World War 3
From the Ashes - First Contact and United Earth
In 2063, First Contact between Humanity and an Alien species was made when Zefram Cochrane flew Humanity's first warp ship, the Phoneix, across the Sol system. A passing Vulcan ship took notice of the vessel and following Cochrane's return to Earth, made landfall at the Phoneix's launch site in Bozeman, Montana and made offical contact with Humanity.
From that point onward, The fate of both species and the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy was forever changed. News would spread across the Earth quickly despite the wrecked communications infrastructure with the same, profond message: Humanity was not alone. In response, the United States government would convene an emergency meeting The T'plana Hath would leave Montana and land in San Fransisco to meet with representatives of the US goverment, explaining along Drs Cochrane and Sloane who they were and why they had finally . The T'plana-Hath would return to Vulcan and report back their First Contact to the High Command, prompting an offical diplomatic delegation to visit Earth only a month later.
With Humanity reeling from the profond implications of First Contact, it would signal a major cultural and philopsphical shift among much of the population. Knowing now that there was indeed life in the cosmos and that it included space-faring civilisations of certainly vast power left a profond sense of humility among the survivors of World War 3. Cochrane and Sloane especially would expertly take note of this emerging cultural shift and nuture it, rallying people to the belief that Humanity need no longer wallow in ruin, that with Vulcan aid, it had a chance to not only rebuild what had had been lost but now had the chance to rise to heights it had only ever dreamed of before and that it could join in such a galactic community. This call attracted millions, many of whom were seeking to improve their lives and escape the suffering of that the last several decades had left. Thankfully, these hopes would not be dashed.
With Vulcan aid, Humanity set about the immense task of rebuilding their world from the devastating effects of the Third World War, reforming governments, rebuilding ruined cities and ecosystems, ending the rampant scourges of disease and famine and creating for the time since the fall of the United Nations, a new Worldwide goverment in the form United Earth, an entity that still governs the planet's local affairs to this day. Where once these were thought impossible, Earth achieve them in less than 60 years. Human civilisation had returned and was thriving better than ever. Another key development of this era was the United Earth Space Probe Agency, Earth's first unified Space Exploration Program, created from the remanents of previous programs such as Cochrane's Warp Drive Team, NASA, ESA, JAXA, ISRO, CNSA and ROSCOSMOS. UESPA would lead Humanity's first forrays in post First Contact, notably in developiong the Starliner class of ships such as the Enterprise XCV-330, the Friendship probe series and the first colonisation efforts of extra solar bodies like Alpha Centauri and Tera Nova. In time, UESPA would further develop, refine and coalesce by 2135 into Earth's Starfleet and with it, Humanity's first real test of Galactic Exploration was set.
In 2119, Zephram Cochrane would break ground for the Warp Five Complex. In the words of Cochrane, "On this site, a powerful engine will be built. An engine that will some day help us to travel a hundred times faster than we can today. Imagine it. Thousands of inhabited planets, at our fingertips. And we'll be able to explore those strange new worlds and seek out new life, and new civilizations. This engine will let us go boldly, where no man has gone before."
This facility was to create a ship that would be able to allow Humanity to explore into deep and uncharted space, even beyond where the Vulcans had explored, as well as to make contact with Alien civilisations.
The Xindi Crisis
Birth of the Federation
The Romulan War
The First Federation Golden Age
The Four Years War
The Second Federation Golden Age
The Borg Incursions
The Homefront - The Dominion War
A Reprieve into an Uncertain Future
Plots in the Shadows - Burning of Mars and Frontier Day 2401
While the Federation had seemingly emerged victorius against it's enemies, this would prove to be not entirely true, with groups such as surviving Borg Queens, renegade Changlings and zealous Romulan secret societies going to ground across the Galaxy and plotting their next moves, often to continue their fights and to gain vengance. This would prove to have terrible consequenses. Starting in the 2380s, the first group to emerge against the Federation post the Shinzon coup was the Zhat Vash secret society within the Romulan Tal Shiar.
