What if the Prothean Outpost on Mars was destroyed completely and there wasn't any salvageable tech? Contrary to majority of Mass Effect fanfiction writers exploring this topic, i seriously doubt Humanity would invent Star Trek-tier technology in no time. I think we would stuck in Sol at least for one more century, but... would it really be that bad? In Mass Effect Humanity became interstellar civilization literally at last minute before the coming of Reapers. What if we got grounded in our homesystem for a couple more of "minutes"? Lets see... empty galaxy, free for taking (free if you can handle a couple of giant reptiles with a taste for alien diplomats...), we would become one of the races lying first bricks for the new galactic civilization! Of course all those races and characters we know and love from the trilogy ending up as a part of some filthy Reaper would be a shame, but imagining a story of humanity being one of the oldest existing civilizations is still something intersting, right? It is, at least for me. Anyway, I just got nice (in my own personal opinion) idea for a fanfic and now i'm doing it. Though i think it would be appropriate to make some things clear first:

-I'm most probably not going to make regular updates

-It's my first attempt at writing some longer text in English, and i'm pretty sure i will make some mistakes.

-I'm not sure about my action-scenes-writing skill, even in my native language. As also i'm fan of worldbuilding, this fanfiction is going to be made mostly of in-world articles and reports. Though i can guarantee i'm going to try to write some short(s) if this fanfiction will ever get to more than a few chapters.

Anyway, enjoy timeline:

2148 - Prospector team founds alien ruins in Promethei Planum region of Mars, after thorough examination by scientists it's discovered that ruins were subject of harsh orbital bombardment. When the fact is uncowered to the public, levels of both panic and support for human race's unification movements increases tenfold.

2149 - In response to popular demand, UN expads United Nation's Exterrestial Affairs Agency with Military Defence Division and Diplomatic Division. First action of newly-created MDD is to officialy take-over the alien ruins and start intense efforts to reverse engineer alien technology, unfortunately, all tech is too destroyed to figure out anything out of it.

2156 - At 7th of October, after referendum in all of them, colonies on Mars officialy gain indepdence from Earth's various nation states and form Commonwealth of Mars which at 28th of November gains status of full UN's member and title of first exterrestial polity to do so. All of Earth's nations which lost their dependencies on Mars have outburst of far-right nationalists who call referendum "a plot by vicious NWO to cripple their great nation's strenght and sovereingty", but those people are few in numbers when compared to those who don't care, those who are sligthly annoyed at most by new inteplanetary border and trade regulations and human universalists, who call it "a next small step to victory of humanity's desire for unity over desire to murder each other in petty neo-tribal squabbles" and express their hope for similar thing happening on Earth before the end of century.

2160 - This year's summer olympics in Damascus are the first ones in history with exterrestial(Martian) representation participacing. Though some ancient aliens theory's supporters might polemize...

2163 - Ship sponsored by SpaceX, EU, United Korea, Brazil and CoM, filled with lifesamples from depths of Earth's oceans lands on Europa and begans to carefully release earthen lifeforms into Europa's ocean beginning from extremophile bacterias. This is first action which can be called an attempt at terraformation in mankind's history.

2168 - At the twentieh anniversary of discovery of undeniable proof of existence of alien civilizations, human universalists manage to convice world's leaders to assemble in Geneva at First United Earth And United Humanity Congress. No moves toward unification of Earth are undertaken but Theodore Schenter, the representative of Free Lunar Republic Movement is first time oficially heared and leaders of all Big Five countries (EU, USA, Brazil, India and Federal Republic of China) promise him to take his movement's cause to their respective goverments. Mars also reaches population of 5 000 000 people in this year.

2171 - Asimov Radiotelscope on Luna and several other powerful radiotelescopes across Sol detect very weak signal from Alpha Centauri system. Signal comes from descendants of crew of Manswell's colonization ship. Colonists say that the mission of colonization of planet in Alpha Centauri system was success, the planet was named "Chiron" and it orbits smallest star of the system, Proxima Centauri. Population of colony is exactly 1156 people. They also say they would eagerly welcome next batch of colonists, "There's enough of both space and work to do on Chiron for a couple of billion of people, and there's only a bit more than one thousand of us here". UNEAA almost immediately after receiving the message begins new colonization ship's constuction with abundant sponsoring from all kinds of polities, from goverments and major corporations, trough various foundations to billionaires and millionaires.

