Apologies if it appears like the second space race is rushed.
Everything that isn't mentioned in the timeline during the current era still happens unless it obviously wouldn't work with something stated in the timeline.
I am going to be squishing the clusters together a bit. I'm squishing them together into sectors each up to about 1000 light years across. For instance, on the map the Viper Nebula looks like it's a few thousand to 10,000 light years away from Kites Nest, now it's a few hundred.
For anyone who thinks that the Alexandrian's development happened too fast, consider they were unified, had an example of a working interstellar civilization, and had help, all things humanity lacked.
Going to note that all of the alien names from cannon races are from Fantasy Name Generator.
I'm removing antimatter as it opens to many cans of worms.
2015:
The New Horizons probe reaches Pluto only to find that Charon is not a moon but a 5 km artificial structure with a core with unique properties.
It takes until 2016 for all the data to reach Earth.
2016:
The data is fully obtained by NASA. Using the data NASA figures out a way to differentiate Element Zero (named due to the fact that even though the atoms have mass, without a current it does not have any gravitational field) from its normal counterparts. The US government tries to keep the eezo method to differentiate eezo from normal matter and the structure structure secret but it leaked onto the internet and the world learned it is not alone.
All around the world people, corporations, and governments all try to find deposits of eezo, finding many deposits.
Research into the applications of eezo becomes one of the main focuses of the scientific community with countless billions in corporate and government funding helping them along. All of the data from New Horizons is dissected by everyone who can get their hands on it and the UN gives NASA the funds to send another probe alongside a massive increase in funding.
This event fundamentally changes humanity, but the world still goes on.
2017:
Eezo's mass altering properties are discovered. A rough design for a modified ion engine that dramatically increases acceleration by increasing the mass of the propellant is proposed. The design is approved and the first prototype is expected to be completed in two years.
A research facility explodes in Japan during a test to see how much of a current can be sent into eezo. The explosion spreads eezo stored in the facility across a small amount of Tokyo, containing around 1 million people [There is significant backlash due to the event but I'm not talking about it]. Several more events like this occur over the years.
2018:
A concept to use eezo to decrease the mass of the atmosphere around an object during reentry to decrease friction and lower the amount of heat shielding needed is proposed. The idea is further expanded as a protection system against micrometeoroid.
The Hermes project begins. The project's goal is to launch 30 probes of various designs across the solar system within the next 15 years.
30% of the children born in the aftermath of the eezo event have negative health consequences because of it but 20% gain strange abilities. Scientists begin to research these children and eventually names these abilities biotics.
2019:
The ion engine is completed, and testing begins. The 10 kg prototype is capable of producing 15 newtons of thrust per second. This is an order of magnitude superior to any previous ion engines and without a substantial increase in power requirements.
2021:
A Starship prototype is tested with the kinetic energy reduction systems (commonly called kinetic barriers as shorthand or shields by the Internet) and a eezo core that lightens the craft to fraction its original mass launches. The test is a huge success and marks the beginning of the second space race as the cost of space travel dramatically reduces with eezo.
There is a massive resurgence in space agencies across the world with an increased amount of funding being put into existing ones and new ones being created.
2022:
The first prototype element zero enhanced weapons are tested.
A small amount of eezo tech begins to be seen outside of scientific institutions and the military.
The Starship design is scrapped and SpaceX begins to design a new vessel that takes advantage of all of eezo and all its benefits, while still using many of the starship components. In the meantime current rockets are modified with eezo, dramatically increasing their effectiveness.
2025:
Humanity reaches for the moon once more as over a dozen private and government landings are planned to occur within the next decade.
2026:
Hermes 1-5 are launched and go to different locations. NASA plans to launch 5 probes per year. Hermes 1 is sent to Charon to conduct tests on the structure; it is expected to arrive in 2031.
2027:
Humanity lands on the moon once more as a ship with 4 humans on board lands on the moon.
Another five Hermes probes are launched.
The SpaceX Traveler is completed. It and the other new spacecraft coming out in the next few years are massive improvements on all previous spacecraft.
2028:
The first semi permanent outpost is constructed on the moon. It hosts several rovers that operate out of the base and recharge and repair there alongside a habitable area meant to test the moon's gravity's effects on the human body and the proposition of further colonization.
Another five Hermes probes are launched.
The first Space hotel begins operation. The hotel has room for 30 guests and is 50,000 a trip per person and 10,000 a night. The hotel has multiple attractions, including EVA, zero g sports and an observation area that is a transparent aluminum dome looking down at the earth.
The first industrial space station is completed. It is meant for zero g manufacturing.
A ship with zero g mining equipment travels to a near earth asteroid that has been surveyed and extracted billions of dollars in rare elements. Further expeditions are planned by many different groups.
2029:
Armstrong colony is founded. Powered by a fission reactor, the colony's 200 personnel operate hundreds of robots and an automated mining, refining, and production base meant to supply resources for zero g manufacturing and further construction without dealing with the earth's gravity or atmosphere.
It takes over 100 trips to bring the materials for the colony to the moon but it is expected to earn back its cost 10 fold.
Another five Hermes probes are launched.
2030:
Unity stations comes online. A joint project of 15 countries, the station is the largest man made structure in space, 30 times the size of the ISS and the first station with a working rotating section, creating 0.3 Gs of gravity. The station is equipped with sophisticated production facilities capable of producing parts, satellites, probes, spacecraft, and even other stations.
