter indicated that it was 'recovered' from somewhere in 2313, however there's no indication of why its existence was kept secret by the Survey Corps and the Commonwealth' Government.
Much, much later similarities were found between the Star Charter formatting, map legend and graphic style and the astrographic data secured from the Sentinel' Vaults. However, if the Charter belonged to the Sentinels, they never attempted to take it back. Naturally, this meant that it's hard to find anExplorers' Guild related conspiracy theory without the Star Charter being mentioned - and many wonder if the Star Charter was stolen by the Survey Corps, or if for inexplicable reason the Sentinels granted the Charter to Mankind.
Admiral Ostrowicz dies
17.06.2316, Titan
Admiral Ostrowicz dies. He was already quite old when seizing power, and despite his iron will the time has finally caught up to him after fifteen years of governing Mankind. For close to 40% of the time that passed since the War of Purity he was the supreme leader of the Commonwealth, resulting in his death being a shock. People were simply used to his existence.
His reign is highly divisive. Some see him as a proof that a good, enlightened dictatorship was possible, and that such method of ruling allows one to avoid getting bogged-down in the democracy. Others hate him for ending the true democracy, as despite Admiral Ostrowicz demanding the full return to democracy in his last will, this didn't happen. Instead more dictators stepped in (none of them repeating Ostrowicz' achievement of more than five years long reign not ending in violent death), causing a long period of civil wars and increasingly totalitarian regimes that torn the Commonwealth apart. In the end, Ostrowicz might just be the warning that even the best dictator will have successors, and who knows what sort of people they are going to be.
The Senate' (under High Councillor Semann's control) attempted to enforce Ostrowicz last will, however the First Fleet's refusal to obey buried their hopes. Too many years passed since Ostrowicz' purges and once again the admiralty harboured political ambitions. Semann was thus forced to try for plan B.
First Succession War
2316-2318, Human Space
Vicedmiral Frederica Uhlan of the First Fleet' First Battle Group and Vicedmiral Jonathan Morrison of the First Fleet's Second Battle Group come to blows over the seat of the First Fleet's command seat vacated with Admiral Ostrowicz's death. With the fleet's mood shifting towards Morrison, Frederica Uhlan is forced to flee the Solar System with a cadre of her closest supporters.
In an attempt to inflate support for her cause, VIceadmiral Uhlan attempts to play the democracy card and picks up democratic agenda, raising guerilla warfare against the Morrison's forces in order to fulfill Admiral Ostrowicz's last will. Two and a half years later, her ties with the Discord are discovered. As a result she is thrown out of airlock without a suit on, and her forces scatter around. Rather than surrendering to (now Admiral) Morrison, they continue their war as raiders.
The First Succession War is relatively brief one, however it was also the first regular civil war (save for the Common Good Revolution) in the Solar Commonwealth, with large casualties on both sides. It is the official beginning of the long string of civil wars that was going to plague the collapsing Commonwealth in the years to come.
Jonathan Morrison becomes the President
2318, Human Space
In hopes of making his position more concrete and defined, Admiral Jonathan Morrison announces himself the Commonwealth's first President. He also relinquishes the seat of the First Fleet's commanding officer, instead merging the commander-in-chief position of the Commonwealth's Armed Forces with the presidential title.
From now on, the First Fleet command post is typically occupied by the ruling president's protege, who is also a designated successor. While this offers some measure of succession system, it does little (nothing actually) to stop the civil wars from happening. The last remnants' of the Commonwealth's political stability are de facto gone.
With the system of power inheritance in place, the democratic opposition is whipped into a frenzy. After all, everything seems to indicate that the dictatorship wants to stay in place for longer.
Semann's Coup
2320, Titan
Morrison's presidency meant establishment of permanent system of power inheritance withing a dictatorial framework. As a result the Senate decided that they waited long enough. The result is a democratic coup attempt led by Viktor Semann. The coup was supported by majority of the still-active political parties (primarily Semann's New Commonwealth Party, Human Purity Party and the remnants of the Conservative Democracy), each of them equally interested in restoring democracy before the dictatorship manages to lock itself firmly in place.
President Morrison was eliminated during first three minutes of the coup by a group of democrat-aligned Internal Security Bureau-officers. However attempt to paralyze the FIrst Fleet by assasinating his primary successor (admiral Michael Henke, commander of the First Fleet) failed. What's worse, the rebels failed to seize the control of the Titan's orbital defense.
Viktor Semann was pronounced dead following orbital bombardment of the coup's headquarters. In truth, however, he managed to escape in time together with significant part of the coup's higher members. With the Commonwealth's governments thinking they died, Semann was in perfect possession to become a focal point of pro-democratic resistance groups throughout the Commonwealth.
Political Parties Delegalized
2320, Human Space
Following Semann's coup, Admiral Michael Henke decides to make the dictatorship into something truly official. Due to their participation in the coup attempt, all political parties are officially delegalized. The Senate is never officially disbanded, however with the parties delegalized and no new elections announced it de facto ceases to work as there's no one left to attend.
The move backfires in the long-term. The government's ability to suppress organizations spread throughout the entire Commonwealth and with tens of millions of often militant members is close to none. Many outlying colonies (especially those that remain democracies) simply refused to aquiesce to the order, massively weakening Admiral Henke's authority.
In the short term, the decimation of the parties' leadership in the post-coup political purges led to their decentralization and weakening, especially when combined with the delegalization. In the long-term, however, the larger ones continued to operate. This time with restoration of democracy in mind.
Fifth Expansion Phase starts
12.2320, Northern Human Space
The passage to the completely new oversector in the Scutus-Centaurus Arm is discovered. At this point majority of the Terran countries had already established their colony. Together with the outer parts of the already established oversectors, the so-called Inner Edge Oversector becomes the focus point of the Fifth Expansion Phase.
While the turbulent situation in the Commonwealth didn't feel like a good time for an another expansion phase, things were a bit different. Fifth Expansion Phase was no longer a 'true' colonization phase. Instead it was a mass political exile. Every radical group from the Commonwealth could apply for its own colony, with the Commonwealth supporting it wholeheartedly. With remaining Variants in the Core Worlds feeling increasingly out of place, they joined the Fifth Phase too.
The result were thousands of new colonies, massive strain of both the Survey Corps and the Commonwealth's logistics, and a pacification of the Core Worlds - at least, in theory. While the bombs were thrown around significantly less, it wasn't enough to suppress the on-going power inheritance issues and the growing democratic threat.
Second Succession War
2321-2323, Human Space
The First Fleet controlled the Commonwealth at this point. Naturally, the Second Fleet didn't like it all that much. The result of Michael Henke's ascension to presidential seat was an eruption of an open warfare between Commonwealth's Navy two largest operational groups - the First Fleet under Admiral Kobe Okereke, and the Second Fleet under Admiral Pan Tae.
The war ends in unexpected victory of the Second Fleet, due to the entire 1st Battle Group of the 1st Fleet (together with Admiral Okereke) disappearing in Hyperspace while pursuing a major Silent Sorrow raiding fleet that struck the 1st. Fleet forward supply base. Admiral Tae takes advantage of that critical weakness of the enemy force and dashes straight for the Solar System.
As a result, President Michael Henke is publically executed, and the Admiral Tae seizes control of the Commonwealth. Or at least he tries to, as when the remaining Battle Groups of the First Fleet return to the Home System they easily defeat the Tae's overextended and tired fleet. Admiral Tae's control over Mankind ends after twenty-seven days, as he too is executed.
Following three days of negotiations and at least seventeen assasinations, viceadmiral Gaye Özgür of the 1st Fleet' 3rd Battle Group becomes the new president. His reign lasts for two months, as the purges he conducted and obvious insanity (somehow missed by the fleet's psychiatrists) together with his attempts to change the 'Solar Commonwealth' into 'Solar Empire' turn the 1st and 2nd Fleet alike against him. Following a period of tense negotiations, Viceadmiral Angélica Villanueva of the 4th Battle Group of the 2nd Fleet becomes the president.
Human Population Reaches 50 Billion
2321, Human Space
The Mankind's population boom continued unabated, and even increased in size. The newly established colonies on the Frontier were its main driving force - the average number of children born there was even large than the average. Reasons for that were numerous, from really favourable pro-demographic policies to the fact that unlike the troubled Core Worlds, life there was almost utopian (at the beginning, at least).
At this point, majority of the Frontier colonies had their population counted in close to ten million. As a result, majority of the remaining Terran countries had significant part of their population (if not majority of it) residing there. Numerous multiple-planet countries managed to get beyond the one hundred million mark, their political expectations naturally growing.
As a whole, Frontier was almost deserted when compared to first true megacities of the Core Worlds - but it was going to change, as the Core Worlds's growth began slowing down due to regular wars tearing it apart, while the Frontier's wars were much less inhibiting in their nature.
Frontier Wars start
2321, Frontier
The frontier (colonized by the powers of Earth) remained sceptic towards the Commonwealth through entirety of its history. As the Inheritance Wars raged on Earth and the Commonwealth' slipped into a dysfunctional military dictatorship, the scepticism turned into hatred. While the rebels lacked ships to confront the mighty fleets of the Commonwealth, hundreds of different armed rebel groups rose almost overnight as the decline of Commonwealth began increasingly obvious. Each of them attempted to weaken the Commonwealth presence in their sector as much as they could.
The end result was a truly schizophrenic situation. The Commonwealth retained its navy garrisons that were supported from local resources by local governments... despite those governments openly supporting rebels that continuously attempted to capture, build or buy ships that they could later used to strike against vulnerable patrols in the area. As long as the Commonwealth retained at least semblances of control of those mostly underdeveloped areas it could hope to retake them relatively easily once the situation stabilizes. Since it never did, the Frontier Rebellion lasted until the utter collapse of the Commonwealth where the Frontier Rebellion changed into Unification Wars.
Obviously, it was a perfect hunting ground for the outlaws of Discord (as the pirates came to call the mysterious and massive space station in the center in the D-Gate Network) who continued to launch pirate raids or hire themselves as mercenaries (or corsairs, in other words a state-mandated pirates). Some even attempted to carve their own dominions in the chaos. This mmess lasted until it 'moved over' and became Unification Wars.
Third Succession War starts
01.2323, Sector 07
Following the death of the retired High Admiral Harrison, his daughter - Admiral Anna Harrison, commanding officer of the Seventh Fleet of the Commonwealth - officially rebels against the President Villanueva's new regime. Unlike the recent rebels, hers' is the first in a while attempt of reinstalling democracy. She proves that her desire is genuine when Viktor Semann - the last surviving High Councillor of the pre-Common Good Revolution' Commonwealth, thought dead since his failed coup - resurfaces in Sector 07 together with his shadow cabinet.
Admiral Harrison gains massive support in Sector 07, with almost entire Seventh Fleet deciding to follow her. With the 1st and 2nd Fleet in the state of terminal collapse following the Second Succession War, her march north through the Secor 06 is almost unchallenged, with majority of the Sixth Fleet siding with her.
The Third Succession War is in full-swing, and it's not the only problem that president Angélica Villanueva is forced to face. The Frontier burning, a new civil war was in full-swing, and her main forces were decimated and on the verge of collapsing - and that was merely the beginning.
Last Genetic War starts
05.2323, Sector 09
The atmosphere of general dislike towards the dictators and wannabe dictators tearing the Commonwealth' apart was strong in the Sector 09 ever since is failed seccession. The explosion of a new rebellion there was only a matter of time. And with the central government showing its terminal weakness during the conclusion of the Second Succession War, it was obviously the time to strike.
Ninth Fleet was largely dismantled following the secession attempt, with the military forces stationed in the sector being separated into two main parts - the Ninth Fleet proper and a 'special' garrison of the First Fleet's 8th Battle Group. Despite the name, the 8th Group was the size of two normal Battle Groups, fully ready to keep the Ninth Fleet engaged until reinforcements would arrive from the Solar System.
What the 8th Battle Group didn't expect was the identity of the person chosen by the regional Low Council (which, in fact, was a part of Semann's democracy-restoring scheme) to fix that problem. On the 23rd of June, Liberator - the self-proclaimed Last Genetic Warlord - raised his banner on the Sector Nine's capital world. The 8th Battle Group fell within five hours, defeated by the enemy from within - the Liberator's genetic supersoldiers, all of them democratic volunteers that joined the Fleet willingly after the Semann's failed coup.
On the same hour, all of them suddenly rose in arms. Taking advantage of their previously undetected (as they were Liberator's creation, and first such thing in Mankind's history) combat biomodifications they overwhelmed bridges of every ship of the 8th Battle Group. Before the ship's marines could eliminate them, each of them uploaded viruses straight into the ship's main computer. While all infiltrators died in combat, every single warship of the 8th Battle Group had their weaponry, sensors, shields and propulsion deactivated. The crews failed to reactivate them before the 9th Fleet arrived and forced all ships to officially surrender.
Within five hours, Liberator seized the 8th Battle Group, eliminating close to seventy-five thousand of trained military personnel at the cost of less than five hundred volunteers. What's more the ships were captured, boosting the 9th Fleet numbers twofold. The 9th Fleet - now with Liberator at its head - began its march towards the Solar System, with tens of thousands of biomodded supersoldiers in tow.
Villaneuva Banished
09.2323, Solar System
With Liberator's forces overwhelming Sector 09 and majority of Sector 05 (and Admiral Harrison doing the same to Sector 07 and 06) the president Angélica Villanueva' popularity hit the rock bottom. With her brutal political purges greatly helping - millions died, but with sheer number of population a billion would have to be purged to stabilize the Solar System alone. The result was one more coup overthrowing the government residing on Titan. In this case, however, the situation was slightly more complicated.
First of all, the coup was launched by moderate Law and Order Party' sympathizers, who decided that the whole autocracy issue went slightly too far, and that the long string of increasingly short-lived military dictators was a suboptimal form of governance. The plot members were mostly 'authoritarian' democrats, hoping for a sufficiently restricting government under general democratic principles (though they also wanted to limit the ability to vote to those who served the State in any way).
Second of all, President Villaneuva managed to escape the Solar System. She fled north, and managed to seize control of the 3rd and 8th Fleets, at the heads of which she earlier placed her lackeys. The already three-sided civil war changed into four-side, as both the Liberator and Admiral Harrison refused to accept orders coming from the newly established Provisional Governing Council on Titan. Their hopes of this coup playing in their favour was swept aside when the PGC turned out surprisingly competent and managed to quickly reform the 1st and 2nd Fleet into a working military formation.
The current sides - Liberator' backed by the 9th Sector, Viktor Semann and Anna Harrison in Sector 07, the Provisional Governing Council in the Solar System, and the President Villaneuva in Sector 03 - were soon joined by the Revolutionary Committee in the Sector 04 and 10, composed of surviving radical neosocialists, who planned to repeat the Good Will Revolution but with better result.
First Recall Order
12.2323, Solar System
In the face of revolutions exploding apparently everywhere in the Core Worlds, the Provisional Governing Council issues the FIrst Recall Order. Numerous fast courier frigates are send to the Frontier, carrying lists of ships from various fleets stationed there that are to return to the Core Worlds in order to defend the Solar System from the revolutionaries.
