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.
Going to note that all of the alien names from cannon races are from Fantasy Name Generator.
Apologies if the human names are lacking in diversity.
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.
The Distrupter is invented and replaces high explosives as the premier payload for newer weapons.
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 USD a trip per person and an additional 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 countless hypervelocity projectiles that hit other objects. This causes tens of billions of dollars in damage and dozens of dead but luckily doesn't create a full Kessler Syndrome event 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 1.3 mt metallic asteroid is moved to the L4 point by the new company Galactic Manufacturing. Their plan is to hollow out the asteroid and tern it into a massive zero g manufacturing base while using the money from the resources to keep the operation going. The project is expected to take 20 years but the facility is expected to be partially operational by 2040 with the ability to build small items.
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 warship.
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's moons for resource extraction from the Gas Giant.
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 MACs 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.
2037:
A new type of element is found in on an asteroid near Earth. The element is too large to be stable and is quite confusing, as it should have a half life but does not. It is learned that the element, named Tylium, is a type of eezo that, when a current is put in it, produces a lot of energy. A Tylium powered reactor can produce 85% of the power of a fusion reactor of equal size, but can be downsized far easier and the reactor is cheaper to make, even if the fuel is a order of magnatude more expensive.
Only a fraction of unstable isotopes are turned into Tylium, and it clumps up into large clusters of it.
The rarity of Tylium and the developed fusion technology leads to it not being adopted as the primary power source, but the small size the reactor can be and it low cost leads to it still being used, and thus it is still mined and searched for. It is also used for disruptors as it is easier to detonate than more stable eezo.
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, not conquering them. The war shares more similarities with the 30 years war then the world wars.
Massive amounts of civil strife rocks 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 would will be heavily changed.
The colonies are mostly cut off from earth. Most of the orbital structures are destroyed but the Lagrange points stations, asteroid mines, 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, and 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 2041.
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.
2043:
The first act of piracy in space occurs when a small single man Mining Ship steals a Cargo Pod filled with food and vital equipment inbound to a mining outpost of 40 people from Ceres and tries to ransom it to the outpost for a large amount of resources.
Instead of giving in, the outpost sends out three of its own one man Mining Ships and a Cargo Shuttle to where they determined the pirate is and put the pod, causing the odd Battle of Timathe's Eye (asteroid named after the large crater in the center of the spherical asteroid and the person who first mined it).
None of the craft in the battle had actual weapons, so they had to use ttheir chemical engines as weapons by trying to hit the other ships with their exhaust. In the end, one of the outpost ships is heavily damaged, another runs out of fuel, the pirate's ship is crippled, with the pirate killed, and the Cargo Shuttle has to tug all three ships and the Cargo Pod. .
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.
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 Earth or was savaged by the colonists.
In order to allow access to space to resume, the nations ask the UNSA for help in clearing the Earth's orbit. The UNSA agrees on the conditions that the UN is reformed and the UNSA regains its power and gains more. After some deliberation, the nations agree.
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. The UNSA is also pramited to have a small navy for patrol and police actions.
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:
The Manswell Expedidtion makes contact with Sol.
The Manswell Expedition has 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.
It is learned that the colonists named the world Alexandria and it is a third class Garden World..
The USD prepares to send a manned expedition to the system.
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 the Sol System over the next few years.
2200:
The census shows the population of Human Space (recognized as all systems that can still semi-regularly contact the Sol System) is 25 billion with 15 billion in the Sol system, and 10 billion in the rest of Human Space.
2248:
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.
2249:
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 United Space Directorate is formed. The USD 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 USD 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 USD 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 though planes are in place to replace the funding with the other sources over the next few decades.
The USD has an oversight board made of of representatives of nations but it requires a super majority to do anything contradicting the actions of the USD, so it is ineffective at controlling the USD. The real power of the USD is in the Operations Council, made of people from each of the departments of the USD, chosen by the Chairman. The first Chairman of the USD is Jacob Smith.
On paper the USD 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 USD stands above national conflict.
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.
2251:
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 USD. Several independent groups attempt to rush and claim territory on planets using FTL ships. Without the proper augmentations and equipment, which the USD 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.
2252:
The first USD colonization of Relay systems begins. Terra Nova is colonized, and Demeter soon after. Besides those 2 worlds and their systems small USD outposts are created in all Relay systems.
The USD 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 USD 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.