The stasis pod is invented. The stasis pod puts the body in a near death state, keeping just enough operational so the person inside does not die. This allows for mass transportation of people.
Another five Hermes probes are launched.
Several more lunar colonies are set up.
A spacecraft collides with an old satellite, causing both to break up and cause a Kessler syndrome event. This causes tens of billions of dollars in damage and dozens of dead but luckily doesn't create a full cascade and can be relatively contained. This event shows how humanity needs a central authority on space travel to prevent another catastrophe.
The United Nations Space Administration (UNSA) is founded to control space around earth to ensure no accidents occur and promote expansion into space.
2031:
Hermes 1 reaches Charon. It does many tests including an attempt at getting samples from the structure. Unfortunately the Hermes 1 failed to get a sample and is destroyed during the attempt, luckily most of the data was already sent back to earth.
The UNSA purchases several spacecraft and equip them to remove space debris.
Another five Hermes probes are launched.
A manned expedition to Mars is launched.
2032:
The final 5 Hermes probes launch. Due to the rapidly advancing technology, the probes are almost obsolete.
The UNSA takes over watching for near earth asteroids.
The first space warship is launched by the US, the USS Shepard. This causes an arms race between the nations of earth to militarize space. By the end of the decade, for every 4 tons of civilian spacecraft, there is 1 ton of warships. The Shepard is equipped with eezo enhanced coilguns that are later called mass accelerators and point defense lasers.
The Mars expedition reaches the planet early in the year and becomes the first humans to ever step foot on the red planet. They set up a colony, and more people come after them.
Expeditions are launched to Venus, Mercury, Jupiter's moons and Ceres. Ceres becomes a jumping board for colonization of the asteroid belt while the same is true for Jupiter for its moons.
2033:
The battle of Jamestown M32 becomes the first battle on the moon. The Chinese colony of Jiàngluò and the American colony of Jamestown both find a deposit of Iridium. Both send out robots to claim the deposit and set up shop. The Americans get there first but when the Chinese robots get there the operator decides to use his robots' mining equipment to destroy the American robots. The Americans at Jamestown decide to send robots to destroy the Chinese robots.
This escalates over several days culminating in a confrontation between the American and Chinese naval forces at Luna, causing the destruction of 3 ships and the deaths of 35 naval personnel. The conflict ends with a ceasefire and an agreement between the countries that includes the Chinese robot operator being given to the US and many other things. The UNSA is given control over mineral claims from this point forward to prevent another conflict like this from occurring.
Another expedition is sent to the structure, this time including half a dozen probes for redundancy. It will arrive in 2036 due to the improved engines.
2034:
The first cost effective fusion reactor is created. Many more will be constructed in the coming years.
The first ground to orbit coilguns begins to be built near the colonies to protect them in case of a war.
Tensions on earth continue to increase.
The expeditions reach their targets and set up colonies, each with a population of 1,000 people stored in stasis pods.
2040:
Humanity celebrates the human population in space reaching 25,000.
The 20 year war begins. The world devolves into conflict as a clusterfuck of revolution, rebellions, and wars commence. The nations of earth are in a stalemate as they cannot produce more sophisticated equipment in large amounts or even at all in some cases due to broken supply chains, meaning that any equipment destroyed cannot be replaced. This leads to militaries taking a conservative approach in order to minimize losses but leading to a long war where the goal is more to cripple the enemies ability to fight them, conquering them. The war shares more similarities with the 30 years war then the world wars.
Massive amounts of civil strife rock the world as the problems that have been building for decades all boil over. Most of the nations who entered the war would not make it out, and those who did would be heavily changed.
The colonies are mostly cut off from earth. Most of the orbital structures are destroyed but the Lagrange points stations, asteroid minds, and lunar colonies are mostly intact. Most of the warships are destroyed in the battle for earth orbit and those that remained got caught up in the Kessler syndrome cascade that was caused by the battle, leaving the colonies without any supervision and the earth unable to send anything up due to the debris.
Due to the cost of sending up things from earth, even with eezo, the colonies were designed to be mostly self-sufficient and those things they could not produce, sophisticated equipment, could be produced by the remaining manufacturing stations at the L 5, L 4, and moon side. The colonies coordinate so they can survive, led by the UNSA in exile even after the fall of the UN in 2037.
2041:
The NASA base and communication dishes for the second Charon expedition are destroyed, leaving the probes abandoned and left to drift in space without direction.
All biotics over the age of 15 are conscripted in most militaries. Attempts begin to be made to enhance Biotic abilities.
The first child is born in space by Amelia Jones of the ZM-15 manufacturing station. She is moved to Armstrong due to it having the best medical facilities in the colonies. Both child and mother live and the baby girl is named Luna.
This event leads to the people of the colonies realizing that if the war on earth goes nuclear, the colonies would be all that is left of humanity. This revelation leads to the colonies preparing for that, in their eyes, eventuality.
2045:
The brain-machine interface is created, allowing for humans to command machines with their minds and, more importantly, download information into their minds. This allows for training to be done insanely fast with only a minimal amount of actual training to ensure that the information took. This also revolutionized education.
2047:
The Disruptor Bomb is created. A simple device that overcharges a block of eezo, causing it to explode. The eezo disrupts a lot of tech and is relatively cheap to make, causing the weapon to become widespread. This also leads to a large amount of eezo contamination among the population, and a large amount of biotic births.
2053:
Nations start covertly deploying bio weapons on the populations of other nations and even on the elderly of their own population to conserve resources.
