Global cooperation to stop an incoming asteroid attack leads to the formation of the Global Government, a one-world supranational organisation dedicated to preventing further global incidents. As it grows increasingly authoritarian, resistance groups arise; political at first, they grow increasingly militant as the GG gets more violent in its supression.
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History of humanity
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~2030 CE
Global Government
Founding -
~2050 CE
Colonisation of the Solar system
Scientific achievementInvention of the plasma jet magneto-inertial fusion drive, or PJ Drive, leads to cheap and easy space travel across the solar system. This, along with significant advances in life support systems, lead to the widespread colonisation of the Solar system. Numerous new colonies are set up by groups that declare their independence from Earth and the Global Government.
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~2055 CE
Pacification Wars
Military actionThe Global Government begins the Pacification Wars to force separatist colonies to join. Bloody and long-running, more colonies are set up in secret than the GG can remove, and the logistics of the war favour the resistance groups heavily.
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~ 2090 CE
Development of the KHE system
Scientific achievementAfter the discovery and manipulation of natural wormholes by Hirasaki Masuyo, a separatist colony creates and sends off the first Pioneer craft to Proxima Centauri and successfully completes the first (non-human) transition. Despite disruption by Global Government attacks, the first human transition of a wormhole is accomplished, sending eight travellers to a station orbiting Proxima Centauri. Eight years later, Zoya Krasnikov creates the first artificial wormholes, building on Hiraski's earlier work. The new technology is named a Krasnikov-Hiraski Event.
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~2100 CE
The Great Diaspora
Population Migration / TravelEscaping the ongoing Pacification Wars, and taking advantage of the new KHE technology, there is a massive exodus of groups leaving the Sol system. Despite attempts to outlaw it, as more join the Great Diaspora, the Global Government collapses, no longer holding centralised authority. Various groups claim authority over parts of Earth in its wake. Within a hundred years, humanity has colonised hundreds of star systems around Sol.
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~3000 CE
Invention of the FourDrive
Scientific achievementWith the KHE network pushed to its limits attempting to avoid causality paradoxes, scientists reveal the first evidence of the existence of four dimensional space. Within a decade, FourDrive enabled ships become the standard method of FtL and the KHE network is retired.
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~3200 to ~4000 CE
Golden Age of Technology
Scientific achievementHumanity's technological acheivements reach new heights and AI systems take on more and more of the mundane tasks, releasing the population to partake in leisure and creative works instead. Worlds are settled and created across a thousand light years of space around Sol, terraforming and megastructures become commonplace. Whilst systems retain political independence, cooperation is paramount and ubiquitous, with the longest period of peace known in human history. As more and more work is handed over to AI systems, education in technical fields is neglected, scientific progress stagnates, and the number of people capable of understanding the technology drops.
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~4100 CE
Apex of Humanity
Cultural eventHumanity reaches the peak of its technological and cultural advancement. With almost 28 million star systems settled, an estimated population of 1.5 quadrillion living in a post-scarcity civilisation, everything provided by its AI servants. Small elements of dissent exist, harkening back to the days when humanity understood the science upon which it rested, but they're dismissed by the majority population.
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~4500 CE
The Amnesiac Virus disaster
Era beginning/endOf unknown origins, a virulent and destructive virus destroys the AI upon which humanity relies upon. Systems fail; food production, life support, healthcare, even transport stops working, all within a few months of each other. In the anarchic chaos that follows, 95% of the population dies due to starvation, environmental collapse, violence or disease. Entire systems are rendered down to a primitive state, or suffer total population loss. Some systems are able to either avoid the worst effects, despite losing all AI enabled systems, but no star systems escapes the disaster unscathed. Most devolve down to levels more akin to post-industrial, with a fraction of their previous population. A period of darkness follows.
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Unknown period of time.
The Dark Ages
Era beginning/endAn unknown period of time during which humanity, spread across millions of star systems, attempts to pull itself back into some semblance of civilisation. Some areas manage to retain interplanetary and even interstellar capacity, but these are few and far between. For the most part, humanity has turned into countless small factions, each managing as best as they can. Attempts to rebuild AI systems are met with failure, with the Amnesiac Virus destroying every rebuilt or new systems.