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.
Im taking heavy inspiration from BattleTech for alot of the timeline.
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 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.
The first arcology begins construction in Tokyo
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.
Life is discovered under the ice of Europa, drawing the eyes of all humanity due to it being the first extraterrestrial life ever found. Research finds that energy is obtained not from the sun but by biological fusion reactors; plants have managed to fuse deuterium in the water to create heat. Animals either eat the fusion plants or do the same thing, leading to massive fusion-powered fish existing under the surface of Europa.
2072:
The first Helium-3 fusion reactor is created, its aneutronic fusion allows for lighter reactors and gives more power than current reactors, making it exceptionally popular for ships.
A solar array is put extremely close to the sun, collecting power and sending it to Earth. Some consider this the beginning of a Dyson Sphere.
The human brain is kept active and the brain capable of interacting with the outside world through a Neural Interface for the first time. This becomes the standard for interplanetary travel as a mass and life support saving measure as the body can be regrown at any time, this greatly lowers travel costs and also allows for even more people to begin living in space. This also becomes a common way of life as it greatly reduces expenses and a body is not necessary for the completion of most work and interaction through virtual reality and the internet.
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.
UNSA starts sending large swarms of probes to nearby systems at 20% of the speed of light.
The UNSA Garden World Classification System is created.
The MAC is suplanted in combat by the laser, its extreme range allowing for it to outcompete the unguided projectiles used by MACs.
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:
The human population reaches 20 billion.
The economy begins to decline.
2102:
Deuterium-Deuterium Fusion is invented. While most reactors on stations and planets are switched for D-D reactors, ships keep H3 reactors due to their lower mass.
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 Expedition 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 (3TP-1.7-64.2-.28-255-83-004).
Contact is kept with the colony with trade of data occurring; autobiographies, and data sold to Sol and tech updates and new entertainment sold to the colony. The system refuses to allow colonists to come to the system, fearing the original colonists would be consumed by a vast wave of new settlers.
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 conflict breaks out in many of the nations of the Jovian Moons.
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:
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. MACs, lasers, 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 not 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 a billion 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 have reached 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 catalog 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.
2136:
The Faster Than Light Society purchases the Jump Zero Facility and Repurposes it as a meant to test diferent methods of FTL.
2143:
The International Orbital Transport Project is created by the UN to greatly improve Earths ability to reach orbit and the rest of the system by creating a massive Orbital Ring for Earth. The project is expected to take 20 years.
The UN is given a permanent military force to enforce its edicts and to deal with piracy. While the ground forces are made their own department, the UNSA is given control of the warships. The force is not as large as most of the larger nations' militaries but still gives the UN more independence as it now does not rely on the nations to enforce its will.
2152:
The UNSA probe swarm the went to the Epsilon Eridani System's data arrives at the Sol System. The system is discovered to have four planets and a pair of asteroid belts. The second planet from the star is found to be a first class Garden World.
On the world the probes find dead robots, humans, and a radioactive wasteland. Having been given Instructions for what to do in situations ranging from crippling damage to first contact, the swarm follows protocol and investigates the world. The data collected shows that the planet was nuked almost 2,000 years ago, and, at the time, the population was between 2 and 5 billion.
This discovery shocks Humanity as there is no explanation besides alien or divine intervention for how an entier civilization of Humans existed over ten light years away. This event causes a significant uptick in conspiracy theorists and a religious reawakening in a not insignificant portion of the Human population.
Rather morbidly, the UNSA decides to name all the planets after cities that have been nuked: Nagasaki, Hiroshima (the Garden World), Los Angeles (Accidents during the Second American Civil War, 2051), and London ( terrorist attack, 2083).
Preparations for the first manned interstellar expedition since the Manswell Expedition.
A Probe Swarm discovers a Type 2 Garden World in the Lacaille 9352 System. It is named Demeter and it is the first Type 2 Garden World discovered.
2155:
A Probe Swarm discovers a Type 2 Garden World in the Tau Ceti System. The world has a gravity of 2.5 g, higher than a baseline human could survive long-term, but this can be easily fixed with augmentations. It is named Arcadia.
