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The 22nd Century

“We now join hands as brothers to usher in a bold new era for the good of all humanity, and place our previous divisions behind us,” - Except from the Founding Charter of the Alliance of Sovereign Solarian Nations, 2132.

2132: The Founding of the Alliance

The founding of the Alliance on 15 June, 2132, marked a new era for humanity. The influence jockeying and bickering which had defined humanity for much of its existence, particularly the 21st and early 22nd centuries, was effectively brought to an end following years of negotiations between the involved parties of Earth with the exception of Switzerland. Conflict between East and West, capitalist and communist, and the associated space agencies of each party was brought to an end, and a new era dawned. One of peace, cooperation, and nearly unimaginable expansion into the Stars.

Humanity was now unified under one flag. A feat equaled by nine since, and perhaps never to be replicated.

2180: The Solarian Frontier

By the late 22nd century the Alliance held firm dominion over what it referred to as the Solarian Core, which itself consisted of three rings: Inner, Middle, and Outer. While already a significant power which had grown rapidly thanks to the earlier invention of practical warp technology the Alliance had far greater aims than simply existing in what it had already claimed through colonization, both with and without warp technology. A plan was drafted to exploit data from its fleet of Discovery-class exploration drones and colonize dozens of systems using their data, then expand outwards from those colonies into the broader Spur which seemed to be entirely free of sentient life aside from humanity.

The Solarian Frontier Initiative, as it is commonly known today, remains the greatest colonization effort undertaken by humanity. What had once been the three rings was rapidly increased by the addition of the three Solarian Frontiers: North, Central, and South. Efforts were spared from the east where few, of any, colonizable worlds had been found. Though not clear to the Alliance at the time, many contemporary scholars postulate that the relative lack of data from the Eastern Spur was a deliberate effort by the skrell to conceal themselves, or the drones simply finding planets wiped of life by Glorsh and rightfully reporting back a lack of inhabitable worlds. So barren were some of these original scans that early stellar cartographers of the Alliance came to informally refer to them as the “Roanoke Stars,” due to all life seemingly having disappeared from them, investigations into them, which were originally slated for the 2260s, are interrupted first by the Second Great Depression and then by the Interstellar War, which permanently canceled the venture.

The 23rd Century

“By the 2250s the Alliance covered more territory than any other nation in known history, including the Nralakk Federation. But it was a giant with feet of clay,” - Excerpt From Charter to Interstellar War, a common Xanusui-produced textbook on Solarian history from 2100 until 2300.

2204: Creation of the Credit

With the creation of colonies further afield from the Sol System and its surrounding Jewel Worlds in the later part of the 22nd century, such as Xanu and the colonies of Tau Ceti, there was great need in the Alliance for the creation of a standardized currency usable across all of its planets and colonies. The Solarian Credit was the solution to this problem. Controlled centrally from Earth’s financial center of Chicago and tied to energy for its price, the Credit quickly rose to prominence across the Alliance during the pre-Interstellar War era where it reached its maximum extent. All human galactic currencies in significant amounts across the Spur can trace their origins to the Solarian Credit, though many have since shunned the use of the currency as a symbol of Solarian colonial rule over them.

2233: The Galatea Project

While the Solarian Frontier had been firmly established and divided into three large sectors, by the 2230s it had become clear to the Solarian Department of Colonization that the entire frontier had a weak link: a lack of easily-inhabitable worlds in the Inner Solarian Frontier, now the Weeping Stars, aside from the trade hub of Gadpathur. To counter this, the Alliance opted to launch a massive project which has to this day not been surpassed in its scale or ambition: the Galatea Project. Intended as an initiative to terraform roughly three dozen worlds into inhabitable planets similar to pre-War Gadpathur, the responsibility of designing the platforms was given by the Alliance’s government to Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, who developed a functional design by the mid-2240s with some assistance from the Solarian Navy and Hephaestus Industries.

The platforms themselves, and their accompanying vessels, were launched to the Inner Solarian Frontier from the Sol System itself in 2455 to much celebration across the Alliance’s member states. A new future for humanity was, for Solarians of the time, forming right before their eyes! The Alliance, it seemed, was powerful enough to bend even nature to its indomitable will.