The first Biotic Amp is created.
2060:
The war ends with a billion dead, mostly from starvation, Bio weapons and disease. The powers that remain got tiered of the fighting and made peace. The following years would be spent rebuilding what was lost.
The few ships still on earth cannot exit the atmosphere due to the debris still there from the beginning of the war that did not fall to or was savaged by the colonists.
In order to allow access to space to resume, the nations ask the colonies for help in clearing the earth's orbit. The colonies agree on the conditions that the UN is reformed and the colonies be allowed to join as a nation, even with their small populations. After some deliberation the nations agree and the UN is reformed and among the founding nations are The Colonial Union, Martian Republic, Venusian Federation, Outer Planets Alliance (most of the belt and a few other colonies), and the Jovian League.
The UNSA regains its authority as the ruler of space, but with more powers and more objectives. While the rest of the UN still has little power the UNSA has full authority in regards to space and unclaimed territory. The UNSA is in charge of distributing territory on planets, moons, asteroids, and all other objects in space, they are usually distributed via an auction.
2061:
The removal of the debris is completed and space is open to the people of earth once more. The colonies begin to send materials to earth once more and humanities expansion recommences.
2070:
It is discovered how to implant eezo nodules into unborn fetuses, making them biotic.
Victor Manswell, discontent with the pace of human expansion, funds a colonization attempt to the Alpha Centauri system
Sleeper Pods now allow for the brain to continue operation while in the pod and connect to the internet with their Neural Interfaces. This allows people to spend days, weeks, months, or oven years without using their bodies, connected to the internet while their bodies are kept alive in the pods
2072:
The first Helium-3 fusion reactor is created.
2075:
Earth has recovered from the war, and is experiencing a golden age. The population numbers are not expected to recover for a while, but those who survived and have been born since then live far better on average than the people pre war. Human medicine has advanced to the point that, theoretically, a human can live forever with medical assistance.
The population in space has reached 1 million.
An expedition is launched to Charon. 20 probes travel to Charon over a few weeks with the superior new drives. Humanity now has the first chance to study the structure that opened space for humanity up close for the first time in decades. Countless tests are performed on the Structure, to little success.
Nothing gets results and few new discoveries are made.
The Manswell Expedition primer launches, a small number of probes, packed up mirrors, and machines meant to prepare the system and put up the deceleration system.
2080:
The Manswell Expedition launches, 12 250,000 ton ships carrying a million people in stasis pods are brought up to 15 % the speed of light and head off to Alpha Centauri.
2090:
Jump Zero is created as Earth's farthest colony in the Sol system. The mobile station is meant to be a springboard for colonization of the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt.
2091:
The first colony is created on Pluto. It is named Acheron.
2092:
Techno-telepathy is created by directly connecting human brains using the Neural Interfaces.
2095:
Armstrong Colony (now Armstrong City) is the first location off earth to reach a population of 1 million people.
2100:
Human population reaches 12 billion with 15 million in space
The Earth begins to overpopulate and attempts to elevate it by colonization are unsuccessful.
The economy begins to decline.
2105:
Ganymede is discovered to have large eezo deposits, leading to an eezo rush and a rapid increase in the moon's population.
2110:
A long time after the scheduled signal from the Manswell Expedition was scheduled to arrive in Sol, its lack leads to the Expedition to be named as lost with all hands.
2115:
Ganymede's population has increased from 135,000 to over half a million. This increases the Jovian League's population by half and causes serious problems as the immigrants and natives fight.
2116:
The Jovian Wars begin as civil wars break out in many of the nations of the League. In the end the League breaks apart and the nations and the insurgents and paramilitary forces begin to fight each other.
There is an increase in terrorist activity on earth. Over the years, since they could not fight, the nations of earth funded insurgents, rebels, revolutionaries, and terrorists in rival states. This has begun to get out of control as some groups detach from their patrons and get more brutal while others get higher funding and do more damage.
Many nations send war materials, trainers and the occasional spec ops units to their favored factions in the Jovian Wars. Many warships begin appearing around Jupiter to protect mining facilities to lower the wars' damage to the operations and by proxy the already deteriorating economies of the nations. They also send data to their governments' favored sides.
2120:
The Jovian population has decreased by 35 % as the war gets progressively bloody.
The war reaches the rest of Sol as a incident where a JSF (Japanese Space Force) fleet attacks a Colonial Union fleet leads the rest of the fleets to believe that war had begun on earth and they had not learned about it due to the comm delay, this war exasperated when communications intercepted from the JSF Jovian flagship claim that they were ordered to attack the fleet and war had begun. In reality this was a lie created by the mentally unstable Admiral who wanted to start a war, but that was learned too late as the fleets had already started shooting each other. Ironically the fighting around Jupiter started a war in the rest of Sol.
The War of Sol begins.
Unlike the 20 years war space was not safe from the conflict as space is more developed with 18 million people compared to the 25,000 at the start of the 20 years war, 720 times the population, and there are hundreds of warships in space. Station became battleground to be fought over while ground base colonies became fortresses, their underground nature, vast resources, and confined spaces making them near impossible to invade.
The UN and UNSA dissolve.
2121:
The Colonial Union dissolves. Its cities and stations each becoming their own nations. The smaller ones are destroyed or taken over while the larger ones hold on.
Piracy begins to make a comeback as defenseless colonies are attacked by independent forces including mutinous warships.