It is estimated that only 2/3 of the demanded ships actually risked the journey. Only 20% of them reached the destination, the rest either taking advantage of being away from their garrisons to turn mercenary, join local militias and rebel groups, or ends up getting attacked and seized by the pirates (if not outright joins them).
The First Recall Order failed to strengthen the Commonwealth's forces in the Core Worlds significantly, but it certainly weakened its forces in the Frontier. WIth the Frontier Wars raising in intensity, local delegatures of the Internal Security Bureau and the Commonwealth Armed Forces stationed there grow increasingly radical and desperate.
Villaneuva Purges Start
01.2324, Northern Quadrant of the Core Worlds
Following a failed assasination attempt on President Villaneuva, a massive campaign of political purges starts within the Northern Quadrant. With local Internal Security Bureau and Commonwealth's Armed Forces assets firmly on the president's side, nothing was there to stop her from brutal persecution of her political enemies within the general population.
It is estimated that during the following eight years close to fifty million people were executed, either directly or through false banishment order (with the ship carrying the exiles suddenly throwing its human cargo into outer space in an uninhabited system. Within three years president Villaneuva' control over the Northern Quadrant was total, and extensive application of propaganda made her authority reach the personality cult level.
The entire Northern Quadrant was now a totalitarian regime, and one of the bloodiest in Human History. While the purges occupied significant part of VIllaneuva soldiers, they began dying out by the time the Third Succession War entered its crucial moment.
March to Terra starts
03.2324, Core Worlds
With the Provisional Governing Council' succeeding in reorganizing majority of its forces (and the on-going Fifth Expansion Phase calming its internal turmoil), the remaining sides of the civil war found the central government's resistance suddenly raising in intensity. Unlike the earlier engagements in the outer sectors of the Core Worlds, this time the scattered task forces of the Commonwealth Navy didn't randomly surrender, scatter or switch sides when only the revolutionaries arrived in the system.
The result is a repetition of the War of Purity' era Coreworlds Campaign, with the three armies attacking the Sector 02 from three sides, and the fourth one drawing the attention to the north. What changed was that the attacking forces were all mutually opposing each other - only Liberator and Semann-Harrison forces weren't actively attacking each other, but with the genetic warlord having doubts about submiting to Semann's 'Legal Government of the Solar Commonwealth', the tensions were still there. On the other hand, the forces of the Provisional Governing Council were a pale shadow of what the SC's forces during the War of Purity were.
Despite the PGC's desperate efforts, the revolutionaries were slowly pushing the Council's forces back towards Earth. New ships were constructed and new armies were recruites... but the same could be said about revolutionaries.
The Hope Agreement Signed
02.2325, Sector 02
Following the capture of the Hope System, a two weeks long negotiations are conducted between the three revolutionary forces approaching from the south. Liberator decides to submit to the authority of Semann's Legal Government in exchange of making him a part of Semann's High Council. Numerous gossips about various 'secret addendums' to the agreement keep around for years, but in the end nobody is sure how did Semann managed to buy Liberator.
The Revolutionary Committee refuses to cooperate, seeing Legal Government, Provisional Governing Council and President Villaneuva as three equal parts of the problem. President was a military dictator, PGC was a bunch of authoritarian wolves wearing democratic sheep's skins, and the 'Legal Government' was in bed with corporations before the democracy was overthrowned - not to mention the fact that Liberator was a raving biopurist to the point where it made the Committee feel uncomfortable. Worse, they didn't trust Admiral Harrison's claims of fighting for democracy.
The result was an outbreak of regular hostilities between the Revolutionary Committee and the Semann's Government. It gave the Provisional Governing Council crucial time to reorganize its forces, and weakened the southern revolutionaries. In the end the Liberator and Harrison's forces managed to defeat the Committee's forces and push them back from the Sector 02 - this allowed Semann to restart the march north, though the need to properly secure the hyperlane exit in case the Committee went for round two further weakened the Government's forces.
The Second Recall Order
04.2325, Sector 02
With the Liberator teaming up with the Semann's Government, the Provisional Governing Council had no choice but to send another Recall Order to the Frontier. With situation being critical, this time the Recall Order was a general one, demanding a total retreat of all Commonwealth's mobile military assets to return to the Core Worlds.
The Second Recall Order turned out even less successful than the first one. The Commonwealth' military presence in the Frontier was in a state of a complete dissolution. The admirals that remained loyal to the central government were besieged on all sides by the numerous revolutionary groups and recently reactivated Discord raids. Many frontier fleets have already fell and dispersed, becoming mercenaries, pirates or siding with the local anti-Commonwealth groups. And even the loyalists were torn in their loyalties between the Provisional Governing Council, President Villeneuva, Semann's Government and even the Revolutionary Committee.
As the result, it is believed that no fleet even tried to journey back into the Core Worlds. If any did try, they did not succeed and were destroyed or scattered without leaving marks in official documentation. The only tangible result of the Second Recall Order was majority of the courier frigates returning with letters from frontier admirals in which they refused to help. The PGC was on its own in the Third Succession War.
Home Sector Invaded
12.2325, Sector 01
Admiral Harrison with support of Liberator's navy elements succeeds in breaching the hyperlane connecting Sector 02 and Sector 01, a feat that the transhumans failed to achieve decades ago. The fact that it was done with a fraction of Transhuman might is a great indicator of how low the Commonwealth fell.
The Provisional Governing Council's forces managed to reorganize in the meantime, taking full advantage of the delay caused by the Revolutionary Committee's bout with Semann's Government. As a result, the PCG's fleet put up a fierce resistance, with the Semann's forces assault slowing down to a crawl. While on the ground Enhanced (biological and cybernetic alike) under Liberator's command were swiftly overwhelming planetary garrison, in space the PCG' was much stronger due to access to shipyard complexes of the Solar System.
With the outer sectors entirely under the control of the revolutionaries, the war was at this point mostly limited to Sector 01. The only exception was the Northen Quadrant. This lasted for next three months until, in march 2318, President Villaneuva's fleet managed to breach the hyperlane between Sector 03 and 01, joining the war.
Survey Corps Collapses
2325, Sector 01
Following the complete cessation of funds coming from the Solar System, the Survey Corps of the Solar Commonwealth - precursor to the Explorers' Guild and the exploration & astrographic group serving as a backbone of the still on-going colonization effort - finally collapses.
This is the end of the centralized, large-scale exploratory expeditions. Various systems on the edge of Human Space ended up hiring former Survey Corps' ships in order to launch their own attempt, but it was something of a massively different scale incomparable to the Survery Corps' operations.
This moment is considered the end of the Fifth Expansion Phase, as at this point the number of new colonies established every year dropped tenfold. It was also the end of the 'banishment by colonization' phase in Commonwealth's politics, as the political chaos in the Frontier and the Discordian raids reached the level when even the colonization fleets couldn't be sure of their safety.
Nightmare War starts
09.2326, Sector 01
A single Hegemon has arose from the Discord, slaughtering all members of its ruling council or forcing them to kneel in front of him. The result of this is the formation of the Nightmare Fleet, a joint armed force of the Discord - and a full-scale invasion on the Sector 01, which soon forces the Provisional Governing Council and Semann's Government to cooperate against the attack. With even President Villenauva' forced to redirect the bulk of her forces back to the Northen Quadrant, where a large scale diversionary assault from the Transhuman Alliance remnants began depopulation world after world.
The Nightmare War essentially put the Third Succession War on hold, as all warring sides considered the Nightmare Fleet to be the side that couldn't be allowed to exist and had to be annihilated as soon as possible. It was only made possible because the Admiral Ostrowicz' achievements in the aftermath of the Alaric-V battle were essentially ruined by years of chaos throughout the Human Space. With the Frontier torn about by the war and Commonwealth's warships deserting by the dozen, rebuilding the Discord' forces happened much faster than it should and probably saved it from collapsing on their own.
It soon become apparent that the Nightmare Fleet was almost unstoppable. The Silent Sorrow offered astrogators that always seemed to be one step before the opposing side, the transhuman managed to regain their early War of Purity-era technological superiority, and the Hegemon turned to be a strategic genius. Even allied, the decimated and tired armies and fleets of the divided Commonwealth could only slow down the assault which was approaching the Solar System step by step.
Hegemon slain
04.2327, Sector 01
In the end the desperate times required desperate measures. The Herald of Armageddon, Hegemon's personal flagship is noted by the Commonwealth's forces to frequently visit a singular supply point. A task force is rapidly assembled, and the supply point is silently seized and garrisoned with best Enhanced available to the Provisional Governing Council and the Semann's Government, under Liberator's personal command.
When the Herald of Armageddon arrives and docks to the station, it is suddenly boarded by almost two companies of Enhanced. While they fight and die at the hands of numerically superior (and full of Enhanced or Enhanced-equivalents on the transhuman side) crew, the Liberator himself sneaks through the corridor and assaults the bridge, engaging the Hegemon in a single combat.
In the end the Hegemon is slained, and the ship's reactor is overloaded, resulting in Herald's destruction. Of the boarding crew the Liberator is the only survivor, the warlord escaping the ship before its explosion and somehow sneaking through the vengeful Discordian fleet in the system.
In the aftermath of the Hegemon's death, the Nightmare Fleet loses its cohesiveness and collapses into numerous in-fighting factions. The result is the series of devastating victories of the anti-Discord coalition and the lost worlds being swiftly retaken. Never again did the Discord manage to mount an attack of this caliber on the Human Space. The Third Succession War is soon restarted.
The Revolutionary Committee crumbles
2327, Eastern Quadrant of the Core Worlds
The increasingly brutal anti-capitalist purges and various political and societal changes organized or supported by the Revolutionary Committee in the territories it controlled finally result in a (moderately) successful counterrevolution. And two more, mutually exclusive revolutions.
Within three months, the territory controlled by the Revolutionary Committee shrinks by 75%. The Eastern Quadrant becomes the battleground between the Committee, the democrats aligned with Semann's Government, an alliance of private military companies and libertarian militias financed by a number of regional megacorps, and the autocrats/fascists/authoritarian democrats of the local colonies hailing mostly from the Jovian Coalition.
This war is going to end inconclusively with a truce and four mutually hostile regional powers, but not before the end of the Third Succession War. However the civil war has essentially neutralized the Revolutionary Committee, allowing the Semann's Government to move forces securing the hyperlane in Sector 02 north, to support the the Liberator and Admiral Harrison in their final push towards Earth.
Battle of Alpha Centauri
04.2329-05.2329, Sector 01
The decisive battle of the Third Succession War is waged between the forces of the Provisional Governing Council, Semann Government and, finally, President Villeneuva. With all three sides sending majority of their forces that remained being combat-worthy, it was truly the last battle. After so many years, all three sides lacked funds to continue, and their fleets were in steadily worsening state of disrepair.
Despite that, the battle was fierce - mostly because all three sides knew that it was the decisive moment of the war and refused to budge for an inch. The first phase of the battle saw the Liberator' armies seizing local colonies with lightning speed while fleets of Admiral Harrison and Admiral Borbély (the highest ranked officer serving the PGC and a commander of its Navy) were engaging each other in a repeating battles and skirmishes throughout the Alpha Centauri system.
The second phase came when the impossible happened. President Villaneuva's forces arrived in the system, after launching the Mankind's first true deep raid. Villaneuva's fleet was accompanied by dozens of cargo vessels that allowed it to traverse thirteen star systems occupied by Semann' or PGC' forces with great speed without the need to attack these systems. As a result, her arrival was a total surprise for both armies fighting over the Alpha Centauri system.
Despite Harrison and Borbély signing an improvised truce and facing VIllaneuva together, the second phase of the battle ended with president's crushing victory. Both fleets were dispersed, both commanders believed dead (with Liberator following suit when Villaneuva's marines and Enhanced overwhelmed his command post). With both hostile forces defeated, VIllaneuva hurried to seize the Solar System.
Semann's Gambit
17.05.2329-19.05.2329, Solar System
President VIllaneuva succeeded in overwhelming and destroying the last remaining active military forces of her rivals (with both the Semann' Government and the PGC lacking money, time and political will to assemble new forces). She promptly arrived in the Solar System, and occupied Titan, the seat of Commonwealth's power. With remnants of the Provisional Governing Council hiding on Earth and worlds controlled by Semann's Government surrendering to Villaneuva when only the news of the Alpha Centauri battle reached them, the Third Succession War seemed to be over.
That's when Viktor Semann announced his presence in the Solar System with the most successful democratic terrorist attack in history. It's unsure why exactly he was there, some claim that he was negotiating peace, alliance and reunification with the Provisional Governing Council, others suggest that he was preparing an insurgency against the PGC and was only waiting for the Liberator and Anna Harrison to enter the system. However he certainly managed to gather enough supporters into the final decapitating strike.
Within a week from president's VIllaneuva arrival and occupation of Titan, riots erupted almost everywhere within the system. While lacking power (and quickly suppressed by the marines and law enforcement), they were merely distractions. Why the Villaneuva's attention was drawn elsewhere, four heavily modified cargo vessels filled with ore broke orbit and hit the Titan's surface with full speed. President Villaneuva was incinerated together with entire Capital Spire (and the World Forge complex), and the resulting beam of hot air shattered the vulnerable atmosphere of Titan, resulting in the world reverting to its pre-terraformation state (for quite a while). The result was death of 95% of Titan's population.
Viktor Semann was executed soon after (and he was fully aware of that fate - the whole operation was him announcing to the world that if he can't have the Commonwealth, no one could have it). Without Villaneuva' her faction collapsed, with revolts and revolutions tearing her domain in Northern Quadrant into pieces when the news arrived there. The last survivor - and thus, the winner of the Third Succession War - were the remnants of the Provisional Governing Council that hid on Earth.
Final Decline
04.2329-11.2333, Human Space
Provisional Governing Council theoretically won the Third Succession War, by virtue of being the only surviving side. But with its finances in tatters, its military presence de facto non-existent, and all records and other crucial informations and cadres destroyed with Titan, their ability to take advantage of their own survival was close to zero.
The PGC attempted to keep itself afloat regardless of the difficulties. However it soon become apparent that outside from the Solar System, all planetary governments were paying lip service to the PGC at best. Many ignored the arriving messages completely, others even imprisoned the messengers. Taxes didn't arrive, as even those theoretically still loyal to the Commonwealth found a million explanations for their inability to pay.
In the end, the PGC's ability to survive relied entirely on the loyalty of various countries in the Solar System. When their loyalty ended, so did the PGC. And with it, the history of the Solar Commonwealth.
Third Recall Order
07.2332, Human Space
In a desperate attempt to reanimate its own collapsing military, the Provisional Governing Council issues last Recall Order, this time to every remaining mobile military asset in the Core Worlds and the Frontier alike. The general idea was to reorganize what was left and at the very least have the PGC retain control over the Sector 01, in order to use its resources to slowly reabsorb the rest of the Core Worlds and then the Frontier.
No answer was received from the frontier fleets, as only two or three of them still existed and maintained some degree of loyalty towards the Commonwealth, but do to being a state of perpetual siege by various regional governments or the Discord they could do little. Much more painful was the fact that almost no response came from the remaining Core Worlds garrisons. Twenty-seven warships and two hundred thousand people loaded into few dozen cargo vessels arrived, most of the resulting personnel being evicted officials, ISB members and military officers, together with some die-hard Commonwealth loyalists. These forces weren't enough to seize control of anything else than the Solar System, and even that barely.