2157:
The Eridani Expedition launches, using laser sails to reach 20% of the speed of light. Sixteen ships holding two million people head towards the Epsilon Eridani System to learn more about the dead civilization and to prepare the system for further colonization. They are expected to reach the system in late 2209. The colonists are not carried conscious, or even their bodies held in stasis pods. Instead, their brains are separated from their bodies and stored on the ships. Their bodies are not nesasary for the setup process, and can be recloned at any time requested after.
2160:
Expeditions are launched to several nearby systems by both the UNSA over the next decade. These Expeditions are meant to prepare the systems for more possible colonists.
2165:
A new advancement in ablative armor decreases the effectiveness of lasers. Using magnetic fields to hold the evaporated components of the ablative armor in place, the amount of damage a laser can do is lowered and pulse lasers are made redundant. Lasers are still considered superior to MACs due to their range advantage, but missiles start to see an increase in use.
2180:
Colony Ships are sent to the newly prepared systems over the next several decades. Each ship, a standardized design produced on a massive scale, holds 13 million brains. Each brain is held in a .2 by .2 by .2 m box connected to a large life support machine alongside countless other brains. In total, a three-meter by thirty-meter by thirty-meter section of a ship can hold 130,000 people, of which there are a hundred. All powered by a large fusion reactor. These ships become known as Tome Ships due to the fact that the brains are, technically, dead, having no brain activity and only sustained by technology.
Filling these ships are those who wish to see other systems, filled by dreams humanity has held for centuries, held back by reality. Most of the population does not wish to leave Sol, but with the size of Sol's population, it is easy to find enough people willing to fill dozens, even hundreds of these ships. Aboard them, powerful eezo cores make them incredibly light, making it economically feasible to propel them in vast numbers to 20% the speed of light using laser sails. The millions of sleeping colonists are chaperoned by a small crew of also disembodied brains.
2190:
The first of the expeditions reaches their destination, the Barnard's Star expedition.
2200:
The human population has reached 30 billion, with the vast majority still in the Sol System but with hundreds of millions in transit to other systems.
2209:
The Epsilon Eridani expedition reaches the system and begins to research the human ruins, mostly settling on Hiroshima.
In the first six months, it is discovered that the planet was, somehow, also called Earth, and the people died in a war with their AI. This disturbs the UN and so it bans the development of AI.
2217:
61 Cygni expedition reaches its destination. On the way into the system, a group of revolutionaries attempt to take over the fleet, managing to take over four of the fleet's ten ships, and separate, traveling to 61 Cygni B, planning to create a utopia under the revolutionaries' control. The majority of the people on the ships do not wish this, but most are in stasis so the revolutionaries take them out of stasis one by one and reeducate those who don't agree with them, or at least won't bend the knee, pretend to agree and accept their situation. This is the first major occurrence of violence outside of the Sol System.
2223:
The Epsilon Indi expedition reaches its destination. This is the last of the first wave of expeditions from Sol launched in the 2160s. Several other expeditions were launched to different systems later, with some trying to go as far as Delta Eridani, 29.5 light years away from Sol.
2229:
The first of the second wave Colony Ships reaches Epsilon Eridani.
2235:
The Centauri Republic changes its policy on immigration. People are allowed to settle in the system but requier 40 years of residence to gain citizenship. While this would have been a major problem a century and a half ago, biological immortality leads to this being more palatable.
2237:
The First Cygni War begins due to the splinter group of the colony stealing a Tome Ship, planning to reeducate the colonists.
2240:
Faster-than-light communication is discovered; by using eezo, light can be made to travel faster than should be possible. This is first tested on Jump Zero.
The news of the Republics policy change reaches Sol, leading to
2241:
The first long range test of FTL communication occurs with a signal being sent from Jump Zero to a ship in orbit of Mars, proving it is possible over interplanetary distances if the receiver knows what to look for. A request for an interstellar test to Alpha Centauri is sent to the Centauri Republic.
2250:
The test has been approved and an FTL signal is sent to Alpha Centauri. No response is heard after several months, so the test is determined to be a failure.