2125:
A high eezo asteroid is redirected by a group called End of Man, a group who thinks that humanity is a blight to the universe and should not exist. The group's small but fanatical force gets a spacecraft and redirects the asteroid so that it hits Earth, hoping that the loss of Earth would be a deathblow to humanity. When the nations note the asteroid it is already near Earth. In a panic a temporary ceasefire is set up by the Admirals and all the fleets jointly attempt to stop the asteroid. It is too close to be redirected so a massive attack is launched at the asteroid to break it apart. Coilguns, missiles, fusion bombs, the combined fleets of humanity try everything and eventually secede, the asteroid is in millions to billions of tiny pieces that, while causing a massive lightshow, would kill the Earth. What they did not know of is the eezo, and it would cost them. The eezo carpets almost all of the planet. People and animals and plants all die in massive numbers. Over 600 million die from the eezo in the weeks and months to come and Earth will not recover for a long time, without humanity it would never recover at all, becoming one of the countless dead rocks that litter the galaxy. Many countries do not survive the event as their populations die out to unsustainable numbers. Improvements in medical technology, and the increase in the amount of the population living in isolated environments like archologies drastically degrees the amount of deaths caused by the event, with simulations, showing that just a century before the amount dead would reach 40% of the population.
In the face of 5% of humanity dying, the causes of the war seem small and it ends in short order as humanitarian efforts supersede the conflict.
Humanity starts to rebuild, no grand end to the conflict, no grand speeches or statements, just a horrifying number and a world in ruin.
2126:
The number of Biotics in the human population explodes.
Those governments that survived begin to rebuild and new ones fill in the places of those lost.
The Sirta Foundation is formed to help with engineering humanity to survive on the new earth. It expands into multiple other fields.
The UN and UNSA are reconstituted.
2130:
The Gia Initiative is started by the Sirta Foundation to catalogue and store the DNA of all species.
2135:
Humanity finally manages to fix the ecological tailspin enough that the world starts to slowly get better. Countless species die out and those who remain show Biotic tendencies. The eezo, which is impractical to remove, makes it impossible for the old species, who the humans have the DNA of, to go back into the planet's ecosystem in their natural state as humanity genetically alters them to be more suitable for the new environment. They also do this to humans to make it easier to live on earth with the elevated eezo levels. A side effect of the modifications is a higher rate of Biotics and a high survival rate for those exposed to eezo in the womb.
2140:
The Hyperion corporation unveils a design for a Faster than light communication system.
The company sets up a comm buoy network around human space over the next few years.
2148:
Alien ruins are discovered on Mars These ruins improve human technology by centuries , perhaps even millennia.
Included in the information gained from the ruins is the method of operation for the relay. For Secondary relay both the mass of the object going through and the destination system coordinates need to be sent to the relay. Alongside that info on the locations of relay systems is found, which is usable after stellar drift is accounted for. They also learn that the network covers the entire galaxy and countless systems.
2149:
The first FTL drive is created based on designs in the ruins.
Humanity understands something, colonizing these systems will be different from colonizing the Sol system. Humanity needs a unified effort to colonize and govern these systems. If human space continues to be split into pieces than the flaws of earth and sol will continue into the stars.
The Systems Alliance is formed. The SA has more power over space then the UNSA did. It could not just decide who got what, but send out colonization efforts by itself. These efforts could be larger then anything a corporation or nation could do without bankrupting themselves. The SA is also given all warships with the nations banned from owning warships, something originally proposed for the UNSA after the war, but never implemented. The SA is given the power to tax the colonies, though not Sol, and is given the right to auction off territory and set fees for using the relays, though they also have the responsibility to survey the land before they can auction it. They also are given funds by the nations based on the nations GDPs.
The SA has a oversight board made of of representatives of nations but it requires a super majority to do anything contradicting the actions of the SA, so it is ineffective at controlling the SA. The real power of the SA is in the Operations Council, made of people from each of the departments of the SA, chosen by the Council.
On paper the SA has very little power over the nations of Sol, but it holds all of the warships, meaning it can exert a large amount of influence on the nations of Sol.
The nations still hate each other and will often have minor low intensity conflicts but they don't escalate too far and the SA stands above.
The first ship, the Einstein, goes through the Relay to the Arcturus system, the ship is captained by John Grissom.
The system is found to have 4 more Relays, 3 Secondary and 1 Primary. Ships are sent to all the Clusters known from the Prothean data, leading to the discovery of the Arcturus Stream, Hyades Cluster, Ursa Major Cluster, Pleiades Cluster, Flame Nebula, Olympus Cluster, and Exodus Cluster. The Flame Nebula, and Olympus Cluster are too far away from Arcturus or Sol for the Secondary Relays to reach, but can be reached from other clusters.
Ships begin to be sent out to all systems with relay connections.
The Lacaille 9352 system (usually shortened to the Lacaille system) is found to have a first class Garden World. The planet is named Demeter.
The 61 Ursae Majoris system is found to have a first class Garden World, though it's unstable nature due to its high tectonic activity, and large number of super volcanoes has led to its first class designation being disputed. It is named Sirona.
The Tau Ceti system is found to have a second class Garden world alongside a large amount of eezo. The world is mostly perfect, but the relatively dangerous wildlife, relatively low gravity (.58 G), slightly too high oxygen content, and slightly dangerous level of eezo in the ecosystem causes it to be a second class Garden World. The planet is named Persephone.