A strange world is found in the Epsilon Eridani, a Garden World filled with dead robts, humans, and a radioactive wasteland. The data shows that the planet was nuked approximately 2,000 years ago, and, at the time, the population was between 2 and 5 billion. How humans were in thee system is unknown as none of the computers are operatonall after 2,000 years, though most believe alien intermention was in play. It is noted that the remains of the humans show signs of once housing nano machines.
The USD begins attempts to terraform the world. Morbidly, the USD decides to name all the worlds in the system after places that have been nuked
2254:
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 USD 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.
2255:
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 USD 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 USD.
The Halley Space Telescope is constructed. It serves as a proof of concept for interstellar telescopes, creating a lens 12 light years in diameter. it's success leads to the green lighting of several other projects similar to it.
The USD begins the construction of massive Fleet Carriers capable massive numbers of Fighters.
2257:
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 a Garden World is found]
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 USD's fleet any more then it already is.
Pressured by multiple organizations, the USD 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 USD 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. Some plan to only go out a few dozen light years, independent from the USD but still connected to human space, while others plan to farther. The closer colonies are called the Fringe.
The first of the Einstein class Fleet Cariers are completed. At 800,000 tons, they are the largest warships in history up to this pint.
2258:
When the conflict begins to escalate further the USD 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 United Dystems directorate Operations Council, Jacob Smith, makes the "Declaration of Peace", stating the USD 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.
2259:
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 USD 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.
Construction of the Galileo Space Telescope begins. The telescope is planned to have installations across Human Space, creating a lens thousands of light years across. Connecting the installations is a network of com buoys. The project is a massive undertaking expected to take decades. Its planed use is to study other Galaxies and Galaxy Clusters.
2260:
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 USD 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. The causes the power of the Nations to drop, though they still hold significant influence.
2265:
Problems have begun to escalate. From the beginning the USD 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.
The USD now occupies over a hundred separate systems and the USD 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.
2267:
The Galileo Space Telescope is completed.
The first Fringe Wars begin to occur. before this conflict in The Fringe has mostly been between small settlements on the same planet, but now conflicts between governments on different planets begin to occur.
Most notably is the Pavonian-Federation War, a relatively major conflict between the Pavonian Republic and the Stellar Federation, two of the larger powers in the Local Cluster Fringe, over the destruction of a Federation mining ship when it began operating in Republic Space and a few other grievances. It is a relatively minor war as the small populations, less than 50 million each, preclude the creation of large militaries, but the USD and multiple corporations use the war as a testing ground and marketing tool by giving equipment to both sides, escalating the conflict to a level that neither government could have afforded to bring it to.
2269:
The Pavonian-Federation War ends with 90,000 people dead. The conflict stayed relatively low intensity with most space battles having less than half a dozen ships and rarely would more than one or two be destroyed. The blodiest battle of the war was the Battle of New Actium with 5 ships destroyed and a settlement of 11,000 people destroyed when the Republic flagship, the Light Cruiser PRS Gemini's MAC round missed the Destroyer SFS Striker and hit the airless planet, craking the small mining colony open.
2271:
The Crown Nebula is discovered; it connects to the Ionian Storm and Exodus Cluster.
The first Fringe nations start to build Carriers. Due to their weaker economies, they are substantially smaller than USD Fleet Carriers and the USD Navy designates them Light Carriers.
2275:
The Damocles Cluster is descoveres, nemed that due to it dangerous closeness to a star that will go supernova relatively soon, with the gateway system only 35 light years away and many systems in the cluster within the danger zone for the explosion. Nevertheless the Cluster is still colonized as it is rich in many ores and, when the supernova occurs, will be filled with eezo. It is connected to the Ginungagap alone, further cementing that clusters importance as a local hub.
The factions in the Temple Cluster have solidified. The Free Worlds Alliance, United Peoples Republic, and Arcadian Republic serving as the largest powers with a dozen minor powers also existing, but commonly being absorbed by there powers. The factions constantly fight and the cluster has a relatively high level of militarization compared to the rest of human space. Military technology in the cluster is more developed then in human space due to Vra'nee developments being more focused in that area and the higher need for the tech due to the conflicts.
2280:
The USD 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 USD to divert a large amount of ships in the protection of the vital system and improve confidence in the USD.
2300:
The Arcturus station is completed, the 300,000,000 ton station sits equidistant from all of the relays in the system.
Human space has 12 Clusters with the USD holding 9 first class Garden Worlds and 15 second class Garden Worlds while the fringe consists of 4 first class and 13 second class Garden Worlds, Garden Worlds being exponentially less common away from the Relay Network leading to most Fringe Factions holding only one Garden World.
