Universal Interstellar History

Around the year 3820 UME, the Xib Zjhar of the 36 Ophiuchi system began their spacefaring endeavors, and were met almost immediately by the far older and more advanced skgri'i from the nearby system now called Barnard's Star. The satyrs taught their neighbors much of what they knew, accelerating the shells' technological advancement by centuries. However, this technocultural symbiosis was not to last. When the great war that wiped out the skgri'i finally concluded, the Xib Zhjar had been culturally traumatized, dooming their civilization to xenophobic hermitage for the next several thousand years.

Ancient history across much of the Ophiuchus-Ara region of sky is marred by a catastrophic event between eight and nine thousand metric years ago that leaves scant, fragmented records of that time. Evidence suggests that this "scratch" in recorded history was a spaceborne war between the skgri'i of Hemera and some unidentified faction from far outside the bounds of known space. Dubbed the "Armageddon War" by scholars, the conflict spanned four centuries and wrought destruction on an interstellar scale. By its end, both sides were presumably rendered utterly extinct, inferred from the long absence of either species from known space.

At some point around the year 10200 UME, the rimor of the ancient Alai system launched their first interstellar expeditions; first autonomous, then crewed. Over four centuries, the semi-nomadic rimor rapidly spread across the stars of the Eridanus constellation, bleeding into Orion, Taurus, and even Cetus. As the Ophuichus sector languished in silence from the extinction of the skgri'i thousands of years earlier, the Eridanus region became a bustling network of stations and colonies, overseen by the plutocratic oligarchy known as the Rimor Corporate Conglomerate.

On May 20 of the human year 1457 CE, the shyxaure of the Aelycah system launched the autonomous Çy ehs'Aeluqan probe fleet to explore the nearby Gliese 4285 system. This momentous scientific and technological achievement marked the beginning of the shyxes' transition to a multistellar species. Over the next several centuries, shyxaure civilization spread from their homeworld Delvasi to include systems like Beta Hydri (where they first met the ziirpu) and Epsilon Indi (the site of first contact between the Shyxaure-Ziirpu Alliance and humans).

The inhabitants of Virvv were never especially interested in spaceflight, deeming the deep dark between stars far too dangerous to investigate. Consequently, the ziirpu only operated nine autonomous interplanetary probes to explore the precious few bodies in the Zmiinr system. Some time after the creation of the Nzmarri Arbiter, however, this attitude changed. The Arbiter saw great potential, even necessity, in exploring interstellar space, creating a vision of a multiplanetary civilization too appealing for its organic forbears to ignore. Thus, over eleven and a half thousand years after the skgri'i first ventured to the stars, the ziirpu did the same, albeit far slower. After contact with the shyxaure in the Beta Hydri system, the formation of the Shyxaure-Ziirpu Alliance allowed Virvvian civilization to expand at a greater pace on the coattails of the more adventurous Worldtribe.

12023 UME marked the beginning of humanity's ventures outside the Sol system. On December 15 of 2023 CE, the first hundredfold of the Breakthrough Starshot microprobe fleet launched on an escape velocity vector towards Proxima Centauri, heralding the ceaseless tide of human interstellar expansion.

Humanity's exploration of the planet Calypso with the Arete mission yielded an astonishing discovery: an indigenous species of sophont, labeled Calypsians on account of their unpronounceable native name. The discovery of another extant sapient species in the universe produced an unprecedented and profound paradigm shift in humanity: the revelation that humans were not alone in the universe was a joyful one. Several decades after the Arete mission's safe return to Earth, humans received a transmission from the Calypsians, kick-starting a chain of long-term back-and-forth correspondence between the two species that eventually lead to their alliance with the United Spacefaring Sophonts Coalition.

In the early hours of November 28, 2220 CE, a small team of scientists operating the Drygalski Crater Radio Observatory on the spacebound face of Luna detected a faint, sustained radio signal radiating from the apparent position of Tau Ceti. It was soon discovered to be of intelligent origin -in fact, it was later determined to be one of the first long-range voice transmissions conducted on Ra'na, leaking out into space.   After two months of deliberation, a message of greeting was broadcast to Tau Ceti, and the United Nations Aerospace Coalition set about to planning an autonomous mission to the system. The probe Henry Stanley, equipped with full artificial intelligence and a spare ansible, was launched on a course for the system in 2230: three years before humanity's radio calling card arrived at its destination.   In 2244, a return message was received from the inhabitants of Tau Ceti, who called themselves skae. They, too, had decided to send an autonomous probe, but their technological capacity at the time produced a nuclear-pulse vessel more akin to Copernicus than Stanley. However, it was never launched.   Just a year after this return greeting, Henry Stanley settled into orbit and deployed its landers, one of which was equipped with a simple ansible intended for the skae to reverse-engineer. After almost a three-decade electromagnetic dance across twelve lightyears, the two species were finally able to communicate in real-time from 2245 onward, working together to coordinate a crewed expedition that would become the Perseus I mission.