The Gamma Tauri system is found to have a second class Garden World. It is named Tauron. The world is very arid, with little water, and is hotter the earth, leading to its designation as a second class Garden World.
A second class Garden World is discovered in the Electra system, named Troy. It has gravity significantly higher than earths (2.1 G), a thicker atmosphere, and weakened ecosystems due to a recent (couple tens of thousands of years recent) extinction event, leading to it being a second class Garden World.
A first class Garden world is discovered in the Euler system. The planet is named Benning.
The Asgard system is found to have a first class Garden World, it is named Terra Nova.
the Utopia system is found with another first class Garden world and 3 relays, one Primary and two Secondary.
The Brand System of the Flame Nebula is found to have second class Garden World named Sekhmet. Its relatively low gravity (0.71 G) and notably high oxygen atmosphere contribute to its second class status, nut its extremely dangerous animals are also a factor. Many are far more deadly than Earth animals, most notably is an animal that looks like a six legged lion the size of a small elephant, hence the worlds name. Hunting these dangerous animals will become a common sport and tourist excursion on the world in the future.
2150:
The first FTL probes are launched to nearby Non-Relay systems.
The Manswell Expedition has been discover to have survived and colonized a world in the Alpha Centauri system. The world is a Third class Garden World, having similar gravity to earth, a magnetic field, liquid water, a relatively thick atmosphere, and primitive life, but lacking any life bigger than a single or small collection of cells, and a sufficient amount of oxygen in the atmosphere.
The probe contacts the colonists, who give it a data package to send to Sol. It is learned that the colonists named the world Alexandria and have been terraforming it to make it into a first class Garden World.
The SA prepares to send a manned expedition to the system.
2151:
The expedition is launched to the Alpha Centauri system.
A moon in the Everest system in the Olympus Cluster is found to be a second class Garden World. The moon is named Umbra due to its thick, dark atmosphere that gives the planet It's second class status alongside It's high humidity and low temperature. The gas giant planet is named Hillary. The Everest system is also found to have a Primary Relay alongside another Secondary Relay at Cerberus's L5 and L4 points with Acheron.
Also in Everest around the super earth planet Norgay is a dense moon with a very think, very cold atmosphere like Titan. The moon is heavily colonized as the cold temperature allows for very efficient computing and manufacturing. It is named Atlas, and it will become one of the largest Frost Worlds in human space.
The first colonization attempts are made, though, not by the SA. Several independent groups attempt to rush and claim territory on planets using FTL ships. Without the proper augmentations and equipment, which the SA is still determining, most of the attempts fail with the populations dying or needing to be rescued. While some of these attempts are from corporations, many are from groups who want to be free from the rest of humanity to do things their way.
2152:
The first Systems Alliance colonization of Relay systems begins. Terra Nova is colonized, and Demeter soon after. Besides those 2 worlds and their systems small SA outposts are created in all Relay systems.
The SA eventually decides to allow the colonists from the first wave to have a small amount of land, those significantly less than what they claim as theirs.
First act of FTL piracy is committed. A vessel uses FTL to rapidly attack mining colonies and research stations on the moons of Neptune. The attacks continue for several months until a SA task force destroys the ship, and finds its base built into a small rock in the Oort Cloud.
Private defenses become more common as colonists and companies begin constructing weapons to defend against pirates.
2154:
The first FTL capable fighter is created. This fighter, more a FTL capable missile launcher than a traditional fighter, is sold to the nations and the SA until other designs are created.
A second colonization wave is sent out. After this colonization wave colonists come not in waves but a endless stream.
The SA begins the construction of massive Survey Ships capable of surveying an entire system using large swarms of drones. The SA designs the ships to also be able to also carry Fighter instead, making them able to double as warships if needed. They can also be built in vastly larger numbers compared to similarly sized military ships (which do not exist yet) as they are mostly to civilian standards with only a few differences. They are useful but their lower speed compared to most warships make them not a viable as a part of normal flotillas. During surveys ships only carry a few squadrons of Fighters. Smaller Light Carriers are also built to be part of flotillas.
2155:
Two nations of earth start a war, the first major one since the end of the War of Sol. It expands to include multiple other nations. The SA does not intervene at first but begins a military buildup and makes sure the conflict does not enter into other nations.
The war mostly does not leave earth as none of the powers have any warships and any attempts to send units out of orbit are dealt with by the SA.
2157:
3 more clusters have been found near the Exodus Cluster in the last few years, the Ionian Storm, Ginnungagap and Seraph Nebula, with Primary Relays in both the Ginnungagap and Seraph Nebula. The Ymir system holds a pair of Primary Relay, one connecting to the Olympus Cluster, and another to Tau Ceti, making it a important and highly colonized system.
A first class Garden World is found in the Ymir System, it is named Midgard.
The Seraph Nebula has a large amount of eezo alongside a first class and a second class Garden Worlds, leading to the Nebula being heavily colonized, helped by the Relay connection to the Ginnungagap. The first class Garden World in the Gabriel System is named Jericho. The two second class Garden World, Babel, is in the Daniel System. [After this I'm not stating every time the SA finds a Garden World]
Multiple locations in the Seraph Nebula are found to have ruins from an alien civilization. After a rush into the Nebula by archeologists it is discovered that the ruins are mostly from 50,000 years ago, and were made by a race called the Zha. The largest amount of ruins are found on Babel, including the hundreds of toppled archologies that give the world its name. While there are some ruins on Jericho, they are less extensive then those on Babel, leading to the belief that the Zha need a lower gravity to be comfortable, supported by the Zha ships that are found that have a gravity of 0.491 G.