The USD creates 5 more Rapid Response Flotillas
2308:
The first ships of the Tokyo class are completed. They are each 800,000 tons, much larger than any previous Heavy Cruiser class.
2315:
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 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 USDS Rome is taken over by rogue forces from the L5 shipyard. It is able escape into the Olympus Cluster and causes chaos throughout the cluster.
2316:
The Rome is destroyed after its vicious pirate campaign with 20 settlements attacked, 17 civilian ships destroyed, 3 military ships destroyed, several other ships attacked, and 9,000 people dead. It is destroyed by the Fleet Carrier USDS Curie's fighter complement. This is not the first ship destroyed by fighters from a Carrier, but it is the largest warship destroyed yet.
2321:
A Prothean Cargo Ship is found heavily damaged with a hold filled with eezo in the outer reaches of the lightly colonized Gliese 752 system. The system is disputed space as the USD claims the system but 750,000 of the systems 830,000 residents belong to the Altair Federation. The system was originally surveyed by the USDS Plato in 2161 but no major settlement by groups approved by the USD Occurred till 2193 while the first settlements were created in 2175 and the first settlement joined the Altair Federation in 2178. The Altair claim that a ships from the system, first setaled in 2156, surveyed the system in 2159, 2 years before the directorate survey. the Directorate claims that the actions taken by that vessel did not qualify as a survey and thus the survey done by the USDS Pluto gave the directorate claim to the system. To make matters more complicated, the ship was not found by a vessel under the flag of either power, instead belonging to the New Canadian Republic also from the Altair system, but nt part of the Federation.
The USD System Defense Flotilla, 6 of Heavy Corvettes and a pair of old Destroyers, secures the ship by force and waits for one of the Rapid Response Flotillas to arrive and transport the ship to Sol. While waiting the Flotilla is attacked by a force of 5 Corvettes, a Frigate, two Destroyer, a Light Cruiser, and a Heavy Cruiser. The Flotilla is forced to abandon the ship while lossing a pair of Heavy Corvettes. It continues to harass the force, but is unable to do much damage but is able to slow down the attempts to transport the ship by attacking any tug that tries to get close. The Altair Flotilla also attempts to stop the unknown forces, but is unable to stop them and all three of the Flotillas ships are damaged.
The USD Third Rapid Response Flotilla, including the Fleet Carrier USDS Plato, Heavy Cruisers USDS Rio de Janeiro, Houston, and New Orleans, 2 Light Cruisers, 8 Destroyers, and 8 Frigates, arrives and attacks the unknown forces. The unknown Heavy Cruiser uses itself as a shield for the tug and is destroyed, but gives the tug enough time to properly attach to the ship and send both through FTL with the rest of the unknown forces.
Directorate Intelligence is able to determine the origins for most of the vessels in the unknown force. All of the ships were purchased by several PMCs in the Fringe, who all listed them as lost.
The USD begins to look into increasing its own deniable forces.
This is considered the beginning of the Proxy Wars.
2322:
A pair of USD Heavy Cruisers are stolen at the end of its refit by deniable forces. They begin attackng Fring governments assets in the Local Cluster, most from nations oposed to the USD but some allied and even USD assets to keep up the facade.
In the Temple Cluster the first Battleships are built. These ships, unlike most of the standard large classes in service like the Light and Heavy Cruisers, have minimal range, but carry a large amount of firepower. They are also much larger than most ships before them, the first gen ships being between 600,000 and 720,000 tons. A the high end is the Arcadian Neptune class Battleships. They are built in relatively small numbers but become the center of most Temple Cluster fleets. This starts an arms race in the Temple Cluster with the first Battleships becoming second line units by the end of the decade. The Temple Cluster nations do not use Heavy Cruisers but do use Carriers, mostly Light Carriers, though some full Fleet Carriers are built.
A USD colony in the Epsilon Indi System is attacked by the one of Heavy Cruisers discovered in 2220 alongside several other warships. The Battle of New Athans sees the destruction of the Heavy Cruiser, alongside a Light Cruiser, 3 Destroyers, 4 Frigates, and 9 Corvettes, at the cost of 2 Light Cruisers, 5 Destroyers, and 6 Frigates.
USD salvage operations allow for the discovery of multiple bases, which are than attacked.