2173 - SpaceX declares "terraformation" efforts on Europa a success! New local ecosystem is already stable and within next decade it will become just as biodiverse as Earth's ocean depth's ecosystems. SpaceX also annouce beginning of construction of experimental fusion-powered "submarine city" for five hundred people in Europa's oceans. It is supposed to be finished and populated in 2180. At this same year UNEAA finishes U.N.V Unity, the new colonization ship, and sends it to Alpha Centauri system with 1500 people onboard at quater the speed of light. Also, Theodore Schenter is elected mayor of Armstrong City, being the first member of Free Lunar Republic Movement to get into major public function. FLRM's support grows further after this.

2175 - Luna becomes second human colony with over 5 000 000 inhabitants..

2180 - As promised by SpaceX, underwater floating city on Europa is finished and it's five hundred new inhabitants are delivered to their new home by three Heavy Dragon IV-class ships. SpaceX now looks toward Enceladus as its next colonization prospect.

2181 - Indepdence referendum on Luna finally happens and FLRM wins with even bigger percentage of votes for indepdence than their Martian counterparts 25 years ago. Though for this to happen FLRM was forced by earthen powers to agree to free trade treaty with all of them, so they won't lose advantage over minor nation states by also being forced to pay border fees. Theodore Schenter is elected first president.

2190 - U.N.V Unity enters into orbit of Chiron. Unity's captain comes down to the town of Manswellville and meets it's mayor, Louis Manswell. A week later town of Unity is founded a couple of hundred kilometers west from Manswellville and by the end of the year all colonists from U.N.V Unity, with exception of a few dozen specialists helping to modernize the infrastucture and implant new fusion generator in Manswellville, live in it. They also send confirmation of the Unity's mission's success to Sol.

2191 - Second United Earth And United Humanity Congress happens in Hong Kong, and this time it bears fruits: international organization made of all earthen UN members is created. It's called United Earth and it's HQ is in Hong Kong and it's official long-time goal is to became Earth's planetary goverment. Just a few months after it's founding, UE made the first step towards fulfilling it's goal: all citizens of all earthen countries now do not need any visa to visit any other earthen countries. Human universalists are in state of extasy.

2194 - Sol receives success confirmation from Unity. Construction of the next colony ship begins soon after.

2195 - Third colony is christened as Magellan and launched.

2203 - Magellan reaches Alpha Centauri system and its passengers join the people inhabiting Chiron. They send success confirmation to Sol. In the Sol itself, Commonwealth of Mars begans terraformation of its planet by opening thousands of greenhouse gas fabrics across the globe and releasing the colonies of extremophile bacterias into the Martian soil and air. UE introduces first digital-only official currency in history of mankind: Earthcoin and also introduces world-wide version of Schengen Agreement.

2207 - UNEAA construct Stanford Torus in orbit of Earth and send fourth colonization to Alpha Centauri system.

2222 - Google introduces second VI generation to the world. Also United Earth Parliament have its first meeting.

2230 - Researchers from Gagarin Station open research outpost on Charon after one of the planetoid's analysises showed very strange metal formation deep under its surface.

2231 - After a few more analysises, which confirmed the existence of metal formation, scientists start to send various signals of various frequencies to see how it will react. When transmitting one of the signals, computers detected massive energy outburst, then began the earthquake of off-the-charts strenght. Scientists evacuated themselves at last minute before Charon has been completely destroyed, revealing fifteen kilometer long spoon-shaped object with blue-glowing orb and ring rotating very fastly around it in a place of the spoon's head. Worldwide disscusion about object and its nature begins. Almost everyone agree it was either build by aliens from Promethei Planum or those responsible for their demise, but there no such universal agreement about the reason of alien device: half of people say it's interstellar WMD and the half say it's FTL device. After a thorough analysis it's determined that the latter group is right. UN orders UNEAA to prepare expedition to go through.