The Frontier Wars expanded into the collapsing remnants of the Solar Commonwealth within the Core Worlds, slowly changing into the Unification Wars.
Solar System splits
2332-2334, Solar System
With the Third Recall Order' almost total failure announcing to the world how little respect the Provisional Governing Council truly had outside of the Solar System, the final dissolution was only a matter of time. Twenty-seven warships was a fleet large enough to police a Solar System, but it wasn't enough to keep its inhabitants in line.
The first world in the Solar System to officially seceed was the Federation of Mars, followed few months later by the Republic of Venus. With the PGC' apparent inability to respond, and unofficial guarantees from Mars and Venus, the Jovian Coalition and the Mercurial Confederation followed soon after. The last secessionists were the United Lunar Republic, the newly created Saturnian Republic (which, to add insult to injury, seized Titan as its capital), and finally the United Federation of the Outer Solar System.
At this point, the PGC's domain was limited to Earth, but even then the situation was rapidly deteriorating. Numerous riots raged throughout the Commonwealth-owned parts of the world, while the remaining national governments geared up for the inevitable confrontation.
Fifth World War starts
01.2335, Sector 01
The Fifth World War was the last large-scale war waged on Earth with every or almost every political organization on the Homeworld participating. In this case, it was more like a popular, world-wide rebellion during which remaining national governments attempted to take down the Provisional Governing Council's remnants in order to establish themselves as truly independent once again.
All of that while the Commonwealth's enclaves throughout the world were beset by dissent and riots. Democrats, socialists and religious fundamentalists of every possible stripe rose in arms. What saved the PGC from falling in short order was the fact that many of these issues (especially the religious and socialist ones) weren't limited to its enclaves, as many of the national governments had their own share of aggravated internal issues.
What's more, the national governments were in no-way united. There were many alliances, often temporary - especially as many of them were soon seized by various political radicals who could sense that it was the perfect occasion to strike. As a result, the Fifth World War turned out long, bloody and generally painful for everyone involved.
In order to avoid antagonizing the countries of the Solar System, the PGC' officially announced themselves as a government of the 'Terran Republic', abandoning the Solar Commonwealth altogether. With this last secession, the Solar Commonwealth's history reached an end. The Unification Wars started.
Unification Wars [2335-2412]
General Description
The collapse of the Solar Commonwealth was a disaster for Mankind (even if perhaps smaller than Villaneuva's victory). For several decades there was no peace, nor prosperity or stability within the Human Space. Instead everyone fought each other - either to conquer, to protect themselves, or due to political differences.
When the Fifth World War began on Earth, Unification Wars were in full-swing everywhere outside of the Mankind's Homeworld. A hundred thousand warlords rose, some of them from planetary governments, pirate, transhuman and slaver warbands, mercenary armies, or rebel groups.
Trying to describe Unification Wars in details is a folly - so only some key events will be mentioned. Each star sector had a separate and detailed history of this time period. In some, few cruisers were enough to carve an empire lasting for generations. In another fleets of battleships tore each other apart, countries locking themselves in stalemates lasting decades. Nobody knows how many people died during the Unification Wars, but the estimates greatly surpass the War of Purity in numbers (though not in percentage).
Events
Core Systems
Fifth World War ends
2343, Earth
Even with billions of people emigrating to the colonies, the national governments of Earth were more than capable of suppressing the Terran Republic from enforcing its rule over the Earth. However their constant infighting has managed to rob them of their advantages, resulting in the initially weaker Republic growing stronger and stronger.
What truly decided the outcome of the war was the total orbital blockade organized by the Terran Republic. Terra was at this point a crucial point of the interstellar economic system, with massive ammount of goods exported and imported - and the Republic manage to sever that, bringing famine and economic disturbances to its enemy. What's more, the countries of the Solar System unofficially supported the Terran Republic, in hopes of a unified leadership of Earth.
This decision (made mostly by Mars and Venus, as smaller powers of the system were much more doubtful about that idea) came to bite the solar power back. Once the Terra was unified and the last opposing national governments surrendered and accepted their dissolution, the Terran Republic was officially renamed into the Solar Republic. The officially abandoned claim to the being the sovereigns of Mankind returned to the light.
Solar War
2344-2357, Solar System
Countries of the Solar System supported the former Commonwealth' government in hopes that it would become a joint Earth government that they could reason with. Instead they received a rabidly revanchist government with authoritarian (and with small undertones of totalitarianism) political system and overwhelming numerical superiority.
The immediate change of name into a Solar Republic was a clear sign of intentions. If that wasn't enough for someone to understand what's happening, the Solar Republic immediately issued an ultimatum to all countries of the Solar System to either cast away their independence and become part of the Republic... or be forced to do that.
In the end only the United Lunar Republic accepted its own dissolution, and mostly because it had no other choice. It was simply too close to Earth while not being strong enough to defend itself. With the Hephaestus Station (the Solar System' biggest shipyard complex) under its control, the Solar Republic was ready to engage the remaining powers of the Solar System in an all-out war. The Solar War began.
Reunification of Mars
2344-2346, Solar System
One of the many 'Reunification' campaigns of the Solar Republic. Mars offered significant ground resistance, however in space it didn't ammount to much. Solar Republic Navy managed to overwhelm its orbital defense right at the start of the war, forcing the Martian fleet to flee.
The resulting orbital landing was intense, and so did the following ground battle. However, within two years the forces of the Solar Federation succeeded in storming the last remaining fortress of the Federation of Mars during the Battle of Olympus Mons. With that Mars was returned to the fold.
Mars falling so fast was a shocking turn of events of the Solar Republic enemies, possible only due to the solarians seizing control of the world's orbit and then simply drowning the defenders in soldiers that Earth could mobilize in literally any number. What's more, the Federation of Mars - just as every other country that the Solar Republic was going to be conquering - also had to face the issue of significant ammount of former Commonwealth' loyalists that now switched allegiance to the Solar Republic.
Battle of Luna
11.03.2344, Solar System
A joint fleet operation of the forces of the Republic of Venus and Mercurial Confederation was launched towards Earth in order to end the war before the Solar Republic can overwhelm the Federation of Mars. With sizeable part of the solarian Navy busy maintaining the blockade of Mars, the battle becomes one of the biggest 'what if' moments of history.
Venusian-Mercurian forces failed to capture Earth's orbit, due to the Federation secretly installing a great number of missile silos on the surface of Luna. The unexpected and well-timed salvo threw allied fleets into a disarray, allowing the Solarian Republic' 1st Fleet returning from the Martian blockade to pierce through the coalition's formation, and destroy its flagship (RVS Aphrodite, formerly SCS Aran Singh).
The parallel attack on Mars (done with combined forces of the Jovian Coalition, Saturnian Republic, and the Outer Federation) was a success, as the solarian blockade forces were defending Earth. However, without significant ground forces to contribute, this attack offered only a temporary reprieve to the defenders of Mars. What's more, the Solarian 1st Fleet (currently first and only) soon returned to Mars, pushing the coalition forces away and resuming the planetary siege.
Reunification of Venus
2346-2350, Solar System
Reunification of Venus was a second major campaign of the Solar Federation. Venus was a priority target due to its position as a population and industrial center of the anti-Federation alliance. WIth Mars taken out (and Federation access to the Asteroid Belt complicated only by the Jovian raids), successful Reunification of Venus would have cemented the victory fo the Federation.
What was supposed to be a relatively simple campaign turned out to be a battle of attrition. Venus before the collapse of the Commonwealth was one of the centers of the Enhanced' production - there were dozens of cybernetic implant factories on Venus, and the Enhanced themselves were 'improved' and trained there as well. Republic took advantage of that, and deployed great numbers of Enhanced.
While the Federation succeeded in its Reunification Campaign, the humans costs of achieving victory were tremendous. However once the Solar Republic won, it gained access to Venusian industry, allowing it to soon triple the number of Enhanced its armies could deploy. As a result, the future ground battles were much easier... though it's hard to imagine a ground battle harsher than Mercury.
Reunification of Mercury
2350-2355, Solar System
Mercurial Confederation caused the biggest number of casualties to the Federation from all the enemies it faced during the Solar War. It was inhabited by hundreds of autonomous society who saw the solarian ambitions as an attempt to murder their cultural, political and religious autonomy - something that the Solar Commonwealth' never dared to tackle. As a result, the resistance encountered by the solarians on Mercury was one of a complete fanaticism.
With many political and (especially) religious radicals whipping themselves into frenzy, the Reunification of Mercury was hell. Entire settlements were often blown apart by the defeated defenders, killing most of attackers and defenders by either explosion itself or by raging elements. Suicide bombers were a constant thing. It was a five years long massacre that ended only when defenders' could no longer man the frontline, their economy and ammunition stores all but exhausted.
The Mercury's defense was, in the end, useless. The government of the Solar Republic was ready to suffer such casualties - and so did its population, whipped into reunificationist frenzy by the state propaganda. WIthout manpower and industrial capacity of Mars and Venus the Solar War was a hopeless endeavour for the enemies of the Solar Republic - but that didn't stop the Mercurials and the inhabitants of the Outer System.
Reunification of the Outer Solar System
2355-2357, Solar System
Jovian Coalition, Saturnian Republic and the United Federation of the Outer Solar System (which in fact controlled only a relatively small part of what was considered an Outer Solar System) really disliked the Solar Republic - but it simply wasn't enough. The population of the Outer Solar System approached two hundred million, while the Earth alone had fifteen billion. This simply wasn't a battle that the Outer System could win.
However the Mercurial Confederation's fierce defense gave the outers a lot of time to think and plan. Several large evacuation convoys left the outers before the arrival of the Solarian Republic forces, each of them evacuating millions of civilians to the Jovian colonies in the Core Worlds - and following their eventual fall decades later, they become the precursor of the Nomad Fleets. The remains of their Navies (there was no way of succeeding in ground battles) waged almost two year long guerilla war fought primarily with starfighters.
The result was the solarian infrastructure almost crumbling under the strain - if there was a larger world in the outer Solar System which would require a significant siege, the logistics of such an endeavour would probably collapse entirely. Instead, the Solarian Republic succeeded in conquering the Solar System. Following a brief period of preparations, it began its conquests of the Sector 01.
ENTIRE HUMAN SPACE
The Great Alliance Formed
2395, Human Space
Following the disastrous defeat of the New Denver Accord's main forces during three week long star battle in Purity System (2393), the last significant resistance against the forces of the Solar Republic in the Core Worlds has finally crumbled. While the mop-up operation against few remaining bastions was going to take few more years to finish, it was enough of a shock to the powers of Frontier to force them to put their wars on hold and focus on dealing with the new threat.
The prime cause for that was the demographic and industrial power of the Core Worlds. Frontier grew incredibly during the past century, its growth much faster than the Core but the starting level of the two sides was incomparable. What's more the Solar Republic now controlled ten sectors, while the strongest of the Frontier warlords rarely controlled more than half of a sector. Solar Republic could take advantage of its incomparable manpower and industrial capacity to slowly conquer the rest of Mankind, one warlord or nation after another. This threat had to be countered immediately.
The result was the creation of the Great Alliance, as all (but the most dysfunctional) powers of the Frontier halted their wars and began gearing up for the confrontation against the Solar Republic. Solarians, in the meantime, took down remaining bastions of resistance in the Core Worlds and started mobilizing for the total war against the Frontier.
First Great War
2399-2412, Human Space
Driven by the reunificationist fervour (and copious ammounts of motivating propaganda) legions of the Solar Republic invaded the Frontier, starting first out of many Great Wars. They expected disorganized defenses set up hastily by mutually hostile warlords, instead they were forced to drown every inhabitated world in corpses to finally break the fearsome and thoroughly fanatic resistance.
The Solar Republic's dreams of swift reunification of Mankind were buried by its own sins. Frontier' nationalists saw the relentless destruction of autonomies and ressurection of (this time state-mandated) culturcide within the Republic's territory. Religious communities saw the Republic's 'separation of religion and state' as increasingly brutal state atheism, where religion could exist only if accepted to stop doing anything (including proselytism, which was deemed a crime in the Republic regardless of religion. Libertarians and corporations abhorred its state-controlled capitalism - and so did socialists and communists, though for other reasons. Variants and transhumans saw it as a threat to their continuous existence. It didn't matter how much the Frontier powers hated each other - they all hated the Republic equally, while also being mortally afraid of its power.
With the initial velocity of their attack the Republic managed to seize many worlds, but soon its advance grew to a halt. Following years of meat grinder, the logistics of the Solar Republic began collapsing under the strain of perpetual raids. As the frontline began collapsing, the forces of the Frontier began gaining ground, steadily regaining what they lost - but in the end, they couldn't hope for a successful push into the Core Worlds, leading to a stalemate. The same scenario was going to repeat during the subsequent Great War - during the most successful push in the Frontier the Republic seized twenty-seven star sectors, but it still wasn't enough.
In the end, the solarian offensive was broken, and the lost worlds of the Great Alliance were retaken. Following few more years of senseless slaughter, the truce was signed. The Great Mending started.
The Great Mending [2412-2468]
General Description
The era of the Great Mending was the greatest - and last - chance to reunite Mankind. The Solar Republic's defeat in the First Great War allowed cooler heads to seize power. As a result, peace talks and diplomacy as a whole has replaced relentless tide of Reunification campaigns. Good will was visible on both sides in equal measures. In a way, it's almost unbelievable how everything come crashing down in the end.
The Great Mending was also the last period of relative peace throughout the Human Space, a rather short pause in total war that serve as a separator between the Unification Wars and the Long War. One that was needed by the powers of the Human Space to recuperate and rebuilt after the horrors of the Unification Wars. But it is also a period significant due to the Mankind's first contact with an alien species, which unfortunately ended with the First Contact War.
Events
The Long Armistice Signed
2412, Human Space
With both sides absolutely decimated by the Unification Wars and the First Great War. both the Great Alliance and the Solar Republic needed a time to recuperate. Armistice was initially signed for only a year and was followed by an exchange of prisoners of wars. However, the war effort didn't restart after the armistice ended, as no side was in a shape to fight. Fleets of the both sides continued to eye each other cautiously for few more years, before the peace becomes apparent.
The Long Armistice continued for the entirety of the Great Mending - when it was finally broken, the Great Mending ended and the Long War started. It was, of course, broken 'slightly' numerous times, typically by really hotheaded Navy officers of either side. However such incidents were ignored for as long as neither side truly wanted the armistice to be broken. After all, the political survival of both sides was an almost entirely dependent on maintaining the armistice. The Great Alliance' political survival depended on the Solar Republic remaining a threat unifying the warring members - but an actual peace was extremely dangerous, unless the total end of solarian conquests was ensured beforehand, making the armistice a favourable long-term settlement. The new government of the Republic, in the meantime, wanted permanent peace and possible reunification, with an outbreak of hostilities thretening its survival - and armistice being the middle option, favourable without permanent peace.
The result of this disjointed agenda was that the despite good will on both sides, actually achieving a long-term settlement was an incredibly complicated issue. The negotiations came and go multiple times during the time of the Long Armistice.