2325:
The Independant Systems Federation is formed, a union of multiple Fringe nations. It is the largest Fringe factions with a population of 1.2 billion but is limated by the fact that, in the Local Cluster, the Fring is 100 Light Years in diameter with it also merging with the Arcturus Stream and Ursa Mayor Clusters.
2329:
The USD clames to have discovered proof that the Altair Federation has supported rouge groups that have been attacking USD space. The USD sneds in a "Pasafacation Force" to invade AF space. What is known as the Astair War begins.
The Battle of Gliese 752 is a disaster as the 5 ships, 4 Corvettes and a Destroyer, of the Altair Flotilla manages to figh a 6 month long guerrilla campaign that sees the USD losing 6 Corvettes, a Frigate, 3 Troop Transports, 9 Civilian Ships, and 2 Supply Ships. The Flotilla is only destroyed aft the USD lost tens of thousands of personnel, mostly on the Troop Transports.
The rest of the war is similar, the Altair forces not attacking head on, instead doing hit and run attack, drop out of FTL as close as possible, focus fire on a single or small number of ships, take them down, than leave. On the ground the fighting is fierce as the local population make militias to fight the USD alongside the Altair regular forces.
Several Fringe nations send support to Altair and sanction the USD, though it does more damage to them than the USD. They also send relief supplies escorted by warships.
2330:
Support for the war drops dramatically in the USD. Chairman Smith suppresses the anti war movement, causing more resentment and concerne from the nations.
The USD catches a Pavonian ship supplying a Altair Flotilla with munitions and supplies. The USD uses this even as a casus belli to invade the Pavonian Republic.
The A-114 Massacre occers, with the USD hitting an archaeology with an orbital strike that contains, not the militia troops they thought it did, but 11,640 civilians atempting to hide. The USD tries to suppress information about the massacre but it gets out.
The Armstrong Republic states that as long as the war goes on no facilities within their teratory will support the war effort, including the premier IFV asembally plant in the USD. Chairman Smith claims this is illegal and occupies the Armstrong Republic while arresting its leaders. This event causes more dislike for the USD in both the population and the nation. The nation start to look into removing the USD Operations Council and Chairman.
2331:
A whistle blower reveals that the USD's evidence was obtained by torture of a prisoner from a diferent rouge force near Pavonian Space.
The USD Oversight Board attempts to stop the war, but when 80% of the board voted for its end, Chairman Smith ignored them and than many of the more vocal supporters of peace on the board disapear.
2332:
The Spring Coup is initiated by multiple of the nations, colonies, and part of the military against the Operation Council. Specal Forces breach the Directorate Building in Geneva while USD conspirator ships and nation Fighters try to block off any path of escape. The Coup fails as the Council got several minutes warning and managed to escape on one of the loyalist Heavy Cruisers. The Directorate Civil War begins.
The rebles control about 30% of the USD military, 35% of the territory/colonized systems, and 70% of the population.
The Councl and Chairman Smith flee to Arcturus Station. The rebles control most of the population with the majority of the populous Local Cluster, Hyades Cluster, and Pleiades Cluster but the loyalist's hold on the Arcturus and Ymir Systems alongside their hold on the majority of the milatary allows for them to retain control of most of the territory of USD Space.
The Provisional USD Council is created with representatives from the nations and colonies. The PUSDC makes peace with the AR and PR and attempts to clear out the loyalist forces in the Fring. The PUSDC gets most of the Fring's support in the removal of the Loyalists.
The First Battle of Arcturus Station is an attempt to end the war swiftly by capturing the Operations Council. The attack is a failure as the Station is too strong and the loyalists could bring in most of their forces to the system through the relays.
The 17th Rapid Response Flotilla under Vice Admiral Preston J Cole is trapped in the Seraph Nebula. While about 30% of his Flotilla are loyalist, he is able to sway the majority of his crew to rebellion. Cole and the 17th RRF fight the near full strength 16th RRS and 75% of the Cluster Command Forces in the Nebula.
PUSDC begins to construct massive amounts of Fighters to protect its Systems from the, currently larger, loyalist fleet.
The PUSDC finds USD planes for a new type of Super-Warship that were put on hold due to the asymmetrical combat of the wars. Fearing the USD would build this class, the PUSDC begins construction of a number of these Dreadnoughts.
2333:
The final loyalist stronghold in the Sol System on Titan is captured with the greatest prize is Director of Transportation, Kamal Patel, the only member of the Operations Council to be unable to escape the Sol System. The rebels manage to gain alot of information from her until her trial, including the info that the Operations Council planed to take over all of the nations and become the only authority in Human Space.