The First Cygni War ends in a peace treaty that stops the splinter faction, calling itself the Cygni Utopia, from stealing any more Tome Ships, but allowing them to keep the people they kidnapped.
2255:
Transmissions from the Republic confirm the scientists' suspicions as they never received the original FTL signal, leading to the conclusion that the signal lost FTL ability along the way,
A probe is sent out with a constant FTL signal being sent to it to determine when the signal loses FTL.
2260:
It is determined that the signal is lost at a little over one light year away. It is suggested to place Amplifier Buoys in chains between systems, with one or two (in case of damage) Buoys every light year. This plan is accepted and preparations are made for the beginning of construction of such a chain between the Sol and Alpha Centauri Systems.
The eight interstellar Amplifier Buoys are sent out in pairs, accelerated at 20% the speed of light and carrying enough propellant to decelerate themselves while keeping some for station keeping.
2270
A push for the creation of a true government starts in the Epsilon Eridani System. The provisional colonial government, originally created by the first expedition, agrees to begin elections in ten years.
2280:
The chain is complete and rapid communication between Sol and Alpha Centauri begins.
In the 20 years between the launch of the Buoys and the chain's completion, several other chains began construction, planning to connect most human-controlled systems.
The Epsilon Eridani Civil War begins when the provisional colonial government refuses to begin elections and starts violently suppressing protests using weapons and Cylons salvaged from Hiroshima. Violent resistance begins and weapons are salvaged by both sides for the war effort. The AI in the Cylon Platforms are replaced with VI.
2283:
The revolution has succeeded, and the provisional government has been replaced. The Epsilon Eridani Civil War ends.
2297:
The Centauri Republic has been growing rapidly in the last few decades, primarily due to. In the last 33 years, the Centauri population has increased by 120%. The original inhabitants and the new immigrants have substantial differences and do not like each other much, and the rapid increase in population has lowered the value of labor by a large amount causing problems for the original inhabitants, which they blamed on the immigrants. This has been further exasperated by the fact that the 40-year residency will be completed by the first group of immigrants in only a few years, which will lower the Centauris' control of the government significantly, with it only lower over time. More xenophobic (fear of outsiders) politicians begin to enter office who are more in line with the beliefs of the current voting population.
2300:
The human population has reached 60 billion, with most in the Sol System but over five billion across other systems, with the largest being Epsilon Eridani with a billion, its development being helped along by the salvaged materials and even industry of the old human civilization. Humanity is now spread over dozens of star systems.
Just two years before the first arrivals will gain their right to vote, the Republic raises the residency requirement to 60 years, enraging the immigrants. Protests and later riots occur across the system, both put down by the Republic.
2325:
FTL comm connections have been established between all human systems within 12 light years of Sol. Sol acts as a hub for all FTL communication, as all the chains start at Sol.
2335:
The number of people moving to the other systems drastically increase due to the rising tensions in Sol. Now not only those who wish to travel the stars are crossing the void to new systems, now those who can see the coming storm are leaving Sol.
The colonies begin to prepare for a massive influx of people while the situation in Sol is further exasperated by the exodus.
2340:
A working theory for an FTL drive is created by Jump Zero scientists. The method uses a large amount of power to enter another dimension called hyperspace, the vessel is then staged out of hyperspace, but not at the ordinal location, but light years away. Several test drives have been created and it is proven posible to send things into hyperspace, though if they reenter normal space like the math suggests is currently unknown.
The Jump Zero scientists do not release the tech's existence as, with the rising tensions in the Sol System, it would be seen as a potential resource or a threat in its current state, as without a way to control the destination as of yet, it is not effective as an FTL drive. The scientists hope that if the drive can work when it is discovered, it could lower tensions as it would alleviate one of the major causes of the tension, territorial disputes because of resources. Research to fix the drive's problems continues in secret, Jump Zero's relative isolation helping with that. Only a few of Jump Zero's funders and close associates no about the drive and any information about its properties.
Trusted members of the UNSA deep space observation command are informed of the theoretical characteristics of a hyperspace exit and agree to pass on the information if any are found.