The Great Debate
2412-2415, Human Space
Great Alliance was created - but it was anything but a stable country. WIth the Solar Republic still remaining a threat, the Alliance had to be stabilized. This meant that tens of thousands of issues had to be settled. Aftermath of thousands of wars, many of which ended merely few years ago - and not with any sort of closure, but an eruption of an greater war that demanded all attention of both sides. Suppression of raids of Discord outcasts. Establishment of some basic guidelines of common, de facto international, cooperation between members. It was consider to be a miracle (and a sign of war exhaustion among the Alliance' members) that merely one hundred twenty-seven incidents, military engagements and short regional conflicts occured during the Great Debate, all of them eventually smoothed out.
During the course of the Great Debate, Great Alliance was changed into the Confederation of Mankind. A system of Protectorates was established as regions under the Confederation protections, neutral in all on-going conflicts unless they stayed neutral out of them. Most of Protectorates were lone and recently established colonies (typically without the use of World Forge nanites) on the edge of the sectors, many of them colonized by losing sides of the intersector wars. They typically ended up forming a layer of inhabited but pretty much politically non-aligned worlds surrounding the densely inhabiteda and politically active sectors.
Founding Charter was established. Confederation understood that trying to achieve central governance of a country of such side and of so many varied beliefs would be suicide, so instead it decided to establish itself as enforcer of several most basic rules. There were no wars, for now, save for a number of pacification campaigns against a Discord's holdouts. However mostly because everyone expected the war to break out eventually - powers of the Confederation wanted to prepare properly before starting a war.
First Solarian Elections
2414,Core Worlds
Solarian Republic was officially a democracy - but despite that, no nationwide elections occured for close to a century. Due to permanent state of war, some worlds spent decades under direct military government due to being near a long-term battlefront. Others had more luck, however the elections occuring there were typically limited to the ones picking up local government (and not the central one). As a result, the 'Republic' part of the country's name was a bit of a stretch.
With the Long Armistice apparently stabilizing the situation and terminating the on-going military operations, the solarian population (or at least its politically active part) demanded country-wide elections to be held. The central government caved in, preferring that from a large-scale revolution, especially as by going with the flow they could subtly alter the voting laws, just enough to suppress the potential secessionists from gaining control over their planetary governments. However suppressing secessionists was one thing, and suppressing the political opponents was another thing altogether.
The ruling Commonwealth Restoration Party was almost entirely annihilated in the elections, with merely 15% of the seats in the new Senate. Reconciliation Party under Richard Maxwell (delegate from the world of Tranquility-V) seized 45% of votes, and together with Manking United (11%) were to become the ruling coalition. The remaining 29% was seized by numerous smaller parties.
Despite that, the restorationists hoped that they could take advantage of their control over bureaucracy and military officers in order to sabotage Maxwell's new government. Following a numer of well-organized crises they would crushingly win the next elections, and return the country to political status quo. They did not succeed.
Five Years Purge
2414-1419, Core Worlds
The leadership of the Reconciliation Party was completely aware of the Restorationists' plans to sabotage their government by taking advantage of their grip over the military, the bureaucracy and the Internal Security Bureau. As a result, they knew that they to counteract that plan immedietely and absolutely, taking advantage of their overwhelming popularity among the general population (and its dislike towards the restorationists). The result was the start of the Five Years Purge.
Rather than giving restorationists time to strike, merely days after the elections results came in, the Reconciliatorists began eradicating the restorationists from any government seats. They already possessed lists of approximately one million key restorationist' supporters, all of which were immediately evicted from their positions and replaced by (prepared ahead of time) reconciliarist and Mankind United' replacements. But it was merely the beginning, as with the restorationist leadership paralyzed by the sudden attack there was no one to stop the reconciliarists from continuing their purge. Massive investigations into the war crimes committed during the reunification campaigns were launched, even the faintest lead on corurption was followed. And further supporters of the restorationists were ousted out.
The end of the Five Years Purge was almost thirteen million restorationist supporters forced to leave the military, bureaucracy, law enforcement agencies and the judicary system. Further two million were found guilty of various crimes, including close to one hundred thousand (mostly officers of the military and the law enforcement) executed fro war crimes. Naturally, the restorationists were broken and for the while the entire party practically caved in on itself (with 1/3 of the restorationist senators leaving the party, and the rest too terrified to speak up). However, the reconciliarists and restorationists become sworn enemies, and the influence of the latter wasn't completely eradicated. After a decade the restorationists began retaking ground, and soon established themselves as the main opposition party.
General Population Census
2416,Core Worlds
General population census is organized separately in both the Confederation of Mankind and the Solar Republic in the span of one year. In both cases due to similar reason - population growth during the Unification Wars was insane, yet due to politic turmoil not even the Republic was fully aware of how many people lived on its territory. The Confederation of Mankind was an even greater mystery.
The result of the census is 210 billion people in the Solar Republic, and approximately 475 billion in the Confederation of Mankind. This brought joint population of Mankind to approximately 685 billion, the number growing nine times since the fall of the Commonwealth almost century ago. Even with wartime casualties, the endless space and potent growth of industrial capacity (together with the need to amass more population in order to field larger armies and expand your economy) meant that the population more than doubled every generation.
This process was fueled by general focus on demographics common throughout the Human Space, a focus that wasn't going to leave anytime soon. Though it was going to significantly decrease in intensity later on, as many worlds began culturally shifting away from multiple-children parenthood. The Mankind never stopped growing in number, but within few more decades it was going to stop being an explosive growth.
U-Network Jumpgates Discovered
2418, Human Space
A small-scale exploratory expedition launched under auspices of the Confederation of Mankind (a precursor to the Explorers' Guild's operations) discovers a hyperspace derelict carrying one hundred twenty seven U-Gates (two-directional jumpgates) connected to a cluster of systems located in the Sagittarius Gap, about 2500 light years to the galactic west-north west from the Sector 01. The location itself is of little interest (save for some completely broken remnants of some alien species that is believed to be the source of the U-Gates) colonization-wise, but it has other uses.
With no country willing to accept any other country gaining control over such a crucial strategic location, the Confederation of Mankind itself decided to relocate its ruling body to the system beyond the U-Gate Network. A separate treaty is written, establishing the basic legal framework about using the U-Network. No military force of any member of the Confederation is allowed to the Unity Sector unless specifically invited. Trade is also limited to various luxury goods and things like weaponry or data, as the U-Gate bandwidth is rather limited and allows singular mass transfers only under specific set of circumstances.
The U-Gates, unlike the D-Gates, allowed theoretically much larger instant movements. In fact, there are no upper tonnage limits for the transfer. However transfer of any object above 4.043.123 tonnes will deactivate the jumpgate for approximately 210 hours per single object of such mass. Simultaneous transfer of fifty capital ships deactivates the jumpgate for close to 440 days. As a result trade going through the Network is limited to ships smaller than the limit (which means small and medium cargo vessels), as such ships deactivate the jumpgate for a set time of approximately 25 hours, regardless of their number during a singular jump.
This means that the trade is limited to valuable low-volume resources (data, exotechs, weaponry, luxury goods), as only they are at least theoretically worth the transfer (at least when Confederation' tariffs are added to the deal). Much later, during the Long War era, the factions of the Confederation managed to gain a right to move around fleets in case of joint interventions, however it raises massive costs in delayed trade - and cuts the fleet in the target sector without the chance of being resupply from its base, forcing it to rely on forge ships and local allies.
Council of New Jerusalem
2421, Unity Sector
The Unification Wars led to many religious leaderships gaining influence. Dozens of countries out there equated religion with the state, and hundreds of them consider it to be an important part of their identity. Once the Unification Wars calmed down, the religious authorities began looking out for those similarly minded leaders out there. And soon, many interstellar religious unions began to emerge, all of them in hopes of defending themselves easier (and probably spreading their faith further, if possible).
The Council of New Jerusalem was the most prominent and successful attempt to do so. New Jerusalem was a newly established protectorate of the Confederation of Mankind within the Unity Sector, a desolate world where Christian refugees (regardless of denomination) fled from the religious suppressions within the Core Worlds, bringing as many relics of their faith as possible. As the Long Armistice started, these groups became a voice of the faith in the negotiations with the Solar Republic, resulting in entire churches and cathedrals of historical, patriotic or major religious significance being lifted off the ground and evacuated to the Confederation. This gave them a respect and authority among many of the Christian churches, new and old, scattered throughout the Human Space.
The result was an unofficial 'ecumenical' council that was growing over time and as more and more of religious heads or their representatives arrived at the New Jerusalem. What started as a union between the Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy (done despite fierce internal opposition on both sides, as the events of the Unification Wars proved that it was a 'fight together or die alone' situation for the Christianity) ended up growing rapidly. With the 'union' not touching the theological differences, numerous smaller churches (of every possible ancestry, from various modern cults through protestants to truly ancient offshoots) ended up banding together.
The result was the creation of a Catholic Church (sometimes also called 'Universal Church', which is the translation of Catholic). It is theoretically led by the pope, however his rule is mostly symbolic outside of the Roman Catholic Church (the largest of the member-churches). The true power in the day-to-day operations lies in the Permanent Ecumenical Council, the body composed of representatives of all members of the Universal Church, with the value of their votes based on the number of adherents.
First Neocrusade
2424-2429, Outer Sectors
Following a discovery that despite the war ending (and its membership in the Confederation of Mankind) the Fourth German Reich continues large scale ethnic cleansings (of numerous groups, including local Christians and surviving Variants) the Permanent Ecumenical Council proclaims a joint military intervention - while naturally deciding to call it a 'crusade'. The results are (in majority) people shaking their heads in disbelief and some mocking comments.
To a suprise of majority of Mankind, the operation is organized swiftly, and it arrived at its target before the Confederation could organize any serious attempt of suppressing the hostilities. The Fortress World of Breslau-III is successfully destroyed by orbital bombardment due to the crusaders taking advantage of a loophole in Confederation's law (forbidding indiscriminate orbital bombardment of non-military targets - and no civilians were present on Breslau-III), destroying the Reich's border defences. What's more, the forces of the German Empire present in the sector launch an all-out assault on the Reich as well.
The result of the crusade is a creation of the completely new country (taking over close to 1/3 of the sector), and Reich's dream of controlling the sector shattered for at least next four hundred years. It also improved the authority of the Catholic Church immensely, rearranging the political balance of power in the Confederation overnight.
Mankind Reunited
2427, Human Space
Under the guidance of the Reconciliarists, the Solar Republic becomes a member of the Confederation of Mankind. As a result, the United Mankind (which just achieved its reason to exist) merges with the Reconciliarists. Of course, the Republic was a 'special' member of the Confederation. It was never fully trusted by anyone, as the members of the Confederation were still afraid of Republic's ambitions. This lack of trust was what kept the centrifugal forces within the Confederation under control, as without the Republic it would lost all political cohesiveness rather quickly.
The Solar Republic saw itself as the leading power of Mankind, and even the Reconciliarists saw themselves it as first among equals. It wanted the Mankind reunited properly, but was ready (under the reconciliarist government) to do that via the Confederation of Mankind, though it wanted a 'proper' position among its members. In the meantime the Confederation was ready to be torned apart by its own members without a potential and overwhelming threat that the Solar Republic was - and to maintain this potential threat, the Solar Republic couldn't be in any way celebrated, and instead treated with suspicion, at least for the time being - if enough time passed without major conflicts, the Confederation could stabilize internally.
As a result, the Confederation needed to exclude the Solar Republic from its rank (but not strongly to have it leave), while the reconciliarist government of the Solar Republic needed to be a major part of the Confederation to be seen by the voters as successful on ther international stage. The result of the dysjunction between goals and plans of the two sides were going to cause the eventual end of the Great Mending.
Icarus Initiative
2429, Human Space
In order to showcase the finally achieved unity, the Icarus Initiative is launched by joint attempts of the Confederation of Mankind - including the Solar Republic. The resulting Icarus Station is a massive space station constructed within the Unity Sector created to serve as an unified platform of Mankind's science. Within two years, close to one million scientists works on improving the Confederation's scientific foundation throughout numerous planetary colonies in the Icarus System (with the space station acting as headquarters, while simultaneously hosting numerous scientific projects on its own).
The result of the Icarus Iniatitive was the Mankind's last period of significant technological growth. The greatest achievements were made on the fields of computer technology eventually, which in the end was going to become the Initiative's downfall. For now, however, the first truly joint project of entire Mankind is in full-swing, offering it some truly great benefits. The result is the massive victory of reconciliarists during the next solarian elections - it can safely be considered the peak of its control over the Solar Republic.
It wasn't going to be visible until much later, but the relatively weak control of the Confederation of Mankind (which, even when being financed by the trade tarrifs on goods flowing through the Unity Sector, was still pitifully non-existent as a sovereign entity) allowed growing number of 'black projects' to be launched alongside the official ones. For the next decades, the Icarus Station was going to become a capital of every branch of science.
Battle of Civitas-V
2432, Sector 07
A large scale raid of the Silent Sorrow mets its fiery end over the Paradise Planet of Civitas-V at the hands of a large detachment of the Solarian Republic Navy. With a destruction of seven battleships and twenty-two cruisers (almost all of it dating back to the Battle Fleet mutiny, though extensively modified), the cult's power is crippled permanently. Never again it is able to mount an attack of this scale.
Officially the Silent Sorrow is no more, its abhorrent and exotic threat gone forever. In truth, its remains merely split. Not only the remnants of the Silent Sorrow are still out there, but it also got several different yet equally insane brothers, such as the Murder of Crows, Burning Court and the Unblemished. All of them launch their own, separate campaigns of murder throughout the less defended parts of Human Space. However, with the military might neccessary for a large scale planetary raids lost during the Civitas-V battle, they focus on attacks against interstellar transport routes, outer system worlds with minimal population and defenses, and various asteroid mines and outposts.
As a result the Civitas-V was a major victory at the side of Mankind, which further splintered the Discord (which, following the casualties sustained by the transhumans during Ostrowicz raid and the Hegemon's death, was dominated by the Silent Sorrow). As a result, the general ammount of raids conducted yearly throughout the Human Space has decreased significantly in the aftermath of this battle.
A-Gate Network Discovered
2434, North American Oversector
Douring a routine search & destroy operation, forces of the American Unity encounter a fleet of the Silent Sorrow cult. The resulting battle ends with the Silent Sorrow forced to retreat, and the Unity task force' seizing the prize - the hyperspace derelict with 72 A-Gates (two-directional jumpgates) aboard it. The haul is handed ot the central government of the Confederation of Mankind in exchange of a number of trade and political benefits.
The jumpgates are soon activated. The hopes of creating a stable network of jumpgates (like the D-Gate network used by the raiders of Discord) are dashed by the discovery that every jumpgate leads somewhere else (and couldn't be redirected). In the end, 64 A-Gates are placed throughout the Confederation, while the remaining eight are given to the Solar Republic as a gesture of the good will.
The A-Gates are used as extension of the naturally existing hyperlane network, adding new 'sectors' to be explored and colonized beyond them. Of course, with the World Forge lost during the devastation of Titan, the colonies are limited in scale. The search for some further gates is underway, as the whole technology remains incomprehensible to Mankind's scientists.
Hope Project Restarted
2436, Sector 02
The Hope Project - Mankind's first attempt at true megastructural engineering - was significantly derailed by the outbreak of the War of Purity. The Dyson Swarm, the crucial element of the construction effort, was destroyed by the Virtuals. And by the time it reconstructed itself, the declining Commonwealth was in no shape to seriously attempt to continue the process. This resulted in a massive delay, that was further worsened by a century-long Unification Wars.
Now, however, the political situation stabilized and the reconciliarists wanted to unite the electorate with some large public projects. This naturally brought the attention back to the Hope, which once again was in a state to proceed - the star lifting could be started again, changing the Hope system back into an industrial powerhouse while simultaneously restarting the Hope project and proceed with the megastructural construction.
Without panicked and rushed construction (like the one during the Star Forge creation in the first years of the War of Purity), the process of the Hope's system industrial growth was limited, especially as the ringworld construction was a massive drain of resources (even with star lifting station fully operational). However in the long term the Hope was going to reach truly absurd levels of industrial capacity.
The Fimbulvinter-VII Sanctioned
2438, Sector 62
Following a seventy-three hour long closed session, the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind officially evicts Fimbulvinter of the Protectorates from the ranks of the Confederation of Mankind, for 'crimes most hideous'. Soon the protectorate is also erased from the world physically by a joint task force of a number of members of the Confederation. The exact justification is never made public, with the Tribunal claiming it to be a 'security threat' if ever announced to the world. Soon overwhelming majority of surviving data about Fimbulvinter is scrubbed, forming a moderately successful damnatiom memoriae.
It was possible due to very few people knowing about the true nature of the rather secretive colony. Of course, it is no surprise that the erasure is heatly debated throughout the Human Space. Numerous conspiracy theories were created. Some suggest that it was a particularly inhumane method of reminding the Confederation'members of what could happen if one of them tried to leave. Others point out the frequent sighting of the Silent Sorrow fleets in the area in the area as signs of Discord or abyssal involvement.
This event has managed to temporarily stabilize the Confederation internally, as the event remained a grizzly warning to other members about what could happen to the first country to leave the Confederation of Mankind. A number of changes to the Confederation's structures were made in the aftermath, though one of them soon become the most apparent one.
Explorers' Guild formed
2440, Unity Sector
Following the Nameless Sanction, a successor to the Solar Commonwealth' Survey Corps is created under the auspices of the Confederation of Mankind. The general (if unofficial) ban on further exploration is lifted, and it doesn't take more than few decades for someone to finally risk expedition through a hyperlane marked as dangerous on the Star Charter. For now, however, things are steady and simple.
Explorers' Guild soon gains international power, as the Supreme Council manages to actually vote through a law that grants the newly created organization a practical monopoly on 'official' derelict boarding and deep space exploration. The ships of its Department of Exploration are soon a common sight throughout the edges of the explored space. The unconfirmed gossips about some mysterious 'Department of Containment' are heard soon after that.
The Guild becomes - for quite a while - the only 'muscles' available to the Confederation of Mankind. It could rely on Guild's ships in the pinch, but its forces were limited to lighter ships (with few battlecruisers being the strongest around). However with access to many exotechs and being extremely well-funded, the Guild's ships were soon considered to be among the deadliest enemies you could face in the Human Space.
Order of the Purifying Flame sanctioned
2442, Human Space
A vaguely Christian (and often described simply as 'monotheistic') holy order remaining outside of the Catholic Church is officially sanctioned by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind on the grounds of violation of the Tribunal' rulings regarding the Filmbulvinter. The Purifying Flame took part in the purge, yet according to evidence spared a number of perpetrators from justice.
Following the ruling, the Purifying Flame goes on a bloody rampage through the Human Space, killing upwards of two million civilians before its fleet is finally cornered and massacred. The survivors are relentlessly hunted until all traces of the group are gone. The suspicions about abyssal involvement in the Filmbulvinter case are further strengthened among the Confederation' leadership when a number of Flame's survivors are seen in the ranks of the abyssal cult of the Burning Court.
Following the sanction, a new law is pushed through creating the 'darktechs' - a legal designation of a large number of exotechs that are officially forbidden according the the laws of the Confederation. The results are numerous theories about one or more 'darktech' being used by the Nameless Protectorate and then seized by the Order of the Purifying Flame. However it's all pure speculations.
A-Gate Disaster
2443, Human Space
All A-Gates deployed throughout the Human Space shut themselves down for a few minutes simultaneously. They reboot without problems, but the ships send to the other side to investigate discover that thousands of years passed there in the meantime. Rather than a bustling frontier they discover mass graveyards filled with dying stars and murdered worlds. Many perish to the still active defense systems and rogue machines, Others simply vanish.
The space on the other side of the A-Gate is soon explored by the ships coming from the Explorers' Guild, and the altertechs - the completely new branch of exotechs - is discovered. While costly, dangerous to find and non-renewable (in most cases), these exotechs were made by human hands, making them much better tailored to human physiology. As a result, they are coveted by everyone.
The impact of so many colonies de facto gone causes a temporary (if insignificant) turmoil on the markets. And, what's even more troublesome, causes people to look with suspicions at the U-Gates, despite the construction of both jumpgate types being so different. Even by the year 2810 there are still people refuse to enter Unity Sector on the basis of the jumpgate scare.
SRS Resolution Vanishes
2445, Sector 01
SFS Resolution, the battlecruiser of the Solar Republic used as a personal transport ship of the highest echelons of its government, disappears during the hyperspace transit. Aboard it was Richard Maxwell, his last tour in the Republic's High Counil ending at least two years ahead of time, and a number of key members of the Reconciliarist government. The result is a major blow to it, and a starting point of its decline.
Fate of the Resolution remains unknown until the year 2492, when ship parts signature of it are discovered aboard Silence of the Void, a battleship of the SIlent Sorrow. It is believed that the Silence of the Void located and intercepted the Resolution in the Hyperspace and succeeded in destroying the ship during an artillery duel before retreating (though not without pillaging the remnants).
The question of whether the Resolution destruction was a bad luck or something much more ominous remains unanswered. Some suspect abyssal influence throughout the restorationists, other believe that it was simply the abyssal attempt (successful) to destabilize the Republic and in consequence the Great Mending.
Reconciliarists win the elections
2447, Core Worlds
With Maxwell's disappearance (together with majority of the High CouncIl) confirmed, emergency elections are held. The Reconciliation Party captures 60% of the mandates under the recently reformed electoral system. The elections become significant because at this point the Commonwealth Restoration Party has gobbled up almost every single opposition party, seizing 39% of the votes and practically changing the Solar Republic's politics into a dualistic system.
The support for the restorationists continued to grow from this point onward. The reasons for that were numerous, but two of them were the most important. Without Maxwell's heavyhanded approach, the internal scandals and corruption began undermining the reconciliarists who enjoyed complete power in the Republic for too long. What's more, the continuous exclusionary treatment that the Solar Republic received in the Confederation of Mankind began forcing the military officers and various politics away from the reconciliarists.
These elections are also unique due to the reconciliarists essentially getting rid from many anti-democratic restrictions that were initially placed in order to maintain political cohesiveness and stop seccessionists from seizing Low Councils and planetary governments. Despite that, all seven secession attempts failed during the referendums. The economic growth, political stability, and powerful military maintaining safety has managed to buy loyalty of majority of those that were conquered in the past.
Thousand Worlds Rebellion
2449, Human Space
Riots and armed rebellions erupt on almost one thousand worlds throughout Human Space almost simultaneously, though without any indication of cooperation and due to a varied list of domestic issues. While local governments struggle to suppress the rebels, search for true culprits commences as nobody could believe in so many rebellions happening simultaneously. While most of them were worlds beset by troubles and authoritarian governments, the truth soon turns out to be something much more sinister.
Extensive screening of the afflicted colonies leads to the discovery that all rebellious colonies were assisted on their earliest development phase by the ships with personnel that was formerly part the pre-renegade Battle Fleet. After forces of Discord - abyssal cults, pirates, slavers, transhumans and the remnants of sanctioned countries alike - are discovered supporting resulting rebellion, the truth becomes obvious. Soon further investigation (and examination of suppressed rebelion) leads to a discovery of a variety of technologies beyond the knowledge of 'official' Mankind (such as mindcontrolling cybernetics) that were used to keep such a plot out of sight for decades.
Even further examination detects similar secret structures on many other worlds, though either underdeveloped or with politics stable enough that revolution failed to take off. The subsequent purge eradicates all of them. Never again was Discord capable of staging an infiltration of this size.
Second Discord Raid
2452, Human Space
After seizing a large number of genetic codes allowing ships to access the D-Gate Network, the Confederation of Mankind organizes the second raid on Discord. Like during the first time, it starts with simultaneous arrival of several capital ships through the multiple D-Gates, which secure the bridgehead (with more and more ships arriving, allowing a fleet to form before the main defense fleet of Discord could respond).
Several millions of slaves are liberated, however the 'miraculous' bombardment orchestrated by Admiral Ostrowicz' forces didn't repeat - majority of the Discord's infrastructure was placed deeper into the station, and powerful shield generators were placed throughout its surface, severaly limiting the effects. Unforunately to the world, this raid failed to destroy the entire place, but it was enough to cause crippling damages to the external infrastructure (not to mentioned deaths of a lot of pirates and other miscreants). As a result, the Discord operations in the Human Space suffer a massive blow.
The Second Discord Raid's forces were composed primarily of the Solarian Republic capital ships and the Explorers' Guild escorts. For reasons unknown, both sides employed an almost total censorship of the results of the short-lived ground assault on the Discord itself. The result are numerous conspiracy theories persisting to this day.
Reconciliarists' Last Electoral Victory
2454, Core Worlds
Reconciliarists succeed defeating the restorationists during the last pre-First Contact War elections, however their victory is bitter. The elections were highly contested. The rulling party was accused of taking advantage of its current position to influence elections. Many incidents were noted during the voting. And, what seemed to be the most important issue, the ruling party succeeded in scoring only 52% of votes, losing 8% since the last elections.
Thus far the foreign policy and the staunchly democratic approach were the main driving points of the reconciliarists. Now, however, both elements were progressively going down the drain. The cooperation with Confederation didn't work as intended, as the Solar Republic still feel excluded, and a pariah despite not doing anything warranting such treatment. And the reconciliarists ruled for so long, that they simply grew lax and increasingly corrupted.
It is the general consensus throughout the Human Space that the reconciliarists did, in fact, cheat in the elections, but most agree that it was in no way an action ordered by its own leadership. The leaders of the reconciliarists were increasingly concerned with their PR and attempted to suppress the corruption while trying to remind the voters on how restorationists used to be de facto dictators. The scandal regarding voting cheats was the last thing that they wanted. But many local members tried their best to not be kicked out of their seats to avoid criminal investigations, resulting in the reconciliarists false victory.
Icarus Report
2456, Unity Sector
The Icarus Initative remained one of the largest achievements of Mankind - that comes without a doubt. However, this rose also had some rather nasty thorns. However, once again, the Mankind's greatest tragedy was the fact that climbing the Wall of Faith even slightly was a difficult endeavour. And there were ways to climb slightly faster... if one was willing to sell their soul for it. It didn't take long for many to pick the easier way.
With the Confederation of Mankind' recently gaining some actual authority, it could actually inspect the Icarus Initiative properly. The results was a massive purge of numerous black projects and tens of thousand people getting arrested. While the blow to the criminal underground was potent, it failed to completely annihilate it. Many black projects survived the purge, and some fled to Discord.
The worst part of the event is a massive blow to already crumbling reconciliarists. One of their pet projects - and the joint operation of both them and the Confederation, showcasing the unity achieved by the reconciliarists - turned out to be a den of villainy and immoral experiments. This was a blow that the reconciliarists simply couldn't recover from at this point. However the situation changed soon enough, delaying the inevitable.
The Western Expedition Starts
2457, Sector 82
Until the year 2454, the Mankind has generally sticked to the sectors marked as safe (and accessible from the Solar System) on the Star Charter. Nobody really need to push outside of the confines, as there were simply enough star systems to take over in the 'secure' zone. Both the Survey Corps and the Explorers' Guild has fervently supported that idea, especially as they were going to be the ones forced to face whatever dangers hid there.
Now, however, the worlds of the Confederation felt too limited in space. An alliance of a number of countries of the East Asian Oversector began preparing a large scale expedition through one of the hyperlanes marked as dangerous on the Star Charters. This occured in stark violation of the Confederation's law regarding exploration - however there were loopholes in that law, made to allow random military warships to board derelicts and investigate various things in the border zone, if there was no Explorers' Guild ship in the vicinity (though the resulted good had to still be processed via the local Guild' delegature).
The Explorers Guild protested furiously, which was reluctantly joined by the Supreme Council and Supreme Tribunal of Mankind. It was however too late to stop the operation from starting. The result was truly nightmarous.
First Contact War
2458-2462, Human Space
The expedition safely traversed the 'dangerous hyperlane', only to almost immediately spot a signs of sapient habitation in the system they arrived. The first contact was rather brief and consisted of furious assault of every single alien ship in the system at the expedition forces, immediately changing into the First Contact War. Mankind discovered its first active alien species, and to its sadness the alien in question were the triffids.
Soon an unending tide of triffid ships heads towards human-held worlds - with consumption in mind. The resulting war is desperate. While in space human technological superiority is enough to change all battles into massacres that the triffids couldn't win unless having 20:1 tonnage superiority, on ground the situation is quite the opposite, with only Enhanced and heavy infantry having a fair chance when waiting on 1 vs 1 basis. The worst part was that during the opening years, 40:1 triffid tonnage superiority in space wasn't unheard of.
Dozens of planets are scoured of all non-triffids life (due to failed Human decision to open new fronts by attacks through other 'dangerous hyperlanes' in the region) before the frontline is stabilized. And even then it's the humans that are slowly pushed back before the triffids manpower begins running out. In the end the First Contact War is a fourteen years long massacre that lasts until the aliens run out of reserves to throw at the human trenches. The lost worlds are retaken and even some of the formerly triffids worlds were taken before things began going really bad in the Solar Republic.
Icarus Massacre
2462, Unity Sector
Icarus Massacre occured due to a combination of things that were outside of human ability to foresee. It was assembled in an uninhabited system in the Unity Secttor. It was a place picked due to being well-defended, easy to supply, and also relatively close to a Hyperspace Anomaly, proximity of which was used in a number of scientific experiments.
One of them went catastrophically wrong, however. A combination of a Hyperspace experiment and a sudden arrival of a hyperspace storm that erupted unexpectedly from the local Hyperspace Anomaly led to the entire station being swallowed by the Hyperspace. That alone would be merely disastrous, however an exposure to the Hyperspace also triggered emergence
of sapience in seven hyperadvance AIs helping oversee various parts of the station. And then made them go insane. As the godlike AIs began waging war between themselves for control of the station - taking full advantage of advanced and oven forbidden by law technology of various research projects - still sane humans were caught in a crossfire.
In the end, from almost two millions of scientists and associated support personel only 100 000 survived until the relief force managed to find the drifting station. Most of them were suffering from Hyperspace madness, many had their bodies crudely modified by the AIs to fit their combat roles better. AIs at that moment offered almost no resistance, with many believing that they were already dead, leaving only their cybernetically enhanced servants following outdated defense protocols. It is unknown who slayed them. Most believe that it was the AI/HUMILITY, the sole survivor of the Icarus overseers. Other point towards a mysterious man in suit of local engineers fielding an unknown archeotech who is seen at some scavenged security recording to roam the station around the time when AIs supposedly died. Even more exotic explanation is offered by more esoteric-aligned inhabitants of Galaxy, who point towards another recording, on which a man suspiciously similar to late Gabriel Newman is seen.
AI/HUMILITY escapes the station before its destruction. While its eventually eliminated six years later, it manages to spread bits of its source code throughout the computer systems of Human Space, its instances spawning on various badly protected parts of computer network, causing further mischief and at least several planetary massacres.
War of Reconciliation
2463-2467, Core Worlds
The Icarus Massacre was a blow to the Reconciliarist government that couldn't be healed. With the poster initiative of the government turning into a massacre, and the festival of mutual accusations between the Solar Republic and the rest of the Confederation, support to the Reconciliarists dwindled. The opposition managed to succeed in pushing for earlier elections, something greatly helped with a number of reconciliarist councillors fleeing the Republic ahead of time.
Reconciliarists - seeing that the polls indicate their crushing defeat - attempted to cheat in a multiple ways, all in a name of avoiding the restorationists' restoration of early Republic' politics of reunification of Mankind via open warfare. The result was the restorationists staging a coup after the elections ended. The result was an outbreak of a civil war that reconciliarists were never truly capable of winning, due to restorationists grip over the military.
It was only the Confederation of Mankind's support that prolonged the civil war to four years. Naturally the restorationists weren't going to tolerate such an act. And as the survivors of the reconciliarists fled to the Confederation of Mankind, the entire Solar Republic began gearing up for war.
Second Great War
2457-2460, Human Space
With the triffid tide stopped, and the reconciliarists destroyed, the reunificationists were officially back in business. They immediately proceed to reeanct the First Great War. The result was the shortest and most humiliatingly one-sided of all the Great War, a direct result of the Republic going va banque in order to achieving an overwhelming victory early on. They used a significant part of their fleet in order to assault the Unity Sector directly.
The result was the Battle of Unity, during which equivalent of three entire fleets of the Solar Republic jumped through the jumpgates placed in the Core Worlds, only to discover that the leadership of the Confederation managed to (thanks to the Explorers' Guild exotech expertise) move the exit gates to the low orbit of local stars. The result was majority of the three fleets burning alive, and the rest quickly destroyed by starfighter runs.
However even with the humiliating defeat of the Solar Republic in the opening battle (resulting in th war ending in merely three years, as the Solar Republic decided to give up the push and strengthens its foundation. With the Long Armistice not restored following the war, the year 2460 is considered to be the official end of the Great Mending. The Long War has started.
The Long War [2460-2610]
General Description
Long War is the longest continuous state of war Mankind was ever in. It's a war on a thousand fronts, waged for three hundred years, and without a sign of it planning to ever stop. Confederation of Mankind fights against itself, its formerly stalwart political unity shattered when the Fourth German Reich invaded its opponents openly in the aftermath of the Second Great War. But those wars pale in comparison with the endlessly repeating Great Wars waged between the Confederation of Mankind and the Solar Republic and the wars waged against various alien powers.
While the Confederation still exists, it was changed into nothing more than an organization overseeing the Mankind's cooperation against outside threats. It's subsidiary organizations like the Explorer's Guild gives it certian degree of authority, enough to become relevant, but not enough to stop the endless wars.
Events
Xenoschism splits the Catholic Church
2460-2463, Human Space
The contact with an alien species caused a dogmatic strife in the Catholic Church. The issue of the existence of souls among aliens could be safely ignored for as long as all encountered aliens were dead for who-knows-how-long (though the issue was still brought up quite regularly). However, once the first living alien was encountered, this issue had to be figured out. There was also a less pronounced but still important issue of sentient and sapient AIs.
This became a pretext. Many Catholic countries (especially those of more authoritarian approach) felt bad with the constant oversee of the Church over their internal matters. When a strife within the Church became strong enough, they used it as a pretext for a schism. The schismatics' unity quickly broke, resulting in a number of churches typically subject to the State and a creation of a Conservative Bloc, the last faction within the Confederation to form.
In the end the Catholic Church decides that aliens possess souls when they are found to be similar enough to humans to be able to understand Gospel and various intricacies of morality and philosophy. Church also strenghtened its grip over the remaining countries of the Res Public Christiana. Humano-centric schismatics typically go against the belief that non-humans can have souls, many of them going as far as to deny them to transhumans (even the loyalists).
Icarus Accord signed
2466, Human Space
The Icarus Massacre was the last straw. While Mankind never went technophobic (it would be a completely insanity with technology being such a massive part of human life), Supreme Council of Mankind was generally favourable to the idea of putting some clear rules into the field - the Humanity 2.5, Humanity 3.0, Human Diversity Restoration Project an the Icarus Initiative all ended up being controversial, to say the last.
The result of this was Confederation of Mankind (without Solar Republic, whose participation in Confederation was nothing more than a theory at this point) signing the Icarus Accord, a treaty forbidding researching or using numerous technologies proved too unethical or dangerous (including cloning, human genemodding without the approval and strict oversight of the CoM's Council of Ethics, true AI creation, self-replicating weapons etc.).
The Accord ended up becoming a document of equal power as the Founding Charter of the Confederation. As a result, everyone responsible for breaking it can be directly evicted from its ranks by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind, without having to bother the Supreme Council - and no country can veto a Supreme Tribunal's decision. As a result, the Icarus Accord bans and restrictions are generally followed by entirety of Mankind.
Solar Republic unilaterally signs the Icarus Accord
2468, Core Worlds
Two years after the treaty is created, the Solar Republic decides to sign the Icarus Accord. Of course, this is done uniliterally, as the Confederation continuous to consider the Reconciliarist Party remnants on-exile as the legal government of the Republic and considers the Restorationists to be a bunch of violent and warmongering usurpers. Which certainly doesn't help their mutual political relationship.
Solar Republic' abidance of the Icarus Accord is, in fact, less than rigid. And it slowly gets worse as centuries pass, and the Great Wars began more and more furious. However, it at very least makes the Republic keep the appearance of being an Accord-compliant state. Most of their black projects are done in utmost secrecy, and actual deployment of technologies that go against the Acord are rare. In a way, together with the Republic more-or-less abidance of the Founding Charter of the Confederation keeps the Great Wars at least remotely civil.
This event does little to improve the Confederation's opinion on the Solar Republic. Ever since the fall of the reconciliarists it has become apparent to the Confederation that the only acceptable outcome of their relations with the Republic is the latter destruction, and either restitution of the reconciliarists or split of the country into a number of weaker ones, preferably as part of the Confederation.
Council of Woes established
2471, Discord
The documents signed by the 'Council of Woes' are discovered aboard several captured pirate vessels throughout the Galaxy. This body - composed of the most insane and violent warlords of the Discord - became the governing body of the area on the other side of the D-Gate network. This gives some much needed organisation and coordination to the pirate raids. While still far from being able to raid major worlds, the establishment of the Council signs the return of the Discord to the list of major threats to Human Space.
It is unknown what exactly changed, as even earlier the Discord was colegially governed (save for short period of unity under the Hegemon). However the change of name of the ruling council seemed to coincide with sudden spike in activity and much improved organization, prompting many conspiracy theorists to look for some deeper meaning behind the change. Whatever it was, the raids intensified.
It is around that moment that the station of Discord reaches its intended population level. Council of Woes begins the process of settling nearby worlds. It is believed that they possess something similar to the World Forge nanites, however all the news coming from those accursed space seems to indicate that the end result of Discordian terraforming is always... 'distorted' and 'weird'. This is a long term process during which the Council of Woes strengthens its population and military basis in order to intensify its operations against the Confederation and the Republic.
Truthseekers Corporation established
2475, Sector 097
Truthseekers Corporation is established within the Free State, an anarchocapitalist utopia within the Confederation of Mankind. It begins as a simple corporation focused on cutting edge technology and analysis of exotechs. Soon, however, it becomes increasingly alienated from other of the Free State's megacorps due to being described as increasingly 'cultish' in internal structure and behaviour. While not unheard of among the many coming and going megacorps of the Free State, the Truthseekers went a few too steps too far for most.
Due to a long streak of correct market choices and a number of technological breakthroughs spearheaded by the newly created Corporation, its fame (and influence) soon spread throughout the Human Space. Truthseekers Corp became famous. Its achievements is sometimes as the truly last period of technological advancement within the Human Space, rendering the Icarus Initative as second-to-last.
The Truthseekers remained an odd group, with many suspicions circling around it. The Icarus Initiative turned out to be at least partially powered by immoral research, and many expected the Truthseekers to have an entire greaveyard in their wardrobe. Seekers were secretive about their structure and organization, but had no problems with showing their research installations to outside inspections. The real question was whether they had more of those than they officially admitted to.
First Contact with Greys
2475, Sector 097
The Mankind's second contact with the aliens was, unlike the first one, started from the other side. The greys has discovered a hyperlane leading to Mankind's space in one of their sectors by accident, and sent an exploration crew to the other side. Due to the greys hoping that humans could help them fight off the Wasting (and humans generally thinking that unneeded wars with aliens are bad) the first meeting went through generally favourable.
Quite soon the rather sad backstory of the Greys is discovered, just as the fact that they were cousins of Mankind. As a result, the Supreme Council of Mankind decides to gift the greys one of the precious Gene Artificers available to Mankind, in hopes that it would help the Greys fight off the Wasting. Unfortunately, it didn't. What's more, the gesture of good will was soon negated by a group of Explorers' Guild warship interrupting an ongoing deal between the Greys and the Discord (with the goods in question being humans, scheduled for live experimentation). The Supreme Council demanded answers.
The last-chance negotiations were broken by the Greys when one of the negotiatiors mentioned the ancient human histories about supposed 'Grey' encounters before Mankind left Earth (for example, Roswell). The result was a sudden panic and exit of the Grey delegation (with the reasons for their reaction puzzled up slightly later), which started the Seven Years War.
Seven Years War
2476-2783, Inner Verge Oversector
The Greys panicked, and in a completely unreasonable way. They lived in permanent fear about the mysterious Ancients that kidnapped their ancestors from Earth and enslaved them for millenia. When Greys rebelled and stormed the complex inhabited by the Ancients, they found everything empty and sterile. Not much later the Wasting started. They never figured out how to return to Earth... and now the inhabitants of Earth claimed to met with someone looking like Greys merely few hundred years later.
The Wasting is believed to waste not only the body, but also the mind. Sanity of the Greys as a species is highly strained and they are prone to actions rather incomprehensible to Mankind (the great example being the Discord deal). The fear of the Ancients is also one of the basic elements of their entire culture. Explosion of paranoia was to be expected in such a situation. And it was bad enough that the Greys came to believe that the Confederation and the Solar Republic are infiltrated by the Ancients and controlled by them.
The result was the Seven Years War during which utterly rabid forces of the Greys launched themselves at the Confederation of Mankind. Greys had superior technology and legions of machines surpassing the deployed armies and fleets of Confederation in number. Humans had sanity, creativity and - once the Confederation enforced temporary peace in the area, while also forcing local members to send reinforcements to the frontline - rapidly growing numbers.
The result was the Human' victory, as the Greys legions finally run out of steam. There was no peace treaty, as the Greys would never negotiate with Mankind - the suspicion of Ancients' involvement was enough to make them go full xenophobic on everyone in Human Space, Discord included. Instead the Greys retreated to their worlds (their forces massively weakened for decades to come), and the Confederation of Mankind's forces returned home to restart their wars after all lost worlds were liberated.
Lamenters Encountered
2486, Middle Eastern Oversectorr
Unlike the earlier cases of the First Contact, this time the operation was done on purpose. The meeting with the Greys proved that there are alien species that can be reasoned with - without the unexpected problem with 'Ancients', there was a fair chance that longterm peaceful relations would be established. And the hyperlane leading into the Grey space was marked as' dangerous', so there was a fair chance that others would be just as low-danger.
Of course, this line of reasoning was contested and heatly debated. On the other hand, the supporters of first contacts had few points here and there. Their prime counterargument was that opening the hyperlane from their side allowed the Confederation to deploy potent fleet and army forces in the area beforehand. Theoretically allowing Mankind to avoid another First Contact War and Seven Years War at once (or at least start them from the position of advantage).
The result of this expedition was the first contact with lamenters - an extremely 'alien' alien species. Lamenters were best described as moving colonies of fungi-equivalent that spread between stars thanks to achieving something resembling a sapience was a sufficiently large mass of them grew in connection to one another. The communications were hard to establish simply because the Lamenters lack speech (and instead undergo partial merging in order to come to what can be described as consensus, with each such action de facto killing both participating entities and creating two new ones with different mind and goal).
As a result, the Lamenters were 'encountered' rather than 'contacted'. Of course the biological incompability and lack of concept of communication among the lamenters wasn't going to stop the scientists. Thanks to great contribution of the Truthseekers Corporation a man-made 'lamenter' (made by combination of genetic tampering and nanomachines) was created. Through successful merging it managed to disseminate a number of concepts throughout the lamenters species (something that probably wouldn't be attempted if the lamenters weren't much weaker technologically and numerically than Mankind and no threat to it).
Lamenters were made aware of Mankind's existence, that it's not food, and that they should avoid keep distance from the hyperlane leading deep into Human Space. As a result, any chances of them trying to expand in that direction were gone. There could be no actual contact (much less exchange of information and goods) done in that direction, but at least the entire Oversector could sleep soundly without fear of an alien scourge rolling in one day.
Halifax-VIIb Destroyed
2490, Sector 80
Science World of Halifax-VIIb suddenly died during a self-inflicted nuclear armaggeddon. With a marginal human presence in the system and the planetary atmosphere destabilized by the explosions, entire population (seventeen million humans) perishes before help arrives. The investigation's results are inconclusive, and the whole event is eventually pinned as a sabotage inflicted by the Discord's infiltrators.
The event - however tragic - slowly fades in memory as time passes. Soon it remains remembered mostly by various conspiracy theorists, who are attracted to the event due to Halifax-VIIb being a well known center of Hyperspace research. Did its inhabitants found something utterly terrifying, something that was enough to make the mass suicide look like the better option? Or did someone (Discord... or the Explorers' Guild) tried to sabotage the whole hyperspace research effort (already barely alive) by destroying one of its centers?
If it really was a sabotage, then whatever group was responsible for it has succeed. Already struggling (after Sedna Disaster) hyperspace research in Human Space slows even further. It doesn't take long for unlicensed hyperspace research without Confederation's oversight to be added to exclusions list of the Icarus Accord. Only a select few groups within the Confederation are allowed to delve onto that field, and with extreme level of security measures.
Yalka Love Industries sanctioned
2494, Human Space
A megacorporation originating in the Free State, the Yalka Love Industries's primary interest was sex. The company dominated the prostitution markets of several hundred worlds, and it's R&D department excelled in offering new toys and subtle bodymods in order to satisfy their growing clientele - which was growing so much that Yalka was recognized as a member of the Confederation of Mankind. However its existence was already heavily controversial among the more conservative factions (for example the Res Publica Christiana forbid its members from making any deals with Yalka, and went so far as to cause many of its shipments disappear mid-transit through its territories), but the true bomb dropped when the darker side of Yalka was revealed.
Yalka led a number of truly black research projects concerning extreme body modifications, which included human experimentation on unwilling subjects that were then swiftly disposed or used by Yalka for 'entertainment' purposes. Confederation-led investigation discovered that the humans used in these research were provided by the Discord - something that even Yalka Love Industries seemed unaware of.
Technically, it was merely a PR crisis of biblical magnitude. Yalka didn't break the law of the Confederation, as none of technologies used by it were on the Icarus Accord, and the cooperation with Discord was done without Yalka's knowledge. However the leaked footage and medical reports from the Yalka black labs were too much. In the end, almost every single faction of the Supreme Council voted to sanction Yalka Love Industries (the only factions that didn't were the Liberty Conglomerate that abstained, and the Res Publica Christiana whose representatives never attend sanction votes due to Church staunch denial of Confederation's right to take away someones' rights to being a human being).
Yalka Love Industries was subsequently annihilated, its assets seized by the national governments or rival companies (though distaste went so far that twenty-seven countries with notable Yalka's holdings ended up outlawing or severely limiting prostitution). However some elements of its staff managed to avoid death squads sent after them and found refuge in Discord, where the Yalka Love Industries is technically still active.
The Trade Wars
2496-2514, Human Space
The Yalka Love Industries' case ended up whipping the socialists of the Equality Front and communists of the New Comintern into anti-capitalist frenzy. The result was an outbreak of the Trade War, a long period of a rivalry between the capitalism and the communism on the fields of trade and trade interdiction. Convoys were pillaged and destroyed, neighbouring economies of different systems were rivalring each other, and finally a number of military campaigns happened throughout the Human Space.
The Liberty Conglomerate could easily measure up an probably defeat the Equality Front, but two factions at once were a much larger problem. In the end, however, the Conglomerate was saved by the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy and the Res Publica Christian joining its side. Then, however, the Fifth International and the Clockwork Alignment joined the socialist side, while many members of the Ancien Regime and the entire Conservative Bloc joined capitalists. Then the Machine Wars started, and the Trade War ended.
The total war between factions was delayed by Confederation's furious diplomatic efforts, but not entirely averted. The Trade Wars are an official start of a the more active part of the Long War. To this date, majority of engagements were purely regional in scale and were typically quickly pacified with political means. From the Trade War onwards it happened still, but factions started taking the issue in their own hands increasingly often (resulting in the joint military interventions, not unlike the resurgent crusades).
It was during the Trade Wars that the movement of military ships through the Unity Sector was allowed, but for a limited ammount of time, not for free, and only with an entire faction petitioning for it.
The War of Hunger
2499-2503, Human Space
Humanity was roughly aware of existence of the devourers ever since its contact with the Greys (as the two species waged many devastating wars on each other in the past). However the actual first contact had to wait - mostly because Mankind was comfortable with not having it. In the end it was the the devourers who instigated it, They correctly guessed which of their sectors could have a previously undiscovered hyperlane leading to the Human Space, and managed to find it after almost twenty years of frantic search.
The result was an outbreak of the War of Hunger, as the devourers immediately launched a full-scale invasion on the Confederation of Mankind. The fact that it was short was caused mostly by the devourers quickly understanding what exactly they attacked - the human numbers surpassed their estimations by at least few thousand times. This miscalculation was large enough for many humans to suspect that greys intentionally fed their archenemies with false data in order to provoke humans and devourers into fighting each other.
Devourers made some substantial gains initially, but soon began quickly losing ground. In the end they were forced to retreat back to their systems, with Confederation deciding to not pursue them due to being locked in the Trade Wars. Unfortunately, the devourers has soon managed to establish a profitable trading relationship with the Discord. It was now one more problem that Mankind had to face.
Hic Sunt Dracones
2502-2505, Human Space
First contact with the dragons was initiated by the alien side, as humans at this point preferred to avoid meeting more aliens. Their expansion was slow (too slow for Mankind to comprehend), but in the end they decided to finally peruse that one hyperlane in their territory - and stumbled upon the outer territories of the Confederation of Mankind. Resulting in a first contact.
It was rather uneventful. Meeting a completely foreign form of like was a surprise to the dragons, who decided to retreat to their worlds and figure out what was going on (with their extremely slow thinking some joke that they still didn't figure out how to react to that in 2810). Humans, in the meantime, decided to keep safe distance from a species that weaponizes stellar bodies. In the end, both sides are trying to stick to themselves.
Due to the dragons still not fully comprehending the implications of the existence of Mankind (and generally avoiding touching things they do not fully understand), there is no real 'contact' with dragons. Mankind has managed to figure out enough about the way dragons communicate with each other to be able to get through some simple communications (nothing more complicated than 'stay away'), and that's pretty much enough.
Mankind's population reaches 5 trillion
2505, Human Space
The overwhelming population surge throughout Human Space showed no sign of stopping, though it did stabilized. The countries that did their best to lower the population growth has mostly found that as a bad idea from the geopolitical and economic point of view, and slightly improved it. On the other hand, the countries that surfed the tidal wave of demographic growth has typically calmed down to a more manageable level.
As a result, in early 2500s, Mankind has reached the level of 5 trillion inhabitants (including 1,2 trillion in the Solar Republic, and 3,8 trillion in the Confederation of Mankind. The average number of children per parents varies between the most common 3-4 to 5-6 (with some very rare cases of worlds outside of that range). In the foreseeable future there are no problems with overpopulation, as the arcology constructions allows to pack ten million inhabitants in an area that would once house a hundred thousand people (while offering them almost utopian living standard). And those that do not fit anywhere tend to move into space, or to whatever passess as a frontier at the present moment.
The result is Mankind's population reaching levels almost incomprehensible level for majority of known alien species. Without the transportation and communication limited due to nature of the Hyperspace and the political split, Mankind would easily overwhelm the likes of greys, devourers and so on with its sheer numbers.
The Shadow Tide
2512-2514, Machine Stars Oversector
A previously unknown and hyperaggressive alien species assaults the lamenters from the Galactic South, arriving in force from the Outer Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Armed in numerous exotechs (many of them later on classified as darktechs) and possessing a numerical superiority to the technologically outdated and unimaginative lamenters, the shades quickly drive the former inhabitants of the oversector extinct.
The result is a total mobilization of the regional Confederation' members (and whatever reserves it could muster, including a massive contingent of the Explorers' Guild forces) and a strict quarantine measure around the hyperlane leading to the worlds now controlled by the shades. The almost abstractly 'alien' nature of the new owners of the region is worrying, especially as their true power is left up to debate.
The shades do not continue their assault towards Mankind, instead they conduct a large scale military build-up in their oversector. With the quarantine in place (and what happened next), even their very nature is debated to this date. It is believed that only the Explorers' Guild (and some elements of the Confederation leadership) know anything about them for certain. And they aren't talkative.
The Machine Wars
2514-2537, Known Space
It is believed that the Machine Wars 'began' when some unknown explorer uncovered what turned out to be a central core of a self-replicating von Neumann machines created by someone to exterminate all sentient life that could threaten their makers. The so-called berserks slowly build-up their power and learned whatever they could about the nearby interstellar empires, hiding their own presence for decades. Finally, they struck.
The war absolutely hopeless for everyone involved - save for the berserks. The tide of the killing machines was unending. Entire world on the verge of civilized areas were converted into a large factories churning out tanks, soldiers and ships in numbers that defied imagination. The Prime Code of the berserks was precise, extremely intelligent and absolutely restless. It readily engaged humans, triffids, shades and a dozen other species yet undiscovered by Mankind in a prolonged battles for attritions while using its own jumpgate network (the B-Gates) to launch deep strikes against enemy logistics, casually exploiting the enemies' overextended logistics. Once the enemies forces were finally overwhelmed, the legions of berserks went in for a kill, slowly pushing the enemy back, destroying him world by world.
It was a war during which several times more humans died than during the War of Purity - though the more than a hundred time larger population meant that the casualties didn't sting as much. But it was bad enough that the Solar Republic actually cooperated with the Confederation of Mankind - for the last time in history. There was even a regional cooperation between the Confederation and the Greys. Only the Discord acted in the exact same way as it always did.
The Shadow War
2514-2536, Known Space
The Shades became the Prime Code's center of attention immediately after the war started. In fact it is estimated that close to 85% of the berserk forces and resources were fighting that war, which is enough for some to suggest that the Machine Wars started ahead of berserk schedule due to them being afraid of shades' sudden growth in power. The result was a truly titanic struggle that wasn't known to Mankind until much later. And even then all that Mankind saw was its dim aftermath.
Shadow Wars was fierce to the point of absurd. It was the true form of warfare available only to the powers that breached the Wall of Faith. Berserks had endless numbers and weaponry that went beyond borders of conventional science. Shades had much lower numbers... but their technology far surpassed the berserks. Soon stars were used to power weaponry (or in some terrifying cases as artillery rounds) and the entire star systems and fleets were annihilated in the blink of an eye as the warring sides threw everything they had at each other. In some places, the fabric of spacetime itself was distorted, torn apart or annihilated by the terrible weapons unleashed by either side.
By the closing year of the war, the berserk armada operating agains the shades approached (according to estimated) one million ships. It was a number that the shades couldn't hope to match. The entire oversector fell to the berserks, with shades pushed back to their homeworlds. Rather than attempt to destroy them there, the berserks suddenly halted their advance. The area surrounding the hyperlane leading to the shade homeworlds was changed into an impenetrable defensive line by the Prime Code. Operating separately from the main berserk network, it managed to survive the collapse of the berserks and remains an impressive sight to this day - if one is willing to risk being seen by autonomously operating Black Fleet, composed of approximately nine hundred thousand berserk ships, including one hundred thousand capital ship-equivalents.
The Fall of the Devourersl
2519, Devourer Space
Devourers were the first of the major known species to be knocked out of the war. They suffered significant casualties during the War of Hunger that they failed to fully recover from before the war started. Worse, while warlike and physically powerful, their technology base didn't amount to much. WIth their numbers rather thin, the result was the devourers swiftly overwhelmed.
Despite the devourers fighting with extreme ferocity, their fleets were defeated, their space industry broken. Berserks decided to not finished them immediately, instead they left enough of their armies in the area to slowly continue to overwhelm the ground defenses of the devourers, driving them to extinction one devourer at a time. Without ability to leave their worlds, the devourers could not hope to escape anywhere, nor they were capable of mounting a successful counterattack. This allowed the berserks to move their fleet from the region to their war against the Shades.
Eventually the devourers survived until the end of the Machine Wars, and managed to retain control over their space. However their empire was utterly devastated, remaining nothing but a paper riger for almost three centuries, and with little hope of getting back to their prior power. The only thing that saves them is the fact that greys are in barely better shape, allowing the devourers to cycle their forces between the everpresent triffid threat and their wars against Mankind (which, admittedly, is too busy with itself to actually attack them for real.
The Fall of the Dragons
2531-2536, Human Space
The dragons managed to react to the berserk assault with a notable delay, but not entirely too late. They pulled their entire army (and entire species) to their home system, where they dug in and repelled the berserk attacks for years. The dragon technology was attrociously bad by the berserk norm, but their ships were incredibly resistant (after all, they were weaponized MOONS). What's more, the berserks pulled majority of their fleers from the Dragon Space once the natives adapted their defensive strategy.
In the end, however, dragons failed to hold the line. Their massive worldships, built through millenia of patient work of millions of their kind, began falling victim to the berserk ships one by one. Of course, they didn't care to destroy them entirely, instead they mostly damaged the ships beyond repair in a reasonable timeline. Once dragons could no longer pose any sort of threat, the berserks pulled their fleet from the area, relocating it to the main battleground of the war.
Dragons survived, but their might was shattered. They focused their entire industrial capacity on repair of the least damaged worldships, and achieved some success. However per one operational dragon ship in the post-war era, there are three still waiting to be returning to the working condition. On the other hand, the shock of the war (and how close they were to getting annihilated) has managed to slightly shake the dragons out of their technological stupor, causing new technological discoveries to occur in a pace that can be considered lightning (though still bad when compared to Mankind when it was on similar level of technology).
The Fall of the Greys
2530, Grey Space
The greys held relatively successfully against the berserk onslaught for sixteen long years by taking advantage of their endless robotic legions and computer technology that equalled the exotech machinery of berserk. Without access to the intelligence network of the Confederation of Mankind (which was painfully aware - and completely terrified - of what was going on in the Shade front), the greys failed to understand that the berserk assault on them was merely a diversion, tailored to keep them occupied and slowly weaken them.
When the grey programmists attempted to tinker with the B-Gate network systems, the Prime Code lost its patience. It redirected a sizeable portion of its forces (approximately thirty thousand ship, equalling the entire navy of the greys but with triple its firepower) and thoroughly obliterated the fleets of the Grey during the Akhtahiran Massacre [01.04.2530-04.04.2530]. Rather than squashing the species completely, the berserk fleet visited every system within the grey' Directorate borders. A massive hacking attacks on the planetary infonetworks drove significant part of the robotic infrastructure of the Grey upon itself.
The ensuing 'robot uprising' kept the greys occupied not only for the duration of the war, but also for ten more years. It also left them on the edge of collapsing, with last remnants of actual life within the Directorate officially ceasing. While it managed to regain power, it was going to remain a country of machines, with billions of inhabitants in statis and few unlucky custodians running the show until the Wasting finishes the job.
Battle of Irem
13.03.2537-16.03.2537, Sector 97
With all known species knocked out of the war, and the Shades pushed back to their homeworlds, the only remaining opponent of the berserks was Mankind. Despite the Confederation of Mankind and the Solar Republic cooperating, there was no real hope of winning. The only, however faint, chance was decimating the berserks enough for the Shades to decide to restart their war against the omnicidal machines - but even that would only delay the inevitable.
Berserk sent one of their extermination fleets from the former lamenter territory into the Human Space - with approximately one hundred thousand ship it was an approximate equal of the entire forces available to Mankind, but with much better technology and Mankind unable to mobilize its entire forces for a single engagement. Everything that managed to gather up for the battle was at best 1/3 of the berserk fleet.
The battle of Irem ended with Mankind's victory. Ten experimental superdreadnoughts carrying spatial distortion superweapons were deployed, each of them capable of destroying a hundred of berserk ship with each salvo. Through usage of massive amounts of exotechs, some desperate maneuvers and said superdreadnoughts, approximately 77 000 berserk ships were destroyed. Mankind lost 9 out of 10 superweapons and close to half of the forces deployed.
The victory turned out to be pyrrhic when the shades didn't return, and berserks deployed three fleets (312 000 warships, including 56 000 capital ship equivalents) from its strategic reserve. To that, Mankind had no answer.
The Schism of Berserks
19.06.2537, Known Space
To this day, nobody is sure what exactly caused the Schism. Something eliminated the Prime Code and freed the berserk executive programs from their own programming. The process was gradual but occured simultaneously Galaxywide. Due to that it is speculated that some sort of failsafe hidden in berserk computer system was activated once there was no contact with their creators for a set period of time.
With the change being gradual, the non-changed berserk executives turning against the changed ones and destroying them, only to change few minutes later. The result of this process was brief 'civil war', during which armies and fleets of the Berserks (save for the Black Fleet, which for some reason was fully automated and with no executives on their hard drives) annihilated themselves. Sometimes in front of dumbfounded enemies.
Their machine worlds fell silent, their fleets destroyed themselves, and their databanks (a treasure trove of post-Wall of Faith technology and designs) were mostly fried. The Machine Wars ended. The remaining berserks split into a number of factions, of which only two still consider themselves to be berserks - the inheritors who seek to continue the Prime Code's omnicidal crusade, and the successors who are looking to create something resembling a civilization in the former lamenter space.
The Machine Debate
2537-2542, Known Space
The end of the Machine Wars decimated the Human Space. It was a catastrophe only slightly smaller in magnitude than the War of Purity - while more people died, the impact it had on the general population was smaller, due to majority of Mankind not losing any member of their family in the war. The result was a lot of post-war cleanup, temporary pause on general warfare, and a lot of ethical and legal debates regarding the issue of artificial intelligences.
Thus far, they were forbidden as a whole, and considered to be violently evil (the AI/HUMILITY rampage didn't help their PR). The Machine Wars didn't really help. Now, however, there was an entire post-Schism faction of the berserks that got very humanlike and wanted to become part of human civilization. Which was problematic, due to their very existence being technically forbidden by the Icarus Accord. There was the ethical issue of whether such entities could really be considered akin or equal to human beings.
In the end, it was one more thing that divided the Human Space. The Icarus Accord was slightly revised, with only creation of new AIs being banned. Explorers' Guild receive a whole new department dedicated to ensuring that potential threats hiding beyond the light of civilization will be stopped before starting for real. Confederation members went one way or another, with some of them accepting human rights of AIs and some denying those (even violently). Religions adapted similarly (some denied them entry, others accepted that everything sapient has a soul, regardless of a container).
Voca Arrive
2539, Sector 64
A refugee fleet of an alien species calling itself Voca reaches Human space by traveling for decades using what appears to be a very primitive form of Alcubierre drive - at this point poorly understood even by the Voca engineers. They fled their worth hoping to escape some undefined 'doom' - the target point of their exodus just happen to be one of the major industrial worlds of the Basileia Rhomaion in the Confederation of Mankind.
Voca turn out to be the first alien species that doesn't seem to be neither homicidal nor incomprehensible in nature. A sizeable part of them settles in the Rhomaion, where due to their fighting prowess and discipline they form a highly valued units of the so-called Varangian Guard. The rest of the refugees (that have exchanged their outdated but carrying some interesting technologies ships for local equivalent provided by the Basileia Rhomaion) scatters throughout the Human Space, becoming mercenaries... or pirates.
Meeting with the Voca causes a rebirth of Mankind's hopes for finding aliens that can be reasoned with, and with which an actual peaceful relationship can be established. To this day, the only alien species where some successes were achieved were the Greys, and that's only because they were wayward cousins of Mankind.
TI/ARACHNE goes renegade
2542, Human Space
The debate about AI rights wasn't even over, and yet the legal conclusions of it were already violated. TI/ARACHNE, one of the first few prototypes of a Transcendental Intelligence created in secrecy by the Truthseekers Corporation, goes renegade and conducts a massacre of seeker' personnel in her research lab. Before the corporation catches wind of the event, the ARACHNE seizes a number of ships and disappears in Hyperspace with few dozen thousand of cloned workforce and footsoldiers.
TI/ARACHNE visits nearby world of the Confederation where it transmits a massive database of seekers' information, indicating numerous violations of Icarus Accord and straight human experimentation. Without waiting for answer, its small fleet disappears in Hyperspace again. Much later discoveries lead to a belief that TI/ARACHNE believes that it received a 'divine commandment' from God, which could be summed up to 'destroy the Truthseekers'. The result of this is two century long war that seems to be no closer to ending.
The information it spread is a crushing blow to the Truthseekers Corporation, with only a singular possible outcome of its dissemination throughout Human Space. An emergency meeting of the Supreme Tribunal is called in, and within two weeks the decision is made.
Truthseekers Corporation sanctioned
2543, Sector 64
Long a champion of science and understanding among the Confederation of Mankind, the Truthseekers' achievement gained ire and jealousy of many. The corporation was observed by many competitors and people who were simply suspicious. With TI/ARACHNE going on a rampage and proving to the world that the corporation was conducting human experimentation AND violated numerous tenets of the Icarus Accord (all of them, in fact), all the enemies struck at once.
The Corporation was immediately sanctioned, and numerous death squads were sent after its members. Within one year 95% of the people working for the corporation were eliminated, its assets liquified and whatever remained on the run. Or at least that's how the situation appeared to the world. The Corporation managed to secure a number of now defunct B-Gates and reactivated them, establishing a hidden enclave referred in corporation's internal communications as Prometheus' Ascent (or simply Ascent, as Confederation came to call it), not unlike the Discord.
The remaining mobile assets and members of the Corporation retreated to Ascent, where used their incredibly technological knowledge (this time without any sort of moral boundaries, even those being nothing more than a long term deception) to quickly rebuild their strength. Soon first promethean cults were detected. Even 250 years in the future, the Corporation is not fully broken.
Insectoids Encountered
2547, Sector 95
Another alien species is encountered, and once again it is the aliens that pushed into Human Space. The new species receives the moniker of 'insectoids', due to their roughly insectoid outlook (they are a bit more complicated internally, if only due to extraterrestrial life typically not adhering to Earth-based taxonomy). It's one of the rare cases of purely peaceful first contact, as not a single volley was exchanged.
Unlike most other first contacts, the contact with insectoids is actually most peaceful of them all. It however quickly becomes obvious that peace with them is absolutely impossible. Their culture is based on the idea of duty. Just as it's a duty of administrator biocaste to make their hive prosper, it is the warrior's biocaste duty to wage war. The only reason why the insectoids established relations with Mankind was to learn more about it, to discover if they were 'honourable' in their approach to 'duty' and to find if there was something that Mankind considered a taboo when it comes to fighting.
Once it was established that only Mankind possesses a sizeable armed forces but also considers hitting the non-warriors as abhorrent (at least most of it did) just like insectoids did, it was deemed as 'honourable species'. The insectoids declared their war against Mankind in 2540, in a way that followed all of the Mankind's diplomatic traditions. The war continues to this day, however it is typically seen as the most honourable and 'gentle' of all waged by Mankind. What's more, the state of war didn't stop the insectoids from establishing a profitable trade relations with Mankind, and their Executive from cooperating with the High Council of Confederation on multiple occasions.
TI/MURDER goes renegade
2549, Human Space
Second of the Truthseekers Corporation' first gen TIs goes renegade, this time in a way much less nice for everyone involved than the TI/ARACHNE. TI/MURDER was an experimental combat AI created to serve as an entity overseeing a larger detachments of autonomous killer robots, in a way similar to the Prime Code (with some gossips indicating that it was constructed with bits of berserk code).
It goes renegade and massacres all of Truthseekers Corporation personnel on-site, before going on a murder spree throughout human-controlled worlds, almost succeeding in taking over of the Corporation's T-Gate Network. It is finally put down by loyal Truthseekers' TIs, its remains exorcised from the human computer network. This disaster leads to a vast improvement in Truthseekers cyber security and a deployment of a number of more improved TIs.
With how complicated its elimination was, many countries of the Confederation of Mankind decide to - under the auspices of Confederation itself to avoid violating the Icarus Accord - start working on their own, hopefully much more stable Transcendental Intelligence.
Sidhe arrive
2551, Human Space
A completely new species on aliens arrives in the Human Space, arriving from the endless void between the sectors. It is the manifestation of Mankind's hopes - Sidhe are xenophiles extraordinaire, a union of dozens of Virtualized species of aliens that periodically moves away and settles among another species, taking in various converts and eventually (when driven off, or when their host collapses) leaving in a search of another home. Having millenia of experience in acclimatizing to other species, Sidhe have almost no problems with working, trading and living alongside Mankind.
The more unfortunate side effect of the sidhe arrival is their split between the numerically superior seelie (who are content with living alongside humans and gathering converts peacefully) and the theoretically fringe unseelie who are soon in cahoots with the powers of Discord. Which means one more potent threat scurrying through the Human Space, and even more people dying (or worse) yearly.
The Sidhe soon relocate to a cluster of worlds on the edge of the Unity Sector, the main part of their civilization remaining staunchly neutral (though often supporting the Explorers' Guild and occasionally acting as 'hired muscles' to the Confederation as a whole), though a number of splinter colonies were erected here and there, typically among the subsectors.
TI/APHRODITE goes renegade
2555, Human Space
TI/APHRODITE was the third of the first gen Truthseekers Corporation TIs that went renegade. Unlike the cases of MURDER and ARACHNE, APHRODITE's rebellion was caused by what's believed to be a Council of Woes plot. It is unknown how they succeded in hacking the TI and causing it go renegade. However they did that, the APHRODITE become a staunch supporter of the Discord.
The result was yet another massacre of Truthseekers' Corporation personnel. What's worse, the Discord gained their own Transcendental Intelligence. This meant numerous benefits for its day-to-day operation, though not as extreme as one would expect. The TIs are extremely useful in terms of long term data analysis, and the TI-derived Virtual Intelligences are useful as programmers (and hackers), but they are not a complete game changer.
The case of the TI/APHRODITE had a side effect of ruining already extremely strained relationship between the Seekers of Truth and the Discord. The result was a seven years long War of Outlaws, which pitted the two sides against each other. There was no clear winner, but both sides managed to tire each other out. To great relief of the Confederation of Mankind.
TI/OVERSEER created
2559, Human Space
While the Icarus Accord technically forbid creation of sapient AIs (now dubbed the Transcendent Intelligences), the research into the transcendent programming of fully TI continued, simply on a much smaller scale. Finally, the moment was reached when it was believed that a creation of a mentally TI was possible. However, actually doing that require a slight reintepretation of the preexisting laws - from now on only the creation of unsactioned TIs without the Confederation's knowledge and approval was considered a crime.
In the end, the success of TI/OVERSEER creation led to no more AIs being needed. OVERSEER turned stable, rational and helpful. He became an advisor of the Supreme Council of Mankind. Originally it wasn't announced due to general anti-AI sentiments caused by rampages of SI/MOLOCH, TI/HUMILITY and TI/MURDER, however with TI/ARACHNE saw as more or less stable and TI/OVERSEER being based on ARACHNE's code, OVERSEER was slowly accepted.
TI/OVERSEER's analysis of his own code led to a significant technological improvement on the field of Simulated Intelligences creation. As a result, most of the ships in the Human Space soon had their own. This offered a completely new level of damage control and maintenance, both reaching the previously unheard of level.
Burning of Hades
2565, Human Space
A fleet is deployed to search for a cause for regular disappearances of ships in the region, most of the ships belonging to the Res Publica Christian member states. The end result is discovery of an exile colony called as Republic of Hades, who is believed by the discoverers to be 'so abhorrent' that it has to be destroyed. Most of the hadesians die, but some of them are 'rescued' by the discordians.
Despite breaching the laws of the Confederation, the decision receives a post-factum approval of the Supreme Council. All records of the planet are classified, and so is the exact origin of this exiles - many suggest that they could be a remnant group of transhumans, perhaps even the Hivers or Pure. Whatever they were, the result is a significant change to the Commonwealth's legal doctrine.
From now on, all obviously human-derived civilizations in the wilderness beyond civilization is to be eliminated on sight. No 'baseline' groups departed so far from the Confederation with good intentions. As a result all exiles are at the very least a descendant of one of the hyperextremist group defeated during the Unification Wars - and it might be much worse than that. Worst case scenario it's something that is for some reason pretending to be human.
Hyperspace Research Breakthrough
2570, Human Space
The second-to-last progress on the field of Hyperspace research is achieved by a dedicated research group of the Confederation of Mankind (with significant ties to the Explorers' Guild). The result is a discovery of three entire new medium of an FTL travel other than the Hyperspace (though it's best to describe these three sources as separate parts of the Hyperspace (though it's debatable).
The Void Drive opens up an entire new branch of impressively powerful exotechs - though it also kills 99% of those attempting to traverse it. Abyss Drive kills (or drives insane) everyone crazy enough to attempt passage, though there are recurrent talks about the abyssal cults either using it to travel or as some sort of rite of passage among their ranks. Subspace Drive allowed ships of sufficiently sturdy built to 'skim' on the surface of Hyperspace, though only the smaller ones (with the weight limit slightly above larger heavy cruisers).
Unfortunately, this discovery fails to be a political breakthrough, as improvements offered by the new generation of the Hyperspace Drives isn't enough to break the strategic stalemate of the Long War. Thus far no replicable jumpgates nor significantly faster and more predictable FTL drive were created.
Subsectors Discovered
2570, Human Space
Mankind was aware of the existence of the hyperspace conduits for a long time. These much weaker and significantly harder to traverse counterparts of the hyperlanes were simply too dangerous to use, even if technology to enter them technically exist. This changed now, mostly due to improvement of computer systems resulting from the creation of first Transcendental Intelligences. The much faster (and partially capable of deciding on their own) computers were capable of minuscule course alterations needing to stabilize the course while travelling through the conduit.
The result was a colonization drive. This time Mankind had no World Forge, but its technology regarding colonization and even the conventional terraformation grew greatly. The results were the subsectors - underwhelming cousins of sectors, kept from becoming puppers of the powers of the sectors only by authority of the Confederation of Mankind. They were soon flooded by various weirdoes, escapists, religious cults and so on, seeking to distance themselves from the most active battlegrounds of the Long War.
By the year 2610, approximately one thousand four hundred subsectors were located, out of which close to half houses permanent human habitation. The process seems to be growing in intensity, as the subsectors became a favourite battleground of the indirect parts of the Long War and faction's long term investment - after all, if another World Forge is ever discovered, each subsector secured by their members can become a full sector.
Settlement Beta-24 Incident
2575, Sector 94
The Technocracy, one of the many member states of the Confederation of Mankind, discovers a previously undiscovered hyperlane. In hopes of gaining some sort of a political leverage, they attempt a stealth exploration of the territory on the other side of it - though not before mobilizing their fleets and placing them in the vicinity. The result is Mankind's first contact with the Screamers - a hyperaggresive post-Wall of Faith civilization, equalling (or even surpassing) the Shades.
Mankind survives the first contact by overwhelming the initial screamer response group with sheer numbers (despite having seventeen ships per one of the screamers, they lose fourteen for each destroyed enemy) and fire up a spartial distortion generator into the open hyperlane. This desperate and insane attempt succeeds in destabilizing the hyperlane at a cost of half of the star system (everything within a distance of 0,76ly) being swallowed by the raging Hyperspace. The resulting Tear is believed to be slowly expanding with each year.
From this moment onwards the Screamers are considered an almost existential threat to Mankind. The idea of them actually figuring out where the opposite end of the hyperlane was (and reaching it with conventional FTL drive, and then placing some sort of jumpgate there) is a nightmare that keeps leadership of the Confederation awake. The estimated results of such an event include possible extinction of Mankind.
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