2259: Apotheosis of Solarian Hegemony

The Solarian Alliance of the mid-23rd century controlled more territory than any other nation ever has in the history of the Spur. Its influence stretched from the Jewel Worlds to the edge of known space and it held dominion over hundreds of colonies ranging from highly developed settlements such as Xanu and Biesel to small mining platforms and fledgling settlements on worlds across the Spur. The Alliance’s Navy ensured what it controlled was stable and productive, and its corporations were powerful enough to transform entire planets for their purposes. Humanity arguably still lives in the long shadow of the Solarian hegemony as no nation has ever come close to its grandeur, even the Alliance itself.

But despite its grandeur the Alliance’s economy was in a difficult situation during its peak. Terraforming projects, such as what transformed Eridani and Persepolis, had wracked its budget and the sheer size of its territory had stretched its government and military to the breaking point. In 2259, at the same time it reached its territorial peak, the Alliance stood upon a dangerous economic precipice that it would find itself falling off of within a mere year.

18 June, 2260: The Second Great Depression Begins

The primary cause of the Second Great Depression is debated by historians. Some believe it was simply a case of the Alliance's size – which remains the largest nation in the Spur’s known history – simply outstripping the ability of its economy and infrastructure to keep up. Others believe the massive engineering of the 23rd century Alliance strained the economy to the point where it could no longer function, thus collapsing under its own weight. Still others blame it on a myriad of financial factors ranging from a loss of consumer confidence in the Solarian Core to issues with Lunan insider trading. Regardless of what primarily caused the Great Depression, the result remains the same: on the 18th of June, 2260, markets in Chicago and on Callisto buckled under strain and began crashing at a rapid pace, causing other markets to follow behind them as the Alliance’s economy began to shrink for the first time in its history.

Panic gripped the central government on Earth and emergency measures were undertaken, but none stopped the contraction. In an act of true desperation, with all other options exhausted by the Alliance, the Emergency Colonial Taxation Measure was invoked in 2265. The ECTM dates to the initial founding of the Alliance and was designed to bring it exactly out of this kind of crisis by raising taxes on the colonies in order to ensure the Core remained stable. Eventually, ideally within a decade, the ECTM would be revoked and taxes on the colonies would be cut. All they needed to do was last one decade and the Alliance would be restored. There was hope!

But due to factors beyond Earth’s control in the colonies, this salvation was not to be.

18 January, 2275: Secession of the Coalition

The declaration of secession by the Coalition in 2275 was the greatest threat to the Alliance’s authority until the Second Solarian Civil War in 2462. Efforts by the Alliance to sustain its ambitions through colonial taxes backfired: they fanned the flames of anti-Sol sentiment which had grown over the past decade and a half due to the woes of the Second Great Depression, and an enraged Solarian Frontier viewed the Central Alliance as caring more for itself and its massive projects than the welfare of its colonies. Secessionists seized this public frustration and turned it into revolts against Solarian authority.

The clumsy nature of 2200s interstellar communication ensured the Solarian response to this crisis was delayed and, when it came, confused. By the time the Alliance was fully aware of the issue the Coalition had formed in opposition to it and, despite promises of negotiation, both sides had begun sliding down a funnel ending in the Interstellar War as Solarian forces refused to leave what they viewed as Solarian territory, while others quietly began to support the secessionists they were meant to protect against.

25 March, 2278: Outbreak of the Interstellar War

(Put an image insert here of the Martian revolt’s flag and describe how that was a problem for Sol too)

To this day the Interstellar War remains the most devastating conflict in Galactic history, with millions of Solarians and billions of Coalitioners dead and both the Coalition and Alliance left in economic ruins after its end. The Interstellar War is rightfully viewed by many nations as the defining moment in the history of the modern Spur as it crippled the Solarian Alliance’s ability to control its corporate actors, while also ending its expansive colonial ambitions, causing it to eventually lose the entire Solarian Frontier outside of the three rings of the Solarian Core. It additionally brought an end to some of the Alliance’s most ambitious ventures, such as the Galatea Project, due to economic hardships and territorial loss. Furthermore, it led to a dramatic uptick in interstellar crime due to the reduction of naval forces as a result of both combat losses and desertions.