While not directly against the Federation itself, they were none-the-less hostile, being a high ranking sect of Romulus's brutal secret police, and their actions would cause the death of billions and allow the destruction of their own homeworld. While Starfeet was assembling a humanitarian armada under the command of Admiral Picard, a group of synthetic androids, based on the technology used to create Commader Data, was made by famed engineer Bruce Maddox. While not sapient, the Zhat Vash, whose reigning philosophy was a fear of synthetic beings that may attract the attention of powerful synthetic beings from another dimension, were paranoid that this labor force was actually a hearald of a galactic doom that Maddox was unknowingly playing with and, despite their role in aiding their people on Romulus threatened by the impending Hobus supernova, decided to take action against them. Zhat Vash agents implanted within Starfleet's ranks were able to take control of both the synthetic labor force's positronic network and the defense network around Mars where the evacuation fleet was constructed. The result was devastating, with the settlements on Mars and the Utopia Plantia shipyards destroyed, with few on the planet surviving thanks to the heroic efforts of defending Federation ships that fought agianst their own drone defenses whilst evacuaing as many people as possible. These refugees would be taken back to Earth whilst the synthetics and drones destroyed themselves.
As a result of this attack, Earth's population began bracing itself for an attack, perciving what had happened at Mars as the prelude to another attempt by some force to attack the Federation capital. As time passed, no attack came, however Earth's people were severely shaken and the Federation would cancel it's plans to rebuild the lost evacuation fleet in favor for fortifiying it's own territory, despite the protests of Admiral Picard and Ambassador Spock that the Romulans should not be abandoned. Shortly after, the Hobus sun erupted faster than had been anticipated and Romulus was destroyed, leaving billions dead and an Empire shattered. When the mad Romulan miner Nero went on a rampage in his borg-augmented mining vessel the Narada against the Federation who he blamed for abandoning his planet, Starfleet's 3rd fleet under Captain Shelby was mobilised to defend the planet against a potentital attack, but the Narada disappeared before it could attempt to do so.
Earth itself would remain safe, though badly shaken, for the next decade. During this time, a number of Romulan refugees would make their way to the Federation's capital and, once considered an unthinkable prospect only decades ago, settle across the planet as Federation citizens, forming a small but tight-nit community. Over this time, anti-Romulan sentiment that had been held ever since the Earth-Romulan war would gradually lessen on Earth as more interactions between Earth's native population and Romulan emigrants grew and bonds developed, though occassional incidents did occur. Earth itself would also see the development of a new defensive measure demanded in the wake of the Borg, Breen and Mars attacks: a planetary shield grid, designed to defend against the firepower of an entire fleet of ships. This grid was more powerful than those used on the Federation's outer colony worlds in decades prior, able to withstand a sustained barrage of capital ship grade weaponery and was tied to the power system of Probert Spacedock in orbit. Considered an important lesson learned after a time before these events, when such a measure was considered unessessary, this shield would prove vital soon enough.
In 2401, Starfleet celebrated it's 200th birthday. As part of the "Frontier Day" celebrations, Starfleet's recalled it's most prominent vessels to form a fleet parade in orbit, where the Enterprise-F would lead the ceremony prior to it's decomissioning and showcase the new fleet formation technolgy. However, the day would be marred in tragedy. As the celebration reached it's zenith, the USS Titan-A, having apparently gone rogue under the command of Admiral Picard and captain Liam Shaw, unexpectedly decloaked and warped into orbit, with Picard desparetly attempting to warn Admiral Shelby aboard the Enterprise of a plot. However, before he could fully explain, Starfleet officers across the assembled fleet and Earth's surface, those under the age of 25, began convulsing and developing black veins across their bodes before shortly turning to their fellow older officers, drawing weapons and attacking. Likewise, the fleet formation system was compromised, being taken over by an outside source and taking control over the entire fleet, locking out any attempts to regain control. In an instant, Earth's own defenses essentially turned against itself.
This was the final step of a plot devised by an alliance of a surviving Borg Queen and the rogue Changling known as Vadic. Both had survived conflicts with the Federation and were desparate for vengance for the percieved wrongs and defeats the Federation had inflicting on them. Working together the two groups had devised a plan over several years, whereby the Queen supplied Vaidic and her Changlings with modified Borg nanoprobes from an earlier plan to assimilate the Federation prior to the Collective's downfall that were virtually undetectable to all scanners, in order for the Changlings to infiltrate Starfleet's ranks and not only push for the idea within the admiralty of the fleet formation system that used modifed Borg technology that the Collective could still connect to, but also to disperce the nanoprobes into Starfleet's transporter systems, allowing the nanoprobes to be integrated into the DNA of it's victims. While only able to infect those under 25 years of age due to it's reliance on it's victims not being fully biologically mature and still having space within their genetic code to hide and develop within, the virus would never-the-less be able to assimilate it's victims in mere seconds upon recieving a signal that would activate the nanoprobes. This was to be done via the assimilation of Jack Crusher, the son of Jean Luc Picard and Beverley Crusher whose unique biology stemming from inheriting microbial scale Borg technology left over in his father after his assimilation, allowed him to act as a relay for a large scale transmitter, built within the heart of a Borg fusion cube that hidden itself within Jupiter's Great spot via a transwarp gateway jump. The formation system and nanoprobes would then activate, allowing the Borg to take control of the Federation's own fleet and use them to attack and destroy their own planet.
The plan nearly proved successful, with the fleet turning agaisnt itself and attacking Probert Spacedock in orderto bring down Earth's shield, all the while Starfleet offcer fought against each other across every ship and station and on the Earth's surface itself. For the first time since the Dominion War, Earth was a battlefield, with assimilated Starfleet officers attacking key facilities including Starfleet Headquarters, Starfleet Academy, the President's office at the Champ D'elysse, the Daystrom Institute and the power distribution grid. Many would be killed during the battle, fighting unwillingly against their own. While the USS Titan-A was retaken by some of it's crew and attempted to fend off the fleet's onslaught, Probert Spacedock fell after sustained fire from the fleet after several hours, leaving the planet's shield grid to fail. Thankfully however, this had bought vital time that proved to be decisive.
As the fleet began to target Earth's cities for orbital bomardment and were about to fire, both the fleet formation system and the nanoprobes within the assimilated Starfleet were deactivated, freeing both officers and their ships from Borg control. As the battle had been raging, Admiral Picard and his former crew, who had escaped from the Titan at it's beginning, were able to flee to the Federation's fleet Museum over Athen Prime not far from Sol and commandeer the newly restored USS Enterprise-D which was not connected to the fleet formation system, then returned to Earth and discovered the Borg's prescense at Jupiter. They then infiltrated the cube, rescued Crusher and destroyed the relay beakon at it's core, cutting the signal and destroying the cube in the process, along with the Queen onboard. With this, Earth was once again saved from destruction.
While the fighting was over, work now had to be done to pick up the peices. Many across the fleet, on Probert Station, on Earth and across the Sol system had been killed or wounded from the fighting, with several cities and important surface facilities also seeing combat and damage. The fleet, having only just been freed from Borg control, had to move quickly to prevent Probert Spacedock from falling out of orbit and crashing into Earth surface despite the damage that had been inflicted to it, as well as render aid to survivors on board, on the surface and across it's own ships. Aid would stream in from the closby core worlds of Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar and Rigel while the 5th fleet, which had been in orbit over Andoria for the Frontier Day celebrations, would relieve the home fleet.
If the Federation believed that it was no longer infiltrated by spies however, this would sadly prove untrue, as one more faction remained that had infiltrated it's way into Federation and Starfleet ranks.
The Long War - The Undine Attack and Battle of Midnight
Following Frontier Day, most of surrounding powers expressed their sympathies for the tragedy and relief that the Borg had been stopped. All except for the Klingon Empire. Indeed, the response proved to casutic.
Ambassador B'vat, seemingly with Chancellor J'mpok's approval, castigated the Federation for "It's constant blindness against the spectors who would stab them in the back, rather than join with us against them in battle which it's too cowardly to face." Many Klingons criticisied that the Federation was desparate to believe that it was the all powerful victor from it's recent conflicts, when the reality was that it's enemies were not truely defeated and the Federation was too scared to recognise this, leaving it open to infiltration and suberterfuge. The Empire believed that this was also true of the Federation's response to the Undine threat and that the Mars and Frontier Day disasters only reinforced this. It also increased the belief among those in the Empire that the Federation was now an unreliable partner, unable to properly defend itself or others, to achnowledge or even identify potential threats before they became dangerous and unable to commit to actions that needed to be done.
Current Era
With the discovery of a gateway to a new Galaxy, Earth is likely to face many new challenges. It'll only be a matter of time to see if it can stand against them as it has others before.
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