Alright folks, here's the next one!
One comment I have to make concerns a part of this chapter where the discovery of the Mass Relay is detailed. I find it utterly ridiculous that the Sol Relay would be contained within Charon, given how large this particular moon is. (1200 km diameter) Therefore, I changed it to the relay being a ball of ice orbiting Charon.
This is the last time-line chapter, as after this I will start with the first real story arc.
Hope you all enjoy it! (Feel free to ask questions in your reviews)
Prologue (Part three): Time is relative
One year after the discovery of the time-dilation device known as the Chronosphere the Confederation Government gave the green light for activation. It had taken the President months to convince the few world leaders that had been briefed on the situation, but after having seen the Gatekeeper VI perform another small scale test of the device, most of them were convinced the device was safe. Upon activation of the device, a faint ripple could be noticed throughout the solar system, spreading from the Promethei Planum on Mars until the outer edges of the Sol system past the Kuiper belt. If you'd look at the system from the outside, it'd look blurry and unclear, as every movement within was operating on a different clock.
The years after the Chronosphere were numerous and tumultuous, starting with the great reclamation of the Western US states. Lessons learned on Mars enabled the Confederation government to develop a biological agent capable of removing leftover radiation, as it literally fed on it. It still took over two decades to completely reclaim the lost land, but in the end, the American soil was restored to its former glory. The agent introduced made many species within the irradiated lands slightly more resistant to radiation, and the national flora and fauna quickly reclaimed the land.
The U.W.C. continued its policy of heavily funding scientific endeavours, as most of the other sectors of labour were shrinking quickly. The field of robotics, already being one of the more developed fields, completely automatized heavy industry, and the days of having factory workers were over. Of course, engineers and mechanics were still employed, but most of the now unemployed were given free re-education to join the ever growing scientific forces of the U.W.C.
On Mars the colonies were quickly developing heavy industry, and the city of Ares was rapidly becoming an industrial powerhouse, supported by the scientific ventures of the scientists in Novus. Mars provided the U.W.C. with the funds to continue its re-education campaign without bankrupting itself, and by 2070 the colony boasted over 200.000 inhabitants. The rapid technological progression within the Confederation did not go unnoticed, as in 2073 the African Union petitioned for membership. Even though the Union could not provide the U.W.C. with new technology, the Confederation government saw potential in the African people and mostly the land. A proposal was filed to the Union that they would be allowed to join, on the condition that they would allow the U.W.C. to expand food production capabilities onto the African Continent. Whilst a lot of Africans saw this as a move to make the Union a client state of the U.W.C., the proposal was accepted nonetheless.
The years 2073-2098 were known as the great African restoration, with U.W.C. farms providing enough food to become a completely self-sufficient nation. Many Africans joined the confederation re-education programs, and by 2098 Saharan Tech labs were no uncommon sight. Poverty still existed of course, but every effort was made to alleviate to suffering of the poor within the U.W.C.
The original expedition members were well known individuals within the confederation, Dr. Hugo Keldrop being the foremost of them. The doctor dedicated his life to study of the Chronosphere, which had become common knowledge within the U.W.C.'s scientific community. The destruction of the Martian aliens, who were named Protheans, was also a hot topic of study within the community, as their fate was one that humanity wished to avoid at all costs. Keldrop produced numerous scientific studies, but his "A study of time and relativity" was the one that got him famous.
(Exerpt from: "A study of time and relativity")
…
Time is, in essence, one of the most difficult physical concepts to get a proper grasp on. Whilst a simple application or usage of time as physical unit is centuries old, the concept of spacetime is still relatively new to mankind. The theories, of course, have existed for almost two centuries, but any probable application using the phenomena known as the spacetime continuum has eluded us. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of any study-able objects manipulating this continuum within our current research base. At least, that is one of the hindrances humanity faced until the discovery of the Chronosphere on Mars. The exact functioning of the machine still eludes us, but a general knowledge of the objects functioning does exist.
If the Spacetime continuum within our solar system would normally be represented as a flat plate with slight bubbles around the heavier objects such as planets and the sun, it could now be represented as a giant white hole, with the original representation of the continuum still present within this white hole. Humanity has surmised theories about time dilation when nearing a black or white hole, stating that that the curvature of space time around objects of a high enough mass leads to a longer traveling path for any kind of matter. It would produce an effect known to man as time dilation, with the relative time passed between matter on the longer curved route being lower than for matter not on this curved path. If this effect is reversed by the presence of an extremely negative mass, the effects would, in theory, be completely opposite.