Many have waxed polemically regarding the “what ifs?” of 2275-78 and ponder as to what a modern Spur united under the Alliance’s flag would resemble. Would the Coalition struggle regarding its infrastructure, due to no longer lacking the gates made during the Warp Project of the 24th century? Would Dominia have been stabilized by the Alliance, preventing the destruction of Fisanduh’s democracy by the Empire’s autocracy? Would it have protected the Elyran Coalition against its long-standing issues regarding its neighbors? Would the unathi and tajara have prospered under the stewardship of the hegemonic Alliance rather than being exploited by powerful corporations which destroyed both of their homeworlds? And what of Tau Ceti, now ruled by corporations and becoming an overextended empire of its own?

But such things are more the realm of fanciful dreams than reality.

8 October 2278: The Bombing of Gadpathur

The orbital bombardment of Gadpathur is considered by some to be the point of no return for Solarian hegemony. The bombardment, which was ordered by hardline Solarian loyalist Admiral Terrence Hopper, is the single most devastating day of the entire Interstellar War in terms of deaths and is believed to account for 10-15% of its total deaths. The event horrified the Coalition and the regions of Sol which heard of the incident before Navy censors suppressed the stories. Even today the Alliance often denies or downplays Gadpathur and it is not discussed in history textbooks outside of the college level. Many Solarians simply have no idea the incident even took place.

Gadpathur itself was nearly completely destroyed and has yet to recover its prewar population even today, though it has dramatically reinvented itself into a hardline anti-Solarian planet. Refugees which escaped the bombardment spread throughout the Coalition and some retain their traditions today. For many in the Coalition Gadpathur remains a rallying cry against the Alliance and all it stands for, and was a major motivator behind its intervention in Tau Ceti in 2464. Ironically, the saturation bombing of Gadpathur ultimately damaged the Solarian Navy more than the Coalition as the Solarians could no longer rely on its ports as a refueling point.

2287: Treaty of Xansan and the Collapse of Solarian Hegemony

The signing of the Treaty of Xansan in Geneva on 28 November, 2287 did not only end the devastating Interstellar War. It ended the era of Solarian hegemony the human Spur had lived under for well over a century, and fractured its former territory into varying competing states with little desire to cooperate for the good of humanity as a whole. Entire colonial regions of the Alliance were lost or written off in its north and east, where it retreated and the Coalition failed to fill the vacuum left behind. Regions formerly considered formerly to be solidly under Alliance control fell into anarchy and many fledging colonies, already strained by the decade-long Interstellar War, collapsed entirely.

The economy was devastated by the war and its armed forces were nearly spent. Millions had died for a war which was ultimately lost, and the Alliance’s formerly grand projects were abandoned in favor of simple rebuilding and rearming ventures. The Galatea Project, slated to transform the region now known as the Alliance DMZ into a beacon for humanity, was simply abandoned. Megacorporations, once firmly under Alliance supervision, began to exert more and more influence over the failing economy of the Alliance. What started as their patriotic, if profit-seeking, venture would eventually change the Spur forever, but such would not be realized for decades.

The Terms of the Treaty of Xansan

I. The cessation of hostilities between the Alliance and Coalition.

With this, the Treaty ended the Interstellar War formally. While ceasefires had been in place for much of its negotiation period they were often violated by both sides and fighting continued in several areas, particularly in the Central Solarian Frontier. This fighting ceased with the Treaty.

II. The immediate withdrawal of Solarian forces from the Coalition.

Solarian Navy forces had, since 2278, occupied much of what now constitutes the modern Coalition’s territory. While they did withdraw following the Treaty, many Navy officers, acting without permission but with the unsaid approval of the government, went to great lengths to sabotage useful stellar infrastructure from territories they occupied. Forces under Admiral Terrence Hopper were some of the most destructive, and left little for the Coalition to use after their withdrawal. Coalition profests fell on deaf ears, and this sabotage campaign is viewed by many as a major reason for the Coalition’s stunted economic growth.

III. The recognition of the Coalition as a sovereign state by the Alliance.

A humiliating blow to the Alliance, recognizing the Coalition additionally meant renouncing its claims over it and its nearby frontier sectors. A major part of the Alliance slipped from its grip due to a single piece of paper, and revanchist Solarians have long pushed to annul this aspect of the Treaty regardless of how practical it is to do so.