2341:
The UNSA DSOC discovers a hyperspace exit event 9 light months away from Sol, in the Oort Cloud. The exits light delayed opening correlates with the activation of one of the early test drives, confirming that the drive works.
2345:
The Second War of Sol begins.
The UN is destroyed, and UNSA forces pick a side, desperately attempt to protect the few Neutral States remaining, or head out on their own to create their own kingdoms.
The conflict is less one war and more a thousand wars happening at the same time. A complete breakdown of international cooperation occurs beyond the most basic levels.
2350:
The last Comm Buoy within the Sol System is destroyed, not only separating Sol from the rest of the Human Systems, but separating the Human Systems from each other as Sol was the hub for the Comm Buoy network.
While decades before the colonies saw this as a possibility and began constructing a more decentralized network, but those projects were not funded enough to be completed entirely, and some colonies did not attempt such programs. The ability for systems to communicate with each other is drastically reduced and some systems cut off entirely or their Communications left the whims of a single other system.
Using mass effect fields to manipulate gravity while in hyperspace, the Jump Zero scientists manage to roughly aim the hyperspace exits. The aim is still wildly inaccurate as exit points are affected by real space gravity in non-proportional ways that the scientists are still trying to determine the specifics of.
2355:
The Dusty Plasma Rediator is created, making normal delicate radiators obsolete. Due to the loss of FTL communication, this technology does not leave Sol.
2358:
The MAC retakes its place as the premier warship weapon in Sol with the guided MAC round's invention and the creation of the Plasma Barrier. Using two electromagnetic fields, a large sheet of plasma can be created to protect ships from lasers, decreasing their effectiveness. Lasers are not entirely obsolete, but they are mostly relegated to destroying smaller vessels and munition that cannot produce thick enough barriers to be protected from an economically sized lasers.
MACs are unimpeded by the sheets of plasma and the new guided MAC rounds allow for MACs to reliably hit at longer ranges, closer to those expected of missles than lasers with more difaculty at shooting them down due to their small size.
2360:
After 20 years of research, the Jump Zero team manages to overcome the static discharge problem, allowing for theoretically unlimited FTL travel.
Unfortunately, Jump Zero is attacked only shortly after solving the problem, and the station is destroyed, its secrets left to drift in its wreckage. The area around Pluto, where Jump Zero was at the time of its destruction, remained a combat zone for many years, so a rapid salvage took place after the battle, which missed the data, and it was promptly labeled as salvaged, with nothing of value remaining.
The first mercenary states begin to form in Sol. Commonly the remnants of defunct States' militaries, these states control fleets, space stations, asteroids, and even whole moons. They contract their massive forces to other powers for resources or money.
2370:
The Tau Ceti Civil War begins due to the current government refusing to relinquish power after losing the election and using the military to stay in power. Revolutionary groups and rebel military forces fight against the government.
2375:
The goverment is overthrown, but revolutionaries begin fighting amongst each other. One of the major revolutionary factions make a deal with Fleet Admiral Frederick Johnson, leader of the largest remaining military remanent, and they work together to defeat the other factions.
2380:
The Revolutionary-Military Alliance manages to take over most of the Tau Ceti System, but Joneson betrays the revolutionaries, killing their leaders and placing himself as the dictator of the system. He begins a campaign to wipe out all of his former allies alongside the remnants of the other revolutionary groups. He names his government the Arcadian Republic and creates and Senate that technically has power, but, in reality, is entirely beholden to him.
2391:
Frederick Johnson has taken control of the entire Tau Ceti System, with no major resistance remaining.
2400:
The human population reaches 80 billion people, the growth of the colonial population being partially offset the massive loss of life caused by the ongoing Second War of Sol.
The heaviest fighting of the war is over, and most of the original powers that started the war did not make it to the turn of the century. What is left are successor states fighting over a diminished system, a shadow of its former self.