However, this in turn would lead to a large problem, as nothing made of positive mass would actually be able to get close to the negative singularity present within a white hole. White holes are known to be emitters of mass, repelling everything that approaches them. In order for positive time dilation to work, one must be inside this field, almost like living inside the singularity. This is what I guess the Chronosphere does; it places our solar system within a "singularity" of an artificial white hole, introducing a temporal difference between Sol and the rest of the galaxy. My guess is that the outer satellites function as field stabilisers, but in all honesty their exact function still eludes the best of us.
This brings me to one of my arguments concerning the Prothean technology. Recent studies concerning the unknown element found close to the Prothean base have shown the effect of this element (dubbed Element Zero, or Nillium) being introduced to an electric charge. This charge, in combination with Eezo, creates a field that can actually alter mass properties of matter. This would suggest that by introducing a strong enough negative charge to the Eezo, it could theoretically be possible to create negative mass, and in turn, the opposite of time dilation.
The energy requirements for such a machine would be immense, and recent scans have shown that the chronosphere operates using a set of generators buried deep within the Martian crust. It leads to the assumption that the Protheans would have to have been near-complete masters of this "mass-effecting" technology, as time manipulation is, in essence, the most advanced form of mass manipulation.
…
Over the next fifty years, Sabre Energy Co. improved its fusion generators in such a fashion that by 2140 the entirety of the U.W.C. was powered by fusion energy. Most of the other countries didn't enjoy such luxuries yet, but efforts were being made to include them in the confederation. Formal declarations of cooperation made between Oceania and the U.W.C. were soon followed by them joining the U.W.C. In 2156 the majority of Asia joined the confederation, leaving only China, the Southern American countries and the Middle East as independent regions.
2164 marked another great occasion for humanity, as the Martian atmosphere, after having undergone terraforming efforts for over a hundred years, had reached a point where its atmosphere became breathable and non-toxic for humans. The magnetic field problem had already been solved in 2068, when a giant electromagnetic installation powered by fusion energy was built at various "hotspots" on the Martian surface. For the first time in history, humanity had changed a planet from a dull and barren rock into a new, vibrant ecosystem. The domed cities of Ares and Novus celebrated this huge milestone by formally opening the domes, and images of Martian children enjoying the fresh breeze of Martian air could be seen all across the Earth. Tourism to the "red" planet boomed, as the species of plant and animal introduced to the planet had adjusted to planetary life rather quickly, and the weather patterns of the planet had produced an already famous natural wonder, the Crater Lakes.
Traffic between Mars and Earth was booming due to the invention of artificial gravity systems and inertial dampeners, and the local news agencies started dubbing it the space highway, but travel was still relatively slow, as the scientists hadn't cracked the light speed question yet. Modern ships were capable of reaching Mars within a day, and the really good ones were capable of pushing it to just over 18 hours. Secondary colonization plans were in the make, as the U.W.C. had set its sights on Venus as the next to-be garden world in the Sol system. The first human standing on the Venusian surface planted the U.W.C. flag in 2178, marking the start of the next planetary project.
Whilst most of humanity's view was pointed towards the endless abyss that is space, other scientific branches started reporting major breakthroughs as well. One of the more interesting finds was the telomere-regenerating therapy, a medical treatment that effectively increased the resilience of cells against splitting. On average, the therapy gave humans another fifty years to live, given that one didn't fall prey to a major disease, as many of those still existed despite humanities' best efforts. The ultimate disease-ending solution still eluded us, but many of the scientists were quite certain that it would be found eventually.
In 2183, Earth's population was reaching a tipping point at 22 billion. Smart housing systems within the U.W.C. did all they could to extend to population cap present on Earth, but it could only go so far. Because Mars was looking more like Earth every day, the U.W.C. had concluded that it was time for another push into space, and as such, it introduced huge financial bonuses to any civilians willing to leave the Earth and settle on Mars. The result was staggering, and subsequently called the great migration, as over 7 billion people agreed to leave the planet within the next two decades. Martian construction was booming, and although providing proper infrastructure for the incoming civilians was one hell of a job, it was made possible through great feats of cooperation.