IV. The creation of the Alliance Neutral Zone.

In order to ensure the terms of the treaty were honored by both sides, the creation of a neutral buffer zone was deemed appropriate by the Coalition and Alliance. The Alliance Neutral Zone, which came to encompass the entirety of the Inner Solarian Frontier (now known as the Weeping Stars), was the result of this compromise. The ANZ was intended to be free of military forces and facilities from either side and was, due to being relatively underdeveloped, not viewed as a loss by either side. The neutral status of the ANZ lasted nearly a decade until it was violated by a Coalition force dispatched to aid Gadpathur in 2291, which prompted a retaliatory Solarian Navy patrol, which brought with it a Coalition observation outpost in the ANZ, which was matched with a Solarian observation station, which culminated in back-and-forth escalation continuing until 2462, at which point the Coalition formally — and illegally, in Solarian eyes, — annexed the ANZ.

18 May, 2289: Naval Coup Attempt

Organized along patriotic lines by officers such as Admiral Terrence Hopper who believed the Interstellar War could have been won if the Navy had been given more power to restore military governance without the oversight of the civilian government, the Revolt of the Officers ultimately further undermined the Solarian right to hegemony over the Spur. Much of the Navy’s goodwill, particularly in regions of the Solarian Frontier which has remained loyal to the Alliance, dissolved as the Solarian public saw a barely-thwarted attempt by the Navy to overthrow an institution which many of their relatives and associates had fought and died for barely a year prior. Hopper, once again evading justice, would go on to found the Solarian Patriotic Front, a barely-disguised fascistic organization viewed by many historians as the precursor of what would come to be ATLAS and Solarian Restoration Front.

While the quick actions of Solarian Army units saved the Alliance from what many believe would have been a devastating civil war, the damage done to public trust was permanent, and only grew worse when the Navy was barely punished for its actions. Far from restoring Solarian greatness, the coup moved the Alliance yet further into the long shadow of its once-hegemony, setting the stage for the further expansion of corporate power and additional collapses of Solarian authority as the 24th century dawned.

2298: The Martian Terraforming Disaster

While the Galatea Project had done much to advance the science of terraforming, it had done little to improve already-existing projects such as the Martian terraforming efforts which, instead of being run off of one central platform, ran off of a multitude of smaller terraforming stations scattered across the surface of a planet. The Martian terraforming project was the last of these still active and had been both delayed and damaged by the Martian World War which coincided with the Interstellar War. The project had suffered from issues over the 2280s and 2290s but had not suffered catastrophic issues. In 2298, it would be brought to a tragic conclusion.

What would cause a decade of uncontrollable climate disruption and millions of deaths is believed by most to have started with simple human error in the management of the Martian terraforming network which, unlike a Galatea Platform, had no corresponding backup network or safeguards. Only four technicians, all of whom had connections to the Red Coalition, were arrested and the Solarian Government officially blamed Martian separatists for the Disaster. The Red Coalition was declared to be a terrorist organization in the Alliance and its symbol was banned from public display, though it continued to be shown in private on Mars. No efforts were undertaken by the economically-strained Alliance to repair the Martian environment, which had been set back by a century. Mars itself had still not fully recovered from the Disaster at the time of the Violet Dawn Catastrophe in 2462.

The 24th Century

“The Coalition and Elyrans laugh at us! They call us the dying embers of a great nation! No more, I say! We will rise from the ruins!” - Doctor Ernesto Castrejon (2298-2386), regarding the Warp Gate Project (c. 2362).

2302: Elyra’s Secession and the Collapse of the Southern Solarian Frontier

Though not directly touched by the Interstellar War, the Southern Solarian Frontier, consisting of the regions now known as the Sparring Sea, Valley Hale, and Badlands, had been badly economically mauled by it and the Second Great Depression. Economic woes and a lack of public trust in the Navy meant to protect it caused discontent to build in the Elyran Coalition, the Alliance’s lynchpin in the region due to its relative wealth. The Elyrans had been badly neglected during the postwar period due to the ravages of the Second Great Depression and discontent reached a boiling point in 2301. A student demonstration turned bloody sparked the Elyran Revolution, and on the first of January 2302 Elyra ceased to be part of the Alliance. Economically and logistically unable to fight another colonial war, the Alliance was forced to simply watch helplessly as its colonies drifted away from it.