It is decided not to open the Primary Relay in the Daniel System due to the clear signs of purposeful destruction on Babel and other ruins leading to fears that the Zha were wiped out by another race and hat race might still be around in the rest of Zha space.
It is decided to, for the time being, not open anymore Primary Relays and focus on colonization is the space the SA already controlled and not stretching the SA's fleet any more then it already is.
Pressured by multiple organizations, the SA officially sets its holdings as only those systems it surveys and all systems within 15 light years of a Relay.
Multiple groups, now knowing that the SA won't try and take over their colonies and the increased development of FTL tech making it cheaper, plane to send out colonization fleets into unknown space.
2158:
When the conflict begins to escalate further the SA intervenes, destroying many military installations from orbit and capturing much f the leadership of all belligerent nations in precision strikes. After this event and the discontent created by the intervention, the Chairman of the Systems Alliance Operations Council makes the "Declaration of Peace", stating the SA will stop all conflicts in human space. Most of the nations hate this but a large amount of the population, still remembering the War of Sol, support the declaration and so the nations have little room to maneuver.
2159:
A technique to safely discharge drive cores using stars is discovered, greatly expanding the systems that can be colonized effectively and making long rang expeditions more plausible.
The SA divides its fleet into 15 Rapid Response Flotillas and 10 Cluster Commands to patrol and protect its territory. Massive amounts of Corvettes are produced, supported by a small number of Cruisers and Light Carriers. Extra Rapid Response Flotillas are held in the Arcturus Stream and Exodus Cluster due to their large amount of relay connections. 4 RRFs are held in Sol as most of the population still resides in Sol.
2160:
Cerberus is created by military, political, business, and scientific leaders to ensure the survival of humanity. This was catalyzed by the discovery of the existence of other Primitive species existing during the Prothean's time and the Prothean's research on them. This information is buried by Cerberus due to some people wanting to find these races and, no matter how strong the blockade fleets of the SA are, they will get past the Primary Relay blockades and run straight to other civilizations.
Ships with Cerberus crews disappear throughout the Arcturus Stream and divert to a Frost Planet (planet with conditions similar to Titan) in the void between stars, it is named Oceanus.
Movement into the colonies escalates as most of their setup is complete and the cost of FTL travel drops dramatically. The Great Diaspora begins with countless people leaving Earth for other worlds for the next 75 years, to the point that, at the peak of the Diaspora, Earth experience a population decline of 3% per year. The causes the power og the Nations to drop, though they still hold significant influence.
2161:
The first of what would be later known as the Five Great Exodus Fleets begins launching. The fleet consists of 15 vanguard scouting ships launched to find a good world for the colonization. Following them is a fleet of 5 massive industrial ships to set up the basics of the colony and 9 months after that a fleet of 15 multi million ton colony ships filled with 30 million people.
The fleet arrives at the Eden Cluster. The Cluster has a first class Garden World and two second class Garden Worlds, so the fleet decides to settle in the Cluster even with the Relay in the Narcissus System.
The first class Garden World is in the Rose system and is named Gia. The second class Garden Worlds are in the Narcissus and Lily Systems and are named Adam and Eve respectively.
2163:
Trillionaire Johan Atlas creates his own fleet with the intention of making himself king if his own little empire. He and 7 million others travel into the void with 7 colony ships. He decides to head out as far as he can so that when they are rediscovered, with the right breeding programs, the colony will be in a good position population wise so that it does not get overrun by sheer numbers and can hold its own as something bigger than a glorified microstate in comparison to the SA.
Depressingly, it is not hard to find people curious or desperate enough to join the expedition, even knowing their lack of rights when they arrive, though not all plane to take it lying down.
2164:
Over 1300 light years into the journey, one of the Atlas colony ships goes rough. The captain, who holds little loyalty to Atlas, managed to get the survey data from the scout ships first and alter it to remove a system with a second class Garden World discovered in the Orion Nebula. The captain manages to get the crew onboard with his plan and the ship leaves the fleet, jumping to FTL multiple times to avoid detection. Without any fast ships capable of finding the colony ship, Atlas wrights it off and continues on the journey, though with precautions put in place to stop something like this from happening again.
The system is a single red dwarf in a unique and dense section of the nebula that somehow obscures its existence from the outside, it only being discovered because one of the scouts dropped out of FTL on accident only half a light year from the star and went to investigate. The Garden World is the planet in orbit of the star, with only a few asteroids besides it.
The colonists name the planet Nova Britannia due to its equally poor weather and the fact that about 80% of the colonists are from the isles. [Is this a Chekhov's gun that I'm going to use to make another story in the future, or a red herring that nothing will come of? Or will it begin as the former but end up as the latter as I lose the will to write a BSG crossover or can't fix the scale problem?]
2165:
Problems have begun to escalate. From the beginning the SA has had a problem with how it distributed land, as it promotes wealthy individuals, coordinated groups of colonists, or corporations to purchase large amounts of land as the price will likely increase significantly as colonization increases, making it a extremely profitable investment. This leads to Colony Worlds having vast tracts of land claimed but not developed, leading to limited growth ability as the prices the owners set for the land are high enough that many just try to go to in a new system. This leads to the colonists being spread out over a vast number of systems, which the fleet has to defend from pirates.
Humanity now occupies over a hundred separate systems and the SA doss not have the forces to protect all of them.