By the end of the year 2207, Martian population had reached 7.5 billion, living in various "smart" multilevel cities that dotted the planet surface. Food production was starting to become an obstacle however, as most of food produced in Africa had to stay on Earth. In typical human fashion, a solution to the problem was found before it could become too severe. Thanks to gene-manipulation therapies and artificial food production, humanity was able to build a giant food machine beneath the Martian surface, with thousands of square km's of "super farms" and protein-processing plants.
A grand milestone in human history came in 2238, when the last remaining countries on Earth were finally included in the U.W.C, which was renamed the Terran Confederation in honour of the humongous achievement. Humanity would stand as one against the threats the galaxy could and would pose.
Over the course of the next two hundred years, humanity kept advancing in the various existing research fields, but one of the most interesting developments was the creation of the first proper artificial intelligence, although many among humanities' scientists still argue if this creation was solely our species' triumph or the Protheans' as well. To create the first A.I., humanity had linked various supercomputers with the Prothean Gatekeeper V.I., giving the "entity" more room to expand its processes. They had introduced various smaller programs and databases to the V.I., and after an assimilation process that took nearly 20 years, Gatekeeper entered a form of true intelligence upon asking about the nature of his existence. Humanities new A.I. soon became capable of handling more processes than just the operation of the Chronosphere, and one of the more interesting events surrounding this change are the so-called Gatekeeper Series, where a news program actually interviewed the Gatekeeper for all of the world to see.
(Segments of the Gatekeeper Series, March 2402)
"Please welcome humanity's first A.I., Gatekeeper. He has agreed to answer some of the questions that have been hounding your minds, and tonight we will finally learn these truths."
The interviewer switched on a screen link to Mars, which showed to Prothean hologram live, as the signal delay between Earth and Mars was only .1 seconds due to Fast-buoy communications.
"Gatekeeper, would you care to answer one simple question to start? Why did the Protheans create the Chronosphere in our solar system?" asked the interviewer.
"The exact reason of its construction was not embedded into my data banks, but during the years I worked with doctor Jagrad, I overheard, on more than one occasion, that he believed your species had potential. The original purpose for all Chronosphere experiments was to provide a safe bastion of hope to the Prothean people, but it is the one objective that we failed to accomplish."
"Interesting," the host said as he moved on to the next question, "Now, one thing that has been burning in all our minds is the existence and purpose of the "machines". Who are they, and why do they do what they did to the Prothean people?"
"This question can only be answered partially, as the purpose of the "machines", which we dubbed reapers, eluded us. They are very large synthetic life forms, ranging from 100 meters tall to over 2 kilometers. All of the Reapers are sentient "ships" so to speak, as they are all capable of Faster-than-light travel. These ships attack organic life as soon as galactic civilization has evolved to certain level of advancement, and civilizations that the developed along the "Mass-effect" technological path, as the Protheans did, become trapped in their own empire."
"Yes, about that trap, how many Mass Relays exist?"
"My databanks do not contain exact numbers, but since gaining my sentience I have run an analysis of the Relay network. I concluded that there are no more than 600 to 800 prime Relays, and about twenty to forty thousand secondary relays. The prime pairs are located all over the galaxy, providing certain pre-determined hubs if you will. In all honesty the Relay network covers less than ten percent of the total amount of stars within the Milky Way galaxy, but for some reason the "Reapers" still manage to harvest civilizations every cycle. My guess for this would be that every civilization has an extremely high chance of encountering M.E. technology, and as it is the "easy" path, civilizations adopt this path with ease."
"Well, that's certainly something we'll try to avoid then. Do you have an estimate of the number of Reapers?" the host asked interested.
"No, my databanks were not filled with military logistics. But a simple calculation would show that there have to be millions or even billions of them in order to efficiently harvest a species."
…
The Gatekeeper Series are one of the reasons that every single human within the Sol system knows about the fate of historic galactic societies. They are also one of the reasons that humanity started preparing for war soon after the unification of Earth.
These two-hundred years also included the proper colonization and terraforming of Venus, which had grown quickly from a small frontier colony into a hub of its own right. Almost a billion people called Venus their home in 2403 and more flocked to the Venusian lands every day. Apart from Venus Asteroid Mining Companies were also popping up all across the Solar System, which provided the human economy with a giant influx of resources.