The colonies have split into the Inner Systems and the Fringe. Those systems closer to Sol saw most of the immigration from the exodus, leading to a population explosion from the billions of people who left in the decade before the war. The systems farther away from Sol, already less populated than the systems closer to Sol, saw almost none of the rapid immigration of the Inner Systems, leading them to fall behind in population compared to them. The main exceptions are Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, due to their Type 2 and 1 Garden Worlds, respectively, leading to a far higher immigration rate than worlds as far out as them.
The majority of the population in Sol live relatively poor lives compared to those in the colonies; most of the industry being destroyed in the war, and the constant conflict preventing comprehensive reconstruction.
2460:
An object of the same design as the Charon object is found in the deep outer system of Tau Ceti. During testing, one of the scientists decides to send the coordinates of the Charon Object to the Ceti Object, leading to it orienting itself towards Sol. Testing continues in earnest with this momentous discovery of actually getting one of the objects to do something after over 400 years.
2461:
During testing a probe is hit by an asteroid and is damaged, leading to it sending out a distress call. The distress call includes commission on the object in the stress, including the mass. The Ceti Object picks up the distress call and launches the probe almost a dozen light years to Sol. The researchers managed to replicate the event several times until they eventually attempt to do a live Human test. the test is a success and humanity rejoices at discovering faster than light travel.
The rest of the Human Systems learn about the momentous event abd begin attempting to replicate the objects capabilities.
2465:
The AR begins to move the the Ceti Object into the inner system. The project is expected to take two years.
2467:
The project is complete and the Ceti Object is in geostationary orbit of Arcadia.
The Invasion of Sol begins. The Ceti Republic begins to creat at foothold within the Sol System, starting at Pluto. The remaining powers in the system are too divided to create a unified resistance.
The powers of Sol have devastated infrastructure, but have better weapons due to the last allmost century of war and military equipment being the primary focus of development, through the advancemeant of equipment can vary greatly and a lot of the advanced equipments production methods and facilities have been lost, leaving the examples remaining as a limited resource. They also have the advantage of defending and having all of the defenses built up in Sol, while the AR only has what they can bring with them.
The AR's primary opponent near Pluto is Vice Admeral Wera Nowicka, a formar UNSA Admeral turned Warlord who controls much of Pluto and its moons.
2469:
The AR has managed to take over much of Pluto and its Moons, killing the Vice Admeral in the Ninth Battle of Nix.
Long trval time to the rest of Sol, and thus stretched supply lines, lead to the AR deciding to fortify and strengthen its hold in the Kuiper belt and Oort Cloud, invading small colonies and creating defenses around Pluto and the Charon Object.
The AR begin reverse engineering Sol technology.
2470:
Some of the Sol States agree to do something about the AR's invasion. Instead of sending their own forces, they hire the Voidwalkers League, a Mercenary State mostly created by Jovian League military remnants, to attack the AR.
The Voidwalker-Republic War begins. The Voidwalkers deploy to a fleet of dozens of ships several light second away from Pluto, and begin attacking all AR forces and construction a extream range, wekaning the AR forces and hoping to draw out a AR for to face them.
After three weeks of attacks, and a vast amount of damage, the Republic Admiral breaks and launches over two hundred ships to attack the Voidwalkers. The Voidwalkers fire a massive volley of missiles before retreating while firing large amounts of lasers and MAC rounds, destroying or damaging several AR warships. While some of the AR ships have been equipped with Sol combat tech, most have not, and this causes massive casualties. Voidwalker ships can take several times the laser fire of a equal mass AR warship, while their MACs are almost guaranteed kills after only a few shots against even the largest AR vessels.
At around 20 light seconds from Pluto, the AR focus began deceleration burns and broke off pursuit, fearing that if they continued pursuit until the Voidwalker fores were destroyed, they would not be able to make it back to Pluto before a Sol fleet could get to them and cripple the fleet. 22 Voidwalker ships were destroyed during the chase, but at the cost of 70 AR ships.
The AR begins to construct massive movable armored shields to protect its installation like the Sol States do. The massive shields deflect MAC rounds so that they miss while damaging the components.
The AR begins salvage operations to construct the Shileds and to make the entire venture profitable.