The USD sends the 18th Flotilla is sent to the Seraph Nebula to defeat Cole.
The Jump Drive is created. This drive gives the PUSDC and Fringe Nations a possible way to bypass the relays and attack loyalist space. The allied forces begin to produce massive Jump Ships. While the design chosen only has a mass of 250,000 tons, but are longer than a kilometer, and capable of carrying several ships and a millions of tons of cargo while being able to travel 30 light years per jump. In order to lower cost and give the ships a, theoretically, infinite range, the Jump Ships are powered by massive Solar Energy Colectors kilometers in diameter.
Among the Jump Ships are specially designed vessels with two capacitors designed to carry massive swarms of FTL capable Fighters in attached modules, jump to the oort cloud, and operate as a mobile air base similar to Fleet Carriers but much cheaper.
In order to maintain the secrecy of the operation, the Jump Ships are constructed at the deep space shipyards and their first charge is given by the yards reactor.
2334:
Operation Torpedo begins. The operation is helped by the fact that, in modern space combat, the vast majority of the enemy Fleet is usually not able to be found due to them hiding far enough from systems that they cannot be seen but close enough to be called by FTS comms, obscuring a forces numbers and preventing FTL attacks.
A large amount of the Allied Forces conect to the Jump Ships and leave for the Ginnungagap, closest Cluster beyond the Arcturus-Asgard Relay.
Ever week the fleet goes hundreds of light years and what would have taken eezo FTL a very long time takes only a few weeks.
Communicating though a chain of com buoys the fleet left in their wake, the Allied Forces begin the attack.
The fleet attacks, rading throughout USD space and destroying all military assets thay can. They destroy ships, mine relays, destroy shipbuilding infrastructure, and attack military installations across USD space, using either the relays or the Jump Ships to travel between Clusters. The fleet attempts to break the back of the USD. Sol and the more populous systems always had most of the shipbuilding industry, meaning that, even though they started with the majority of the warships, the USD is having trouble replacing its losses and matching the construction rate of the Allies. This planes to make it even worse.
The second part of the plan is to tigh up USD forces so the rest of the fleet can do what its supposed to, attack Arcturus.
The Second Battle of Arcturus Station is the largest space battle in human history. Almost three fifths of warship tonnage in human space praticapates in the battle.
At first the Allied Forces launch waves of Fighters, hundreds of thousand of small craft rushing though the relays to Arcturus. Than, the ships came. Almost two thirds of the Allied Forces warships rushed into the system. Cruisers and Destroyers and Frigates and Corvettes and Gunboats and Torpedo Boats from dozens of nations moved into the system. A force of incomprehensible size, dozens of times larger than the fleet in the system.
But that is without the Station.
The largest Battlestation in Human Space, Arcturus out masses all of the battlestations in Sol combined. Designed to be humanities Fortress in the Stars, an impregnable bulwark standing between the rest of the Relay Network and Sol. 300 million tons meant to fight things humanity has never seen.
Arcturuse's main armament is 192 Series 5 Mark VI 500 m MACs, the same type of MAC carried in pairs on USD Heavy Cruisers, in 24 octoppel turrets, more of these MACs than on all USD Heavy Cruisers combined. From within its hanger bays tens of thousands of Drones and Fighters leave to protect their mothership.
The moment they exit the relay, the Heavy Cruisers of the fleet jump to FTL, exiting hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the station. The Station only has two weaknesses, range and heat. While the Station has the same MACs as USD Heavy Cruisers, it cannot effectively dodge them even beyond extreme range. The Station's extreme size means that it does not have the surface area to radiate its heat away fast enough. to remedy this problem, the Station has massive heat sinks deep within its structure, allowing for it to fight for hours without break.
During the battle, the fleet in USD space blocaded the Relay Systems. The plan is not to truly stop the USD fleets from helping Arcturus, but to slow them down, make them trickle in, and make them bleed.
The Battle of Arcturus lasts for hours. The Stations Barriers are terned off to limit heat several hours in. This does not change much as the Station is equipped with dozens of meters of armor, but the turrets are not as protected. By the time, 5 hours in to the battle, that the first major USD reinforcements arrive, enough of the turrets are destroyed that the Cruisers close in to fight the reinforcements. 9 hours into the battle, the allied forces retreat, having suffered massive casualties, especially for Fighters, but it is pyrrhic victory for the USD. The USD lost less ships than the Allies, but lacks the ability to replace its loses like the Allies can. Almost 60% of the infrastructure capable of building warships was destroyed, making the USD's ability to replace losses inferior to the allies minimal. To make matters worse, the Allies were particularly focused on the USD's larger ships. 40% of Heavy Cruisers and 30% of Carriers controlled by the USD by this point in the war, have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair, units the USD cannot replace in the near future as all the shipyards with experience building these ships are in the more developed systems, under the Allies control, targeted in the Jump Raids, or Arcturus Station, which is too damaged to operate as a shipyard.
