History of the Tellurian Diaspora
Pre-Interstellar Travel
It started as system "Sol.Earth". "Earth", as it was known then, was on the downslope of viability for human occupation. Climate change and an attendant series of natural disasters contributed to conflicts that reshaped the political map. Together they killed more than three billion humans between 2050 and 2100 CE. In 2076, the Mars Project was created by a scientific and commercial consortium to develop a viable human colony. You could date the Diaspora to this humble beginning.In 2117, the Mars Project declared itself Ares Colony, a sovereign entity independent of the Consortium, and had its charter recognized in the World Court. In the mean time, the Consortium had been subsumed by what was then known as the International Space Authority, and moved on to build the arcology of Maragonek in the Sol.Tellus ateroid belt, for the purpose of mining and acting as a development laboratory/space station/shipyard for the ISA. Maragonek was completed and operations began in 2121.
The Ganymede Colony, established in 2152 CE, used technologies developed on Maragonek and improved arcology viability substantially, leading to the creation of the New MIami colony in the Sol.Tellus asteroid belt.
In 2183, construction began on the Davos Station in the outer reaches of Sol.Tellus' Kuiper Belt, for the purpose of developing interstellar craft and facilitating interstellar exploration and colonization. This was enabled by the discovery of the skip-drive propulsion methodology and the rechargeable transuranic fusion power generator.
Interstellar Exploration and the Early Waves
The North American Federation Conflict was the last of the major political faction-based conflicts in the Sol.Tellus system and in 2240 the designation "Tellus" was accepted for the third planet in the system and Tellus became a member entity of the Sol System Union.The unmanned Centauri Expedition departed System Sol.Tellus in 2232, using skip-drive technology. It was the first successful interstellar expedition, reaching Alpha Centauri in 2235. The Centauri Venture deployed seventeen Soyuz drones to collect data about the Centauri system during the two years required for the ship to recharge its skip-drive cells, and returned to Davos in 2241.
The Proxima Colonial Expedition departed from Davos in 2252, and reached its destination six years later, establishing the Proxen Colony in 2259, and sending a ship back to Davos which arrived in 2264, and started the First Wave of the Tellurian Diaspora. In the period between 2270 and 2304, sixteen skip-drive colony ships left Davos, and Vega Colony, Alamak Colony, Jian Lu Colony, Berehyn Colony, and Nenque Colony were successfully established, idependent of control and communication with Earth.
During and after the First Wave departures, the political, technological, and social environment in system Sol.Tellus and on Tellus itself changed rapidly. The diplomatic and social influence of Ares Colony is credited with settling a number of seemingly-intractable ideological conflicts and the formation of the Sol System Union, which also gathered in existing system colonies to develop diplomatic, commercial and scientific protocols.
The Second Wave
In 2350 the Development of Tachyon Power Technology to allow transuranic-powered tachyon supralight drives revolutionized interstellar travel and set off another wave of the Diaspora. This period also marked The Reconnection of some First Wave colonies (notably Berehyn and Proxen) to Tellurian influence and, ultimately, control, forming the basis of the Federation. First Wave colonies established colonies of their own, with Proxen developing Proxen Beta Colony and Califersa Colony, Jian Lu expanding to Ynakoraka, Alamak establishing Aynelram, and Vega colonizing Deymansinaya Colony and Al-Sulayni Colony.Although Nenque did not colonize Skalnaté, they formed an early union with the colony and also sought alliance and influence with Califersa. That colony's system has three asteroid belts rich in transuranics. The Xihe Colony was established independently but sought alliance with Jian Lu and its sphere of influence, and took over the Tsapek Colony within a few years of its founding, creating the earliest form of the Xihe Stellation. An attempt to bring the new Na'hashanabi Colony into the Stellation failed.
Several additional colonies were established in the Second Wave, of which only New Canada Colony, Hudders Colony. and Kajam Proxen have remained viable.
Early Technological Developments
The Centauri Expedition would not have been possible without the discovery of Skip-drive technology in the late 22nd century. Although dangerous and unpredictable, skip-drive propelled ships could travel at high multiples of lightspeed. Improvements to the technology powered the sixteen First Wave colony ships from the Sol.Tellus system. Five of the ships established colonies, three returned to Sol.Tellus system intact but unsuccessful, two were confirmed destroyed, the fate of the remaining six ships is still unknown.