The Voidwalkers continue to attack the AR foothold.
2471:
During salvaging of the Jump Zero for raw materials, the FTL data is discovered. The data is declared top secrets and is transported to the Tau Ceti System.
The AR manages to replicate the FTL drive and even improve the drive.
The FTL drive is added to the design for the next generation of AR capital ship being designed.
2472:
The Dreadnought class begins production. At 800,000 tons, the Dreadnought class is double the mass of the previous class and includes several Sol technologies to make it competitive with Sol ships. The class also includes an FTL drive.
The AR begins a massive military buildup in preparation for a major push into Sol.
2473:
The Voidwalker Fleet splits into six groups in order to encircle the AR foothold and maximize the amount of space the AR shields have to protect, a common tactic in Sol.
The AR unveils the FTL drive and approves limited civilian production for approved companies. The invention jubalates humanity and most governments and organizarions request schematics come over at least knowledge on how it works. The Ceti Republic refuses and guards the drive heavily; all ships with FTL drives are required to host a self destruct device, only have the drive operated and serviced by AR engineers, and host a whole company of AR troops, while the only facility that produces the drives, the Jump Alpha facility on one of Arcadias moons, is built more like a fortress than a factory, with an entire corp of AR troops protecting it. This angers the rest of humanity, but they cant do anything about it.
The people of Sol does not learn about the FTL as their is no FTL Buoys in Sol, the AR holds the only FTL conections to the system, and no one sends a laser message to Sol telling them.
2475:
The first FTL transport ships begin operation. Moving at thirty times the speed of light, these ships can transport cargo and passengers 150 time the speed of normal STL travel at 20% the speed of light, and far cheaper. While eezo accelerating increases the monster of accelerating an object to 20% of the speed of light, it still takes a large amount of energy.
Profit margens for the Ceti company's are huge as even selling tickets and cargo space at several dozen times the cost to actually transport the person or cargo, it is so much cheaper and faster than STL travel that people will still pay, and enforced prices by by the Republic keep the profits high.
By the end of the year, plans are in place to begin routes to ove two dozen human systems by the end of the century.
2490:
The Republic Fleet has grown to include eighty Dreadnoughts and almost 800 older capital ships of between 250,000 and 400,000 tons.
The AR prepares a force of 60 Dreadnoughts to fight the Voidwalkers, whose forces fighting the AR has reached a hundred and fifty ships split into six Battlegroups of 25.
For the first time, human ships do FTL jumps in combat. All 60 Dreadnoughts travel over a million kilometers in a fraction of a second and appear within half a million kilometers of one of the Battlegroups. Drift is large for the jump; most ships are hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from the point they were aiming for, but it is still effective. The Dreadnought Fleet begins to close in on the Battlegroup while firing at extreme range. Outnumbered by 12 to 5, and out massed even worse, the Battlegroup is quickly destroyed with minimal losses to the Dreadnought Fleet. The fleet repeats this with the five other Battlegroups. In the end, 150 Voidwalker ships are destroyed at the cost of three Dreadnoughts destroyed and a dozen more damaged, one of the most one-sided victories in human history.
Under Admiral Juliet Johnson, daughter of Frederick Johnson, the Dreadnought Fleet will spend the next ten years killing its way across the Sol System, destroying numerically inferior fleets, and striking at lightly defended targets across the system under the control of those states who do not submit to the Ceti Republic, destroying hundreds of ships and killing over a million people in what would be known as the Dreadnought Crusade.
2495:
The Sol System Alliance is formed by the remaining Sol State. The Alliance acts as a way to pool all of the States' resources in order to protect from the Republic's invasion.
2498:
During a raid at the Sis-Lunar L5 point shipyards, the Dreadnought Fleet faces more resistance then expected, losing several Dreadnoughts. While most of the Dreadnought were damaged too much to salvage the FTL drive, but one, the ARS Ouroboros, was struck by a MAC round that damaged its fusion reactor, flooding the ship with radiation but not destroying the ship. The SSA begins attempting to reverse engineer the drive.
