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2100-2300 'Astrum Diaspora'
2100-2300 Astrum Diaspora
With the development of the first Katsumi-Fujita FTL Counter-Mass Drive in 2096, Mankind began an age of peaceful expansion throughout the stars. With overcrowding a serious issue on the Sol-based human colonies as well as an ever growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, applications to privatized colony ventures were high. With early ships traveling in the upper folds of gravity-space, interstellar Journey’s still took months and even years to complete. Yet the daunting reality of up two twenty years on a starship did not deter the would be colonist, and it wasn’t long until hundreds of colony ships had left the cradle of humanity for distant stars – hoping to find homes of their own.
Given the vast distances between the far reaches of humanities colonization efforts, as well as missions that spring boarded to even greater distances after an initial colony had been established, it wasn’t long until human colonist lost touch with earth and the rest of their species. By 2120, the last of the first generation human colonies had been settled and mankind entered the period which is now known as “Astrum Diaspora.”
Earth
The two-hundred year separation from its daughter worlds was not easy on the cradle of humanity. By 2123, tension between the strongly unified European Union, the re-industrialized North American States, and the Commercial Conglomerate of Eastern Nations came to fever pitch levels. On June 4th of that year, The North American Air-Force began an orbital bombardment of principle military instillations of the Eastern Nations. The next day, the United Nations was dissolved and a state of war developed between the three major super-powers - World War IV. For ten months, kinetic strike after kinetic strike was exchanged between militaries until the major urban centers around the world had been reduced to rubble and billions of people had been displaced from their homes or killed in the ensuing bloodhsed. With worldwide economic collapse imminent and no decisive military action possible, the shattered governments of all three major powers met at one of the displaced citizens’ tent cities named for the destroyed city which it was near, New Geneva.
What emerged from New Geneva was one of the most revolutionary shifts in government on earth. First, the United Nations was re-established as the central government on earth, with all national governments acting as lesser authorities to the new UN council. Second, the New Geneva summit established a singular international currency in order to stabilize the inflation rates world-wide as well as reduce the complexity of a unified rebuilding effort and recovery effort. Third, the new UN council began establishing unified relations with Earth’s colonies in the sol system and by 2125, the Martian and Europan government’s had joined the UN aas full members. It is worth mentioning that many historians consider the clauses added to the UN charter which governed the assimilation of Mars and Europa into their governing body as the precedence that allowed the future development of the Intersystem Alliance out of the UN.
After the reformation of the old UN, Earth and its colonies entered a rebuilding and stabilization period that took nearly half a century to complete. The near total devastation of most of earth’s major urban centers, while terrible on a human scale, served to allow the complete restructuring of infrastructure of earth and what emerged at the end of the Astrum Diaspora period was an Earth with a much stronger foundation, more unified government and people, and the necessary centralized power to become the eventual leader of the core of humanity’s colonies.
The second half of Astrum Diaspora on earth was centered around growth and expansion. From 2175-2200, the UN Space Agency (UNSA) began the construction of a series of major installations which would eventually become the major orbital ports of the earth in the 2800s. These pair of stations, one in earth orbit and one in mars orbit, were known as Port New Geneva and Port Olympia respectively. By the time of their completion in 2240, earth was already becoming a local economic power as FTL capable merchant ships began carrying goods to and from the interstellar super power to its neighboring states.
In 2242, with the crisis on Loridin (see Intersystem Alliance Introduction Document), the first extra solar member nation was added to the UN. The following fifty years constituted and expansionary explosion as nation’s joined the UN rapidly and by the end of the century, the UN had grown to a sixty world entity - the galaxies first interstellar superpower. However, growing unrest and a historically relevant tagline - ‘No taxation without equal representation’ - being shouted by the extra-solar member states led to the eventual dissolution of the UN and the formation of the Intersystem Alliance, marking the end of the Astrum Diaspora period.
Outside of Sol Sector
The Centauri Conglomerate
The Centauri Conglomerate is the oldest extra-solar colony ever established by mankind. Settled far before the the first FTL colony ships were constructed, the Centauri colonies sprung from a cluster of sub-FTL powered colony ships that set out from earth in 2083. The three colony ships, shot across the stars on a primitive mass-drive engine design barely able of achieving a velocity of .5c took nearly 9 years to reach their destination, arriving just before the start of the Astrum Diasopora period.
As a result, the Centaurians spent the first one-hundred years of this period terraforming their would be homeworlds as well as investing in and constructing an infrastructure. This process was facilitated by the fact that a large fraction of the Ceantauri colonist were pioneering scientist in their fields. In addition, the Centauri sector was found to be extremely resource rich - a fact that drove the Centaurian Interstellar Economy throughout and well beyond the Astrum Diaspora period.
By 2250, Centauri had joined the UN as one of the early extrasolar members. Its already strong interstellar economy was supplemented with increased trade between it and the sol-sector worlds. Furthermore, it was around this time that Centauri scientist plotted the first gravity termini allowing for rapid travel across vast distances. These two events secured Centauri a place in the interstellar economy post Diaspora.
Leading up to 2300, Centauri became an epicenter for unrest as taxation from the unequally represented UN council began to hit the colonies. This unrest fed the pandaemonium which culminated with the bombing of the UN battleship Maiden in orbit of Centauri prime. In one of the largest standoffs to that date, ships of the UN security forces and Centauri local defense ran pursuit maneuvers around each other till UN forces jumped out of the system. For a month, Centauri prepared for war with the much larger UN fleet. However, on January 2nd, 2997, UN ambassadors arrived in the system and began the reform eventually leading to the formation of the Intersystem Alliance.
Elsewhere
Other star-systems outside of the local cluster (Sol and the Centauri Conglomerate) experienced varying degrees of expansion. It was during this period that the star systems that would eventually become the Coalition of Independent Systems, Star Kingdom of Sagittarius, and the Atlantean Empire were colonized, and while each system has their own history - an exhaustive guide of the evolution of each is beyond the scope of this essay.
What is worth noting is that during the Astrum Dispora period, trade beyond regional sections was fairly nonexistent. It wasn’t until the plotting of the vast network of gravity termini that stretch across the galaxy that trade picked up and that did not begin until the Interstellar Destiny Period (2300-2500).