Although it proved hazardous for human travel, the application of skip-propulsion for drone travel was exploited very early, enabling some (very erratic) FTL communication between colonies which became more reliable with the creation of beacon networks and, eventually, flow-pressure drive packet ships to connect interstellar nodes and carry messages to insystem distribution nodes via ComWeb systems.
The development of reliable Tachyon Generation using transuranics enabled two key advances, one branch of the technology was applied to more powerful and efficient arcology development, the other worked on effective translation of the massive power sources to FTL thrust. The first successful tachyon-drive supralight propulsion test was completed in 2350, and tachyon-drive ships powered the Second Wave of human colonization. Although flow-pressure drive has largely replaced tachyon-drive for interstellar travel (with the exception of some heavy freight applications), it remains the principal basis for insystem travel where flow pressures are weak, erratic, or absent.
Financing and Organizing Colonization
Proxen Colony was a world project funded by a consortium of Tellurian governments with investments from major educational, scientific, and commercial institutions. The other first-wave colonies were similarly financed by consortia combining government and commercial interests, with some subsidization from the Sol System Union.By the time tachyon drives unlocked the Second Wave, there were First Wave colonies with sufficient resources to form viable trading relationships with Sol.Tellus system and with one another. The Intercolonial Investment Trust was created to fund further expansion, and develop a trading currency, the yund, which was initially backed with a special colonial asset security bond.
The Carn Devis survey and the initial Union Colonial Establishment protocols had laid out the identify/survey/file/occupy protocol but there were no mechanisms in place to share data, leading to the institution of the Interstellar Clearinghouse Academy to provide a data hub for additional colonization activities. Shortly after its establishment, the Intercolonial Investment Trust, overweighted with currency management as well as investment activities, petitioned for a central banking institution to be created under the Academy's aegis, bringing into existence the Interworld Trade and Finance Reserve Bank.
The establishment of the Interstellar Clearinghouse Academy led to having Multi-World Entities Recognized as colonies formed trade groups and political alliances. Multi-World Entities vary greatly in focus, size, and structure, defined only by their recognized Framework.
We Are Not Alone
Early in the 25th Century, Klavangi ships visited human worlds, revealing the existence of other sophant spacegoing beings. Four ships, the I'irnaryn, the V'venyy, the Lu'vxyrri, and the Ten'nrys approached human worlds in late 2428 and early 2429. Communicating in Stanglish, the klavangi explained they had encountered technology of human origin - specifically skip-drones working the early beacon nets, revealing the existence of another spacefaring species.Fifteen years later, the Strill corvette Hraaghsk approached Berehyn. By this time the klavangi had established a permanent delegation to the Interstellar Clearinghouse Academy and human scholars and diplomats were aware of the existence of both strill and Emyrilli as spacefaring species. The klavangi delegation had obligingly provided language databases for both species, (although not for Kl'vaar), and thus both Strill and Klavangi diplomats were welcomed as observers at the Fourth Interstellar Colonial Axis Conference.
Humans did not encounter Emyrilli until one of the Semillas Arrojadas ships, the Pionera, visited Carn-devis 806c-9.52 and discovered the Emyrillian Prodlo colony. The Emyrilli invited humans to colonize the non-littoral areas of the planet, and in 2472 a human settlement was established there, and the Emyrillian League was invited to reciprocate in colonizing the littoral areas of Carn-devis 792d-9.61 and co-occupying with the newly-established Esperanza colony.
The Great Wave
The period between 2437 and 2487 saw the establishment of 32 colonies, of which 25 have succeeded and remain inhabited. This intense wave of colonial activity was fueled in part by the new technologies instigated by contact with other beings, including the combination of flow-pressure propulsion and Danstan field generator technology making supralight travel more widely accessible, and improvements in the skip-beacon network to facilitate rapid communication.The other factor underlying the unprecedented pace of colonial exploration and development during this period was a broadly-held perception that desirable habitable colony prospects were limited in availability. A kind of 'gold rush' mentality pervaded a number of colonial endeavors. A rash of fraudulent charter cases produced Queries at the Interstellar Clearinghouse Academy and piracy became a problem, with privateers and criminal enterprises waylaying colony supply shipping and commerce.
The number of planets within the loosely-defined 'Diaspora space' that may be human-occupied with no or minimal terraforming or the use of arcology technology does indeed remain limited, but the last quarter of the 25th century saw great Colonialization Technological Advances. The new technologies greatly increased the available range of suitable real estate and, in conjunction with escalating costs, somewhat slowed the pace of colonial expansion. The outbreak of the First Interstellar War in 2498 highlighted the inadequacies of colonial law and diplomacy and revealed the need for more robust organization and communication.
First Interstellar Plague
In 2478 the Diaspora was confronted with the problem of public health on an interstellar scale when the ragpox epidemic broke out. Given the times involved in interstellar travel, it was a remarkable accomplishment that the disease was eradicated within 20 years. It was also prescient. The creation of the Intercolonial Health Council and the assembly, funding, and training of the fleet of "mercy ships" (much derided at the time) were needed again to prevent minor epidemics from becoming Diaspora-wide several times over the next century until the great Double Plague of 2603.The development and implementation of the Decontamination and Quarantine Protocols by the Intercolonial Health Council are credited with saving many lives. They were not popular, especially among the commercial trading community, but after an incident involving transmission of Pan-corona-D in the Dragon Confederation during the early 26th century, all of the major Signatory powers agreed to enforce the protocols.
The Great Panic
By the beginning of the 26th century, the financial infrastructure of the Diaspora had become outdated. It had been limping along since the collapse of the Colonial Axis Monetary Fund in the mid-25th century, and the boom-and-bust in Colonial Development Funds had destabilized central banks in the Vegan Colonial Union and the Xihe Stellation.
An attempt to stabilize currency markets was attempted, and the Colonial Financing Regulatory Protocol Issued in 2491. While it slowed the pace of colonial development and cooled the boom-bust cycles, its effect was limited, as too little of the financial environment had any kind of shared protocols. There was little regulatory or enforcement power behid the Protocol, and its inadequacy became clear when the Intercolonial Investment Trust failed in 2562, setting off the Panic of 2562 and a Diaspora-wide financial contraction.
Conflict and Consolidation
Colonial expansion continued at a slower pace in the 26th and 27th centuries, while many established colonies consolidated agreements to become Multi-World Entities. The Dragon Coalition, New America, the Cordini Axis, and the Warakand League all came into existence during this period.As if the previous century's First Interstellar War had been a preparatory exercise, intercolonial conflict continued in the 26th Century with the Samarian Crusade, and growing tension between the Xihe Stellation and other ICA signatories. The growth of Humans First groups gave rise to a number of terrorist actions, mostly on a small scale, but sufficient to instigate a collaborative response that culminated in the Declaration of Respect and the creation of the College of the Pleiades.
Colonial expansion slowed further in the 27th Century, and both the Collapse of the Xihe Stellation and the Cordini Rebellion reshaped astropolitcal realities. The Nenque Alliance was sufficiently destabilized by the Cordini Rebellion and prolonged internal strife to succumb to an internal coup when member world Skalnaté overthrew the Entity's kivat, and became the capital of the new Skalni Union in 2674.
Back Where We Began: The Orion Wars
Note: No one knows why the plural. It was ONE war. Rooted in xenophobia, the Humans First ideology proved resilient and persistent, providing a protean set of organizing tools for demagogues, grifters, criminals and terrorists as it gained popularity in the latter half of the 27th century. The War of Manhome Liberation aka "Orion Wars" was the culmination of decades of propaganda and organization.While no world or Entity has ever taken responsibility for the recruitment and formation of the Manhome Liberation Fleet, evidence points fairly conclusively to well-funded factions within the Skalni Union and New America, with support from a number of parties in the then-Vegan Colonial Union (notably Senior Controllers within the Tind quasi-legal economy) and various Independent worlds.
The world of Tellus was, and remains, one of the smaller economies within the The Tellurian Federation At the time, Tellus had modest influence within the Federation Administration, seated at Berehyn, and only a small detachment of the Tellurian Federation Space Navy stationed at Nornbase. In that respect, the planning of the Manhome Liberation Fleet was strategically sound. Not only the Federation but a great many of the worlds whose people trace their forbears to Tellus, were shocked by how nearly the surprise attack succeeded.
Recent Developments
Backlash from the Orion Wars has contributed to the instability in the Alliance of Vegan Republics coalition. The Alliance's member world and consortium-backed factions have multiplied and balkanized the resources of the Entity, forming and re-forming fragile coalitions. The instability was only intensified in the impact of the Crash of 2692.Additional destabilization has followed the Lanncheck Epidemic. With Humans First sentiment surging in the Skalni Union and New America, the epidemic provoked widespread and unsupported theories and accusations. This has produced an upsurge in 'criminal' incidents focused on Emyrilli and Strill traders and travelers, and political actions against "pro-alien" colonies.
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