2500:
The human population reaches 120 billion people, still mostly in Sol, but with 50 billion out of Sol.
The AR controls much of the outer system and the Belt but lacks the firepower to take the inner system, only taking parts of Mars and contesting other areas on the world such as the Promethei Planum. The AR takes control of most of the resource extraction in the system, especially hydrogen and helium. This monopoly allows for the AR to force the remaining Sol States to pay a form of tribute in exchange for allowing the vital resources to continue to flow and stop the attacks, mostly in goods, but also in tech if requested.
The only major holdout in the outer system is Europa.
The AR controls a population in Sol equal to the population of Tau Ceti. They are not citizens and are primarily used to fulfill the AR's end of the tribute requirements and to send resources to Tau Ceti.
The Ceti Republic enters into a golden age, the goods, tech and raw materials of Sol flowing into Tau Ceti, allowing for a level of prosperity unknown in human history, the 12 billion within the system's lives fulled by the 80 billion in Sol, through tribute or in labor. Even if the SSA gained FTL, the Sol Systems shipbuilding has been crippled by both the Second War of Sol and the Dreadnought Crusade, meaning it is at a major disadvantage compared to the AR. With their fusion H3 fuel controlled by the AR, any war would only last as long as the SSA's stokpiles and what little could be gained from the inner system.
The Inner Systems are connected by FTL Buoys and STL ships, but much of the Fringe lacks FTL comms and, while many Fringe Systems are well known and connected to the Inner Systems by laser comms and the occasional ship, many have minimal contact or are even have no contact with the Inner Systems.
2501:
The first Alliance FTL ship launches.
Faced with pressure from the other systems and the threat of the SSA just giving it away to curry favor with the other systems or in a bargen to remove the AR from Sol, the AR begins selling FTL technology far more openly and even selling licenses for drive construction.
Militaries immediately begin designing ships based off the Dreadnought class, now calld Dreadnoughts.
The price for interstellar travel drastically decreases with the AR back monopoly broken. People and goods begin to traval between systems far more.
Colonizatio initiative begin to form for the colonization of far off Star Clusters and Nebulas.
2504:
The first colony fleets launch.
2406:
The AR begins sending out FTL probes to system farther out from Sol than Human Space.
2509:
Arcturus is discovered to hold several objects, like the ones in Sol and Tau Ceti. The AR uses the Ceti Object to send an expedition to Arcturus beyond the probe previously sent.
It is discovered that while two of the objects in Arcturus act like the previous objects, the other three are different. The other objects are slowly changing their orientations microscopically, keeping in line with another object thousands of light years away. The objects launch the AR probes thousands of light years to a single location; all attempts to connect these objects to any others are met with failure.
The name Mass Relay is given to the objects.
Garden Worlds are discovered in two of the Relay Systems: Asgard holds a Type 1B Garden World, which is named Terra Nova, while the moon of one of Everest's Gas Giants is a Type 2C Garden World named Umbra. More interestingly, Umbra is found to have been the home of a Bronze Age civilization 10,000 years ago before a large asteroid hit the world and caused an extinction event, leaving the world a shadow of its former self.
This is a momentous event in human history as it is the first discovery of a non-human intelligent race besides the Relays.
The AR claims Arcturus and the Relay Systems connected to it, Everest, Brand, and Asgard.
[Plan was for the AR to expand through the network until it discovers the Ginungagap or the Seraph nebula ( didn't decide). Upon the discovery, seeing the posability of the AR have sole control f advanced alien tech as a existential threat, the majority of nations demand acess. The AR refuses and a war begins. The war lasts for a few years until the AR finally gives up and the Treaty of Arcturus is signed. The treaty gives everyone access to the network and makes the Arcturus system a neutral zone defended by a independent military force. Humanity expands for several more centuries as a collection of mostly Powers constantly fighting each other. There are some unification attempts but they all fail. Near the tern of the fourth millennium, the Sol System Alliance finds the prothean ruins and uses the tech within to conquer the majority of humanity, renaming itself the Systems Alliance. The SA starts a century anda half long golden age before beginning to expand, meeting the Turians in the process.]