Also with the limited patrols and the inherent difficulty in finding bases in systems, or in between systems, pirate bases holding, supplying, or even producing pirate vessels appear in vast quantities.
Atlas's fleet settles on a first class Garden World over 3,000 light years from Sol, after passing multiple other Garden Worlds. Atlas names the planet Atlantis and forms the Atlesian Empire.
The third Fleet is launched.
2180:
The SA begins construction of the Arcturus station as a base of operations in the Arcturus system, shipyard, and battle station. it's existence would allow the SA to deviate a large amount of ships in the production of the vital system and improve confidence in the SA.
The first rocket takes off from Alexandria and sends a satellite up into orbit. This is hailed as a great leap forward for the Alexandrians.
2185:
The first Private Military Contractors are given approval for the purchase of military grade warships. This is done in order to alleviate the stress on the growing alliance military and anti-piracy actions while the SA expands within the confines of its budget. Several of these PMCs have heavy connections to governments, commonly getting funding and acting more as a extension of their militaries them corporations.
2200:
The census shows the human population is 65 billion with 30 billion in the Sol system, and 35 billion people in other systems. The Arcturus station is completed, the 300,000,000 ton station sits equidistant from all of the relays.
Human space has 17 Clusters which hold 9 First Class and 22 Second Class Garden Worlds.
2205:
The tonnage of PMC ships reaches parity with the SA fleets tonnage, and this worries the SA. Some see it as a ploy by the nations to regain their control of space and make the SA irrelevant, others just see it as a massive group of military grade or near military grade vessels in human space not belonging to any government, technically. Either way the SA tries to restrict the power of PMCs but they are blocked by the nations as they don't want their PMCs to be restricted or can be pressured by those who don't. So the SA waits for a event that would tern public opinion against the PMCs, making protecting them politically untenable, which would be delivered later in the year.
A Cruiser belonging to the PMC Galactic Defense Solutions turns pirate and attacks several colonies before it is taken down by a SA Flotilla. This gives the support the SA needs to restrict PMCs without much interference. It is never revealed that the Captain of the ship and several of the crew are part of Alliance Intelligence.
The PMC act of 2205 restricts any PMC from owning any warship grade vessels over 300,000 tons and adds many draconian rules for PMCs. The act passes with the only change being that the SA is pressured to add a legacy clause by the nations that allows for all ships over the limit at the time of its signing it to be kept.
The SA begins planes for ships far surpassing the size the PMCs are restricted to in order to ensure they always have more powerful ships. The type is designated as Heavy Cruiser.
2208:
The first ships of the Tokyo class are completed. They are each 800,000 tons, twice the mass of the next largest warships.
The Wolf 424 system is colonized. It is a bit farther out them most systems colonized in the Local Cluster but makes up for the long journey with rich eezo deposits and multiple, though highly damaged, Prothean ruins.
2210:
Humanity begins to move into more systems, with the colonization efforts sent to dozens of more systems across the clusters controlled by humanity.
The Systems Alliance is stretched even thinner, attempting to patrol all of its territory, with its budget having to be substantially increased, but this is not even enough.
In order to alleviate the stress on the fleet's resources, the systems alliance begins to hand off responsibility for some things like inspections to local government over the course of several years, instead focusing on anti-piracy action and patrols.
2215:
Construction begins on the Cerberus relay defense network, a collection of defense platforms and automated boarding pods created to free up ships from relay duty in more developed systems in order to put them in the new systems. The plane calls for the network to be placed in the Arcturus (Arcturus Stream), Theta Tauri (Hyades Cluster), Sol (Local Cluster), Utopia (Exodus Cluster), Asgard (Exodus Cluster), Ymir (Ginnungagap), Lacaille 9352 (Olympus Cluster), Interloper (Archimedes Cluster) and Tartarus (Chaos Cluster) systems, the most developed relay systems in human space.
The project will be completed in 2235 but the first ships can be reassigned as early as 2219.
The Heavy Cruiser SSV Rome is taken over by criminal forces from the L5 shipyard. It is able escape into the Olympus Cluster and causes chaos throughout the cluster.
2216:
The Rome is destroyed after its vicus pirate campaign with 20 colonies attacked, 17 civilian ships destroyed, 3 military ships destroyed, several other ships attacked, and 9,000 people dead. It is destroyed by the Light Carrier SSV Curie's fighter complement. This is not the first ship destroyed by fighters from a Carrier, but it is the largest warship destroyed yet.
2220:
A SA Corvette discovers a PMC base in a Brown Dwarf system in the Local Cluster. It includes a shipyard that is building ships in violation of the PMC act of 2182. What is more disturbing is that apon closer inspection the 2 Heavy Cruisers have many similarities with the Tokyo class including several Alliance technologies not available to anyone else, leading to the SA believing the PMC, Philadelphia Security Services, has connections to the people who stole the Rome. The SA designates the PSS as a terrorist organization and attempts to capture all its personnel across human space. Unfortunately, prior warning and resistance from the nations and questions on if the SA could even do that leads to many of the PSS's personnel escaping, going to multiple other secret bases.
The SA is disturbed by the fact that 2 Heavy Cruisers are out there already completed, learned from interrogations on the crew of the base. Unfortunately the SA cannot connect any governments with the actions of the PMC.
Nevertheless the SA starts to keep and eye on the AC and the other nations. Cerberus begins doing secret operations against the PMCs and governments under the aliases of multiple separate terrorist organizations.
