WOILDS LOIK DEES

1.) A World in Flames  (this section is under heavy review by history nerds, so the details are subject to massive change.  by the time it's done, it'll probably be a totally different sequence of events, but still lead to the same result)

 

German scientists, sensing the fall of the Reich, departed in several U-boats and headed for the Japanese mainland.  There, they share scientific secrets and finish developing their A-bomb before we do.  They use it to wipe out the resistance on the Chinese mainland, and make their way to Manchukuo, where there are still serviceable factories and many raw materials to be mined.

 

Manchukuo becomes home to the Japanese generals and politicians, as well as many advanced scientific endeavors lead by the German refugees. The strain on the manufacture of provisions for the military leads to cheaper and less advanced weaponry and vehicles for each side. Armies of conscripts resort to trench wars on the Japanese mainland and Indochina. Many die of infection.

 

The reason why we don't use our A-bomb is because they already used theirs, and we did not know the range of their newly-developed V3 atom rockets.  They didn't know the range of our rockets or bombers either, so the nuclear attack on mainland China is the only one to happen in this war.

 

This warfare continues until the year 1962. Eventually, a Japanese gas attack on Russia's leading figures kills Bulganin and the rest of the Russian figureheads, leading to new leaders being put in place by the US in secret.

 

The American and Russian leaders unite in an act of desperation, and their fighting forces form a strong brother-like bond. In a single year of Russo-American blitzkrieg, the Japanese Empire falls by the efforts of both the Americans and the Russians, as well as numerous other countries (Such as Independent Rhodesia, reformed European countries, and the UK). Finally, the Rising Sun sets in the year 1963 as the boots of the American Special Forces and the Spetsnaz GRU stamp on the neck of the Empire. World War Two ends, and a mostly united Earth rebuilds and sets its eyes on the stars.

 

2.) The Post-War World

 

The USA and the Soviets help China and the damaged areas of Europe rebuild, changing borders and building infrastructure.  Simultaneously, the Americans and Soviets run a one-man space race, in celebration of the new, peaceful world.  Work is done quickly.  Significant accomplishments are as follows:

 

>1970: First moon landing.

>1979: First reusable spacecraft created.

>1981: International Space Station project begins.

>1990: First SSTO shuttle built and launched.

>1995: ISS completed ahead of schedule.

>1997: First moon base, "Brighton Bay", begins construction.

>1999: Automated probes find water on Mars.

>2000: Lunar He-3 mining operations commence, bringing new methods of power and propulsion to spacecraft.

>2001: Brighton Bay completed.

>2010: Mars landing.

>2037: Mars base "Jamestown 1" undergoes construction.

>2049: USSS Prometheus launched, mission to Jupiter commences.  

>2050: Jamestown 1 completed, terraforming of the Martian atmosphere begins.

>2052: USSS Prometheus pulverized in the asteroid belt.  Mission failed.

>2052: Terraforming of Mars fails due to sun flares.  Hundreds die from radiation poisoning and bad planning.  

>2059: USSR launches Partisan 9, an incredibly advanced space ship. Second mission to Jupiter commences.

>2060: Domed cities kept safe by artificial magnetosphere generators are erected on Mars, colonization considered complete.

>2061: The United Nations/Planets of Terra is formed.

>2063: Partisan 9 reaches the Jovian system on schedule, discovers life on Europa and Callisto.  Small automated outposts are established on Ganymede, mining begins.

>2066: Partisan 9 refitted and sent into permanent Jovian orbit, and used to establish the first of many "skyhooks", large spherical space stations home to hundreds.

>2079: All celestial bodies out to the Jovian system has been colonized to a certain extent.  The human race is a prosperous and peaceful one.

>2088: The Tannhauser Ring, a large circular station orbiting Jupiter begins construction.

>2109: Tannhauser Ring completed, becomes a great economical hