Spacefall

In the year 2031, in the middle of a worldwide food and migration crisis, humanity found itself at its darkest hour. With governments collapsing one by one, only the strongest and wealthiest of states survived. But even that wasn't granted. All of them faced serious internal strife and instability, until one day, during the Last Meeting of the UN, a man barged into the UN Building in what was once the USA and declared himself the Emperor of Earth, or as his followers called it - Terra. The leaders of what was left of the UN were powerless to stop him. With hundreds of millions of followers backing this man and their armies in poor shape, they transferred their rule over to him. Then, a year later, humanity picked up a strange radio signal from within the Solar System. A single, automated and self-repeating message created in an unknown language. After pinpointing the location of the message, humanity, using some of its last resources, sent out a satellite to collect the object broadcasting this strange message. When it returned to Earth, humanity pried open the automated messenger and extracted all of its data. What they discovered was beyond the wildest dreams of scientists of the time. Schematics and the physical basis of five life-changing technologies were stored inside it. These technologies blew a new wind into humanity's sails and allowed it to use its remaining resources to finally move beyond the confines of Earth. After twenty years, humanity finally set foot on the Moon, Mars and Europa, where it established permanent colonies. This invoked a snowball effect and soon after humanity finally saw Alpha Centauri with its own eyes, not through the lens of a telescope. The year is 2640 and humanity is in control of a large part of the Milky Way and has set foot in the surrounding galaxies.