The Elyran Revolution was a crippling blow to the entire Southern Solarian Frontier and is now seen by many historians as the end of the Alliance’s ambitions of re-established hegemony. The loss of the Elyran Coalition and much of the Navy force assigned there made the Alliance’s position in the Sparring Sea and Badlands untenable, and the decision was made to withdraw from the regions. Some stubborn colonists remained, particularly on the edge of Solarian control — now the modern Empire of Dominia’s Imperial Frontier — but most fled the region for the Inner, Middle, and Outer Rings of the Alliance. Piracy and banditry would soon establish themselves as the new rulers of both regions as Elyra began to exert its own influence over Valley Hale. The power vacuum left in both regions by the Alliance’s retreat has yet to be filled even a century and a half later.

2355: The Warp Gate Project

The last gasp of the Alliance’s massive pre-Interstellar War project was the Warp Gate Project of the mid-24th century. Intended to link the three rings of the Alliance together to both promote trade and make military responses to hostile actors easier, the Warp Gate Project was the brainchild of scientists in San Colette who advocated ferociously for it. The project centered around both San Colette, which filtered travel from the Outer Ring inwards, and Callisto, which became even more of a trade hub. The economy, still recovering from the Interstellar War and Second Great Depression even nearly a century later, was to benefit immensely from the Project, and every member state was to receive a warp gate by the century’s end.

But the Alliance’s plans did not come to fruition, and may have contributed further to its decline over the centuries. By the late 2300s the Project was far from completed and its fiscal reserves, which had never regained the peaks reached in 2259, were stretched to the breaking point. Desperate for income, it began to sell more and more rights to the increasingly-powerful megacorporations it had once firmly controlled, causing its influence over them to further atrophy. While some member states, such as Callisto and San Colette, easily met their warp gate goals, many never received a single gate and the project ultimately remained incomplete until the Solarian Collapse of 2462, at which point it was announced to be suspended until further notice.

The 25th Century

“I worry at times that we are a nation haunted by the memories of our history, and that we shall never be rid of this legacy for as long as we live,” - Admiral Michael Frost addressing an officer, mid-2457.

2452: The Secession of Biesel

By 2450 megacorporate dominance of some systems, such as Tau Ceti, had become strong enough to formally challenge the government and win. In the system of Tau Ceti NanoTrasen, which had subverted the already-corrupt government of the system by 2450, opted to formally have its proxy declare independence in 2452. The Alliance mobilized to stop it but found its economy held captive by Nanotrasen’s dominance of the phoron market, which many sectors relied entirely upon. Thus, the Alliance found itself forced to sign the Tau Ceti Accords in 2452, which formally broke Tau Ceti off from the Alliance These treaties were seen as a humiliation by much of the Alliance and contributed greatly to the rise of far-right fringe groups, such as the Hopper-inspired ATLAS, over the following decade. Tau Ceti itself saw a notable population decrease as the remaining non-NT businesses and their affiliates fled for the broader Alliance, and some speculate its renowned xenophilia is a result of this brain drain.

The bitterness of the Tau Ceti Accords has yet to leave Solarian society even over a decade later.

2462: The Solarian Civil War

The Solarian Civil War has become, alongside the Interstellar War, one of the defining events in the history of the Orion Spur. While many view the Collapse as the result of the Violet Dawn catastrophe on Mars, the truth is far more complicated. It is the result of decades, if not centuries, of mismanagement by the Alliance following its defeat in the Interstellar War. It is the result of megacorporations ballooning in power after the Interstellar War and meddling in the affairs of nations which are meant to regulate them. It is the result of a Navy which long concerned itself with past glory rather than current realities. But above all, beyond all other factors, the Civil War is the result of corruption. Corruption at a massive, intergalactical scale which was fueled by mismanagement, by the Navy, by corporations, and by the simple desire to enrich oneself at the expense of one’s neighbors.

Now the Alliance, reduced to only its Jewel Worlds and its most loyal adherents, must work its way back to a shadow of what it once was. The goal of the Alliance, which once ruled the Spur, is now to simply reclaim its borders of 2462 rather than 2259. Gone are the days of the long shadow, and here are the days of desperate survival.