500 years after the activation of the Chronosphere humanity's progress was staggering. Research into advanced genetics had increased human lifespan to just over 300 years, and most formerly lethal diseases had become chronic. New mega-engineering projects were being started nearly every day, as living space was once more becoming scarce. Skyscrapers extended as much below ground as they shot up into the sky, and it wasn't uncommon to have apartment spires measure more than 4 km's from top to bottom. To accommodate the travel needs of the massive population on Earth and Mars vacuum sealed Mag-Lev lines were built, effectively reducing travel times between cities by hours compared to conventional "Airborne" travel.
In 2567 one of humanity's foremost researchers published a study on human population growth, and concluded that even if humanity was to terraform and colonize all four of the Galilean Moons, Triton, Titan and Luna, it would still run out of habitable space within three thousand years. Orbital stations would be able to provide some relief, but in order to sustain human population until the LEAP (Official name for Chronosphere de-activation), the best course of action was to build an Ecumenopolis-type planet within the solar system. The particular researcher argued that while the methods of planetary construction were still beyond the skills humanity possessed, leaps in technology over the next thousand years would make this endeavour possible. Most of the scientific community embraced this plan, and it was named project HAVEN, and it included several of the artificial worlds specialised in certain areas. In total four planets were planned by the project leaders, one ecumenopolis to house most of humanity's population, one fortress world solely focused on the production of military ships, one scientific heaven world that provided ample facilities to increase the rate of advancement and one new garden world to test mankind's capability to construct a "next-to-nature" planet.
Between the 2500 and 3000 C.E. humanity expanded its presence within the inner solar system to almost every planetoid they could find. Humanity was living everywhere in the solar system and more and more people wanted to build a structure that would properly mark their presence within the system. Whilst the artificial planets were still much too complex, there were other, more viable ideas. In 2617 a few engineers pitched an idea to create a massive ring-world around the Earth to provide more living and corporate space, and much to their amazement the idea took off. Construction on the Earth-ring began in 2698, after a small century of designing the construct and gathering the required resources from the asteroid belts. The ring was finished in 2781, and was connected to the Earth by space elevators. Whilst its main purpose was to provide housing, the ring itself formed an ideal platform for planetary defences, and within months extensive Ring Defence Platforms (RDP) were being built at regular intervals all along the ring.
It was during this same period that the terraforming of the major moons of the solar system started, which proved to be quite the challenge, as the outer moons would require a very dense atmosphere to even be able to contain enough heat to provide acceptable living conditions. The process started with the terraforming of Luna, which was the easiest out of all the moons. By 3000 C.E. all the "large" moons in the solar system had something that resembled breathable atmosphere, although only Luna could be classified as another garden world.
One of the greatest events of human history occurred in the year 3156, when ten of humanity's most advanced A.I.'s merged into a super-intelligence capable of accelerating the technological development to unimaginable levels. The super-intelligence created multiple copies of itself, and they were shipped to various locations within human space. This technological "singularity", as it was called, started introducing humanity to new technologies daily, one of the most important being the matter converter, a machine capable of producing any element given enough raw materials. It meant that even rocks could be used as proper resources, as their conversion rate was close to a 1 – 1.5 ratio. Another grand invention was that of energy shielding, making ship based shields and large city-wide or even planetary shields a viable possibility.
Colonization of the outer systems (Trans-Neptunian) started in 3241, when the first city was established on Pluto. The domed city was built as an outpost to study Pluto's largest moon, Charon, which was supposed to be a mass relay according to the Gatekeeper, but knowing it was there did not mean that actually finding the relay would be easy. Charon was a moon with a diameter of 1200 km's, which was not exceptionally big compared to big "solar" moons, but to find an object about 15 kilometres long buried somewhere in the moon was no simple task, even with the scanning technology available to mankind.
The breakthrough came in 3242, when one of the researchers on the Relay Discovery Project tested a theory about the Protheans having actually buried the Relay themselves, and he promptly started scanning Charon's surface for structural deformations around 50000 years old. After weeks of surveying surface examples at possible sites, an anomaly was detected at Site Alpha-546. Observation probes on the surface had discovered that the site had shown unexplainable "flashes" of dark energy similar to those used in Mass Effect technology, but deep surface scans still showed a regular moon crust. It was at that very moment that the researchers on Charon turned their gaze skywards and caught a flash of a small asteroid-like moon that was apparently orbiting Charon. Upon pointing their scanners at the object they deduced that the Ice ball they had observed was actually the Mass Relay. They had been searching inside the moon, whilst the Relay was actually simply orbiting the moon. Discovery of the Relay led to the creation of the quarantined no-fly zone around Charon to minimize the risk of accidental activation, and only authorized personnel were allowed to approach the object.