Four Dreadnoughts are under construction and are planed to be completed in half a year.
The Allies begin the plan Operation Dagger, an ambitious plan to cut the USD's near-Sol Clusters from the Outer Clusters by taking over the Exodus Cluster.
The Allies get in contact with Cole and his forces in the Seraph Nebula. Reanforced by Allied forces, Cole begins Operation Lance. Cole's remaining ships set up near the Gas Giant Noah and has a officer pretend to be a defector and "leak" the fleets location to the USD. Cole's fleet fights the USD forces until they retreat into the atmosphere of Noah. When the USD forces persue into the atmosphere, Cole detonates multi-megaton nuclear mines produced by the Allies, the atmosphere allowing the nukes to be extremely effective. The Allied forces drop out of FTL and shoots down on the USD's remaining ships.
With the majority of the USD ships in the Nebula destroyed, and his fleet reinforced, Cole and the Allies begin to capture the Seraph Nebula. While they are unable to take over all of the Nebula, they still take multiple systems and manage to tie down USD forces in the Nebula.
Cole is promoted to Admiral and is made commander of the Seraph Nebula Forces.
2335:
The USD initiates Operation Sword, launching a large Fleet from Arcturus towards Sol. The Fleet has to discharge several times on the way, but with the ability to discharge in suns widening the available discharge points substantially, the fleet only has to deal with local Defense Forces and the occasional interception force before completing the discharge and continuing on it's journey.
When the fleet reaches the system, the combat forces split into three units, one of them attacks the Earth-Lunar 4 and 5 Lagrange Points to destroy shipyards, manufacturing facilities, and delay the completion of the new Dreadnoughts, another goes to the outer planets to destroy fuel infrastructure so the Allies will be limited operationally due to fuel shortages, and another heads towards the relay to destroy the static defenses so the Allies will have to deploy ships to the relay until the defenses are replaced, limiting their offensive forces.
The operation is a partial success as a vast amount of fuel infrastructure is destroyed, several of the facilities at Lagrange points are destroyed, and all of the Dreadnoughts are delayed in completion by a few months to over a year, but the relay defenses are only lightly damaged. The Fleet returns to USD space.
However, due to the vessels diverted for the operation, the Allies managed to capture numerous systems in USD spce, notably the Seraph Nebula's relay system, cuttiing off the remaining USD forces from reinforcement and resupply. Overall, the operation is a pyrrhic victory with the damage done by the Fleet hardly justifying ships and systems lost.
During the battle near Earth several MAC rounds hit the planet, causing several million deaths.
An assassination attempt on Chairman Smith fails.
The Battle of Lafayette Station sees the first use of the biotic ability Warp in combat by a Human. A rebel engineer with a hobby of toying with his biotics tries to replicate the effect of two mass effect field colliding in a biotic ability. This ability is first put to the test when the USD raids the base of the Allied-backed rebels on the station. The ability severely weakens the marines armor, allowing the rebel's civilian weapon to penetrate the armor and kill the marine. When the man is captured the knowledge of how the ability works and how to use it are extracted from his mind before his execution, and the USD begins to give that knowledge to its biotic personnel. this information is eventually discovered by the allies and the ability also begins use with them.
The least damaged of the Dreadnoughts, the Fuji, is completed, with the Etna not far behind. The Fuji is made the PUSDC Flagship and stays to defend Sol from any other attacks, while the Etna is sent to the Jump Fleet.
Project Orion is created to attempt to make more effective soldiers for the Allies.
2336:
Project Orion secedes in creating a super soldier by removing a volunteer's brain and putting it into a combat robot. The PUSDC begins to create and deploy more of these soldiers, which people are starting to call Spartans.
The Everest and the Elbrus are completed; the Everest is sent to the Seraph Nebula and given to Cole as his flagships, while the Elbrus is sent to the Jump Fleet.
[Plan was for the allies to create the Systems Alliance in the place of the USD, end the war around 2338, and start a golden age until the FCW starts in 2457]