Throughout the next few years many ships chartered by the AC will disappear, carrying equipment, personnel, and raw materials, supplementing the PSS's resources.
2221:
A Prothean Cargo Ship is found heavily damaged with a hold filled with eezo in the outer reaches of the lightly colonized Wolf 424 system. The systems defense Flotilla, waiting until a larger SA force gets to the system, is attacked by a Flotilla of a half dozen ships lead by one of the Heavy Cruisers. The Flotilla, only having a few Heavy Corvettes and a Cruiser, is destroyed and the ship and its cargo is taken.
The SA Flotilla arrives and sets out to find the PMC Flotilla using probes and Fighters from the SSV Franklin and SSV Yukawa and the other ships of the Flotilla including the Heavy Cruiser SSV Rio de Janeiro, while also protecting the 1.3 million people of the eezo rich system.
The PMC ships destroy much of the H3 infrastructure around Gas Giant Borneo and attack the supply ships of the Flotilla, making resupply more difficult for the SA.
Eventually the SA finds the PSS's base on one of the small moons of the Ice Giant Oahu and attack. The Battle of Oahu-33 is the largest space battle since the War of Sol, with over a dozen ships participating in the battle and is one of the largest in history to this point based on tonnage of ships.
The PSS Flotilla is defeated with 4 ships, including the Heavy Cruiser, destroyed and the base is captured, though most of the data is wiped. The base is found to been reverse engineering the tech from the ship.
A American Commonwealth funded lab comes out with tech known to be reverse engineered from the Prothean ship at the PSS base.
Alexandrians discover how to differentiate eezo from other matter. They undergo a eezo revolution similar to the human's one in the early 21st century.
2225:
Alliance Intelligence finds the illegal activities of 3 more PMCs in the last few years and the SA attacks them. Many of their ships escape so the SA thinks that its action against the PMCs has not been effective, so they decides to try a different tactic. Operation Spider begins and the groundwork for Operation Torpedo begins to be laid.
2230:
Conflict in human space begins to escalate. Attacks on colonies happen more often and with more danger. "Rough" PMC forces are used by nations as proxies to attack the Alliance and their rivals. Over a dozen Heavy Cruisers have been spotted in the hands of non-SA forces.
2232:
The SA begins to create massive warships to be able to outgun any Heavy Cruisers by an order of magnitude and to act as a siege ship to fight planetary defenses. The first 2, Fuji and Everest begin construction.
2235:
The Cerberus relay defense network is completed. Its completion gives the SA the confidence to begin Operation Torpedo. 31 bases of 9 PMCs doing illegal activities are attacked by SA forces. The SA captures thousands of people, including several individuals from the PMCs sponsors. Multiple nations realize that it was now or never and attack the SA and those nations who support it near the end of the year. The Union also joins in the conflict.
The conflict, later known as the Relay Wars, escalated as many other groups start conflicts around human territory with forces diverted. Terrorist, revolutionaries, and rival governments start to fight one another, with the SA desperately trying to keep everything together.
The PMCs also join the war. Some belong to SA supporting nations, others to opposing nations, others are truly independent and join whoever gives them the best deal.
2236:
The SA moves its command from Earth to Arcturus Station due to many attacks on SA High Command facilities and the SA's tenues hold of the Sol system.
The Battle of Earth-Luna L5 becomes the first major battle of the war, with over 150 ships participating . It ends up as a loss for the SA as Earth based Fighters strike at the SA Earth fleet and destroy several ships and shipyards before forcing a retreat by FTL. The SA forces manages to destroy many of the Fighters and their bases in a retaliatory strike.
The SA's allied nations are being invaded by rebel nations.
SA Fleet Carries begin to return and rearm for combat.
Terra Nova and the Asgard system has seen the heaviest fighting besides Sol, forcing ships and troops to be deployed in the system instead of Sol. Fighting also happens in many other systems and some systems are almost entirely cut off from the rest of humanity as their cluster's Relay system is contested and many ships who go their are destroyed.
2237:
The SA has been mostly pushed off Earth with only a few strongholds remaining and the orbit heavily contested. However, much of the shipbuilding facilities controlled by the nations have been destroyed by fighter strikes.
The Dreadnoughts are completed. The Everest is sent to Sol to contest the system while the Fuji is made the head of a fleet meant to secure other systems. The Fuji and its fleet go to Asgard and manages to destroy most opposing ships before beginning a land invasion of the hostile areas.
The system is secured in 8 months and the fleet heads out to the Lacaille system.
The Everest and its fleet manages to destroy several Heavy Cruisers and secures Jupiter and Saturn alongside lifting the siege of Mars.
2238:
2275:
Humanity is now able to implant eezo nodes into a fully mature human with a low enough rejection rate for the procedure to be approved for mass use.
The SA begins making it standard for soldiers to undergo the procedure and become biotics.
2349:
The SA has discovered the Xìngyùn Cluster, Mare Cluster, Hestia Zeta, Titans Rest, and Python Iota.
2350:
The SA opens another relay in the Asgard System, ending up in the Petra Nebula, a part of the Skyllian Verge, the home.
2353:
The Da Ling San system is colonized, including the planet Shanxi.
2357:
The SA approves a research project on a Primary relay in the Hearth system of Hestia Zeta, a unimportant cluster.
A Turian Cruiser, the Maniria Sancscus, is going to be doing the bi-monthly patrol of the systems known in the cluster, starting the same day the project is set to begin.