Over the next millennia humanity continued to expand its influence in the solar system, relying on increasingly advanced forms of technology to manipulate the system. Most of the smaller moons and dwarf planets were expanded into proper scientific hubs boasting populations in the thousands, whilst the larger moons of Io, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, Titan and Triton were developed into proper garden worlds capable of supporting human life. The total human population was still growing rapidly and the next phase of development for project HAVEN was started in 4134. The design for the Ecumenopolis planet took well over a century, as no engineering project of this scale had ever been attempted. However, according to the latest scientific models, Humanity would not have enough resources within the Solar system to complete all four of the planets at an acceptable pace. Whilst asteroid mining provided the human economy with enough resources to construct them, the shipping speed of the freighters was still too low, and it would mean that the construction of a single planet would take close to five centuries. Whilst humankinds most celebrated minds started tackling the problem, green light was given for the construction of Juno, the first human ecumenopolis.
Construction of the artificial world started in 4158, and the first habitable sections of the planet were completed in 4271. One of the more interesting factors of Juno's construction was the constant influx of colonists to the new world. Each time a new section of the planet opened up, people were already racing to claim the fabled real estate, even though the generation of atmosphere was planned as the very last step in the construction of the planet. It seemed humans enjoyed the view of space whilst still being able to live on a planet.
Atmospheric generation began in 4789, and Juno was officially marked as complete in 4794, already being home to more than 40 billion humans. In theory the planet would be able to easily house more than five trillion souls, and realistic models had shown that this would be the case around the 11th millennium. One of the more interesting ways to describe the planet was: "Take the entire surface area of the Earth, including the oceans and seas, and cover it with New York City." The construction of the other planets was scheduled to start in the 10th millennia, as researchers were sure humanity would be able to construct the planets in decades instead of centuries by then.
After having thrown trillions of Confederation Credits into project ARC, the humanity's first working FTL propulsion system was completed in 4811, and it was dubbed the "Archdrive", as it was capable of providing an Arch into alternate dimensions where different laws of physics applied. Using regular starship engines, spacecraft were now capable of reaching every place in the solar system within a minute. Whilst its full capabilities were not easy to test in such a "small" playground, the device was constantly re-evaluated and updated to provide a better dimension to transition into. The theory was that if the drive was to be perfected enough, it could provide access to a dimension that would allow for proper inter-galactic travel, but such feats were still beyond humanity, for the moment…
Between the 6th and 8th millennia, humanity started experimenting with methods to literally mine stars, as simulations had shown that doing so would decrease the lifespan of the sun only by a couple of years, whilst providing enough resources to construct more than a thousand planets. However, the process was slow due to the incredible complexity of the processes within a star, of which humanity had only an elementary understanding. To gain more insight into stellar processes, a plan was formed to turn Jupiter into a miniature star contained by a gigantic solar shield. This would provide a huge degree of warmth and light to the Galilean worlds, which could then finally become comfortable garden worlds. Mankind's mastery of Fusion technology led to the creation solar reactors in 7435, which were, in essence, stars on a generator scale that provided exponentially more energy than ordinary fusion reactors. It was through the development of these reactors that humanity began its next mega scale project of jumpstarting Nuclear Fusion in Jupiter.
The Jupiter Solar shield was completed within a year from the start of its construction, and the planetary change happened in 7631 C.E. In a momentous event that was witnessed all over the solar system, humanity had performed its first feet of stellar engineering. The populations of the Galilean Planets were especially thankful as the formation of the star-Jupiter made it possible to decrease the atmospheric thickness and increase the temperature of the moons, leading to altogether more pleasant living conditions.
Understanding of stellar processes gained in the Jupiter project was used to calculate the exact effects of mining the sun for resources, which ultimately led to the construction of various Starmines in solar orbit during the 9th millenia. The process of mining a star could be observed from far away, and it was not dissimilar to a solar flare being directed to a station. The mines provided so many resources so quickly that the facilities were only activated when the need for resources was extremely high.