2233 - Expedition goes through the device and lands in Arcturus system 36 lightyears away in an instant, they also notice a couple of similar devices in system. They return to Sol and report their findings. The Third United Earth And United Humanity Congress is assembled in New York. A lot of major decision are undertaken: Earth is officialy integrated into planet-state with UE as its goverment and UNEAA's MDD is reformed into independent organization of United Nations's Interstellar Defence Forces and it will get financing in form of 1% of budget of all of UN member states. Alien FTL devices, dubbed "Mass Relays" now, can be opened only with approbation of UN due to risk of meeting hostile alien species and other dangers. After unification of Earth, UN is at the same time at its biggest territorial range and at its lowest member count in history. There's only five members of the UN at the moment: United Earth, Commowealth of Mars, Free Lunar Republic, Union of Titan and Enceladus and Federation of Europa.

2234 - UNIDF begins construction of the Cerberus Station in Arcturus system in orbit of the system's main gas giant to serve as first line of defence against any aggresion towards Sol system.

2236 - UNIDF finish construction of the Cerberus Station.

2237 - U.N.V New Horizons opens one of three inactive Mass Relays found in Arcturus system with UN's permission and jumps through it. On the other side they find something magnificent: an earth-like world! After they return with new info to Earth, UN gives permission to open two other relays. After the second one explorers found next system with an earth-like world, although it's a bit colder, less fertile and overally a bit worse place to live than the first one. The last inactive relay in the Arcturus system is a bit different from the other three: it's only six kilometer long. After activating it, New Horizons's crew discovers next difference beetwen this one and others: while all bigger relays could transport them to only one another of them, the smaller could move them to all three relays beyond Arcturus system they discovered so far.

2240 - First of Earth-class worlds(as they're now officialy called) discovered by New Horizons is named Eden Prime, and its system is named Utopia, and the second one is named Terra Nova and its system is named Asgard. On both lands UN colony ship with thousand people onboard.

2243 - Boeing estabilishes regular passenger craft courses between Earth and both of the colonies. It is used almost exlusively by colonists.

2244 - SpaceX does not want to be kicked out of the title of the biggest company in human space, so it replicates Boeing's idea. UNIDF estabilishes garrisons on both extrasolar colonies.

2245 - Eden Prime now have a population of over six thousand people, first extrasolar school in history of mankind is estabilished in planetary capital of Constant.

2248 - UN allows to open an unactive big relay in Utopia system. UNIDF divides itself into Ground Forces and Space Forces. System found beyond the newly opened relay does not contain garden world but it contains another big relay and a small one. The small relay is used to travel back to Sol through Arcturus system. The new system is classified simply as 2248 Eistein, after the flagship of the expedition.

2258 - Crew of the prospector ship UNV Sacramento insert wrong cordinates when jumping through the small relay in 2248 Eistein and in effect jumps into piervously unknown system containing Earth-class world. Planet is named Benning and is colonized almost immediately. Also, survey team in Utopia system finds strange massless substance in system's oort cloud. It is dubbed Element Zero.

Golden Century of Colonization

2260-2360

Element Zero turns out to have a great deal of applications in almost all categories of technology. With its help, scientists invent non-relay FTL, artificial gravity and a lot of other wondorous things in just a couple of decades! It allowed for development of interstellar trade and colonization. Due to migration and high childbirth rate, many colonies beat one-milion population benchmark in a very short time, some even in less than a decade since their founding! Some planets house even over a dozen milion people and more on them. Chiron colony in Alpha Centauri system is contacted with in 2268, during the first ftl field test and it joins UN. In 2273, construction of the aptly named Arcturus Station in Arcturus system begins. It is supposed to be finished in 2280 and replace the old Cerberus Station, which is now obsolete due to the discovery of Element Zero. Year 2297 will be always badly remembered as the year when the age of space piracy began as that's when the colony on planet of New Vermont has been raided by a small fleet of makeshift ships. Decades go on, and by 2360, humanity inhabit 51 worlds in 23 systems and possesses hundreds of small outposts and space stations.

Please review and say how my English is! As i said at the top, that's my first attempt at writing a longer text in English, and i would like to know how i did.

19.12.2017 16:23 I have noticed a couple of typos myself and fixed them.