With over half of the years under the influence of the Chronosphere passed, humanity started preparing for the inevitable war with the machines. The first step was the creation of the fortress world Apollo and the scientific world Minerva. Both of these planets would provide essential roles in preparing for the great expansion after the LEAP, as humanity had prepared a proper plan for expansion. From data gathered by the Gatekeeper on primitive species during the time of the Prothean empire, humanity had concluded that it was highly likely that a large part of the Orion-Cygnus arm was uninhabited by Mass-Effect using civilizations. This would mean that it was possible to claim this entire galactic region as their own, which would provide a solid home base from which to wage a galactic war. Of course, it was all speculation, but Humanity had been preparing for millennia, and expansion would be swift and coordinated. Colonies outside of the Orion-Cygnus arm were not likely as they would splinter humanity's territory.
The new planets were constructed within two decades, and plans for the final planet were on hold until the next millennium. Within a few years both Apollo and Minerva boasted populations of more than a billion humans, working in the various industries provided by the new specialised powerhouse planets. Apollo was spewing out ships at an extremely high rate, thanks to the resources provided by the stellar mining outposts. On Minerva, scientists had a breakthrough in medical technology that made humans virtually immortal. Artificial acceleration of the evolutionary process had led to a vastly improved neural network and cellular structure. The human body could, in theory, exist indefinitely so long as the brain was functional. Before the acceleration the normal brain life of a human being had been about 300 years, but now it was close to 8000 years. The first test subjects showed renewed vigour and strength, but there was another side-effect. Due to the extremely advanced neural networks, artificially evolved humans had gained minor telepathic and telekinetic abilities.
Construction of the last planet, Avalon, began in the 10th millennia, and its completion marked a new era for humanity, one where the view of technology switched from a macro-view to a micro-view. New goals were set to create machines that would be capable of operating on atomic scale. The first step on this path had already been taken in 8813, when the first computer chip made out of sub-atomic particles had been constructed. It marked the genesis of quantum machinery, but extreme progress wasn't made until the new goals set in 9132 provided the needed boost to this sector. In 9135 the world's first proper quantum computer was built. The machine was smaller than a dust particle, yet had more processing power than a military supercomputer. Integration with A.I. systems led to the creation of quantum robots, which were effectively sub-atomic nanites. These robots revolutionized construction methods and medical sciences, as streams of these nanites could simply be "beamed" somewhere to create a building, or handle a disease or injury. Instead of regular large scale construction, the nanites perfected buildings on a nano-scale, which increased their effective lifespan to near infinite.
Over the course of the 10th and 11th millennia streams of the newly developed nanites were used to rebuild and upgrade almost every construction in the solar system, ranging from the Earth ring to the Starmines and the artificial planets. Ships hulls now contained swarms of the tiny machines, which allowed a hull to be self-regenerating. Major population centres kept on growing, and by the year 10993 the total population of the Solar system was about 9.8 trillion, with over three quarters of the population living on Juno.
The 12th millennium was highlighted by the construction of humanity's flagships of the Behemoth-class super-dreadnaught. These ships were over 50 kilometres long, contained batteries of the most powerful plasma and particle beam weapons available to mankind. The main gun of the Behemoth class fires a stream of Quantum Machines that is programmed to either completely disintegrate enemy ships or disable every system, rendering the ships useless. The ship contains a living area not unlike the Citadel presidium, and has a crew of more than 150.000 not including synthetics.
Apart from war, humanity also prepared for exploration. Explorer class ships were relatively small 1-2 km long vessels equipped with oversized generators and extreme cloaking systems. They would be able to travel without refuelling for centuries and would be virtually undetectable to any other ship within a star system. They had a protocol for mass-relay removal, where any found secondary relay would be dumped into a lower dimension using a special version of the Archdrive.
Another ship in heavy construction was the colony live-ship, an extremely large transportation vessel capable of housing more than a million humans. These vessels would follow the explorer-class vessels to uninhabited star systems and establish colonies on the various planets within. They had stores of terraforming machines that utilized chronosphere technology to prepare a planet for humans within hours. In the years before the LEAP, more than ten thousand of these colony live-ships were waiting for the great expansion, all of them ready to extend humanity's influence.
In 12057, the calendar was reset to 2057 A.L. (After LEAP); humanity was ready to face the perils of the galaxy and was eager to explore to its heart's content.
And that's it, 10000 years of advancement. One question I have for you all is if you think that 10.000 years is enough time to develop into a civilization as I described. It would be easy to change the time within the Chronosphere if too many of you feel that humanity has advanced too quickly.
Expect the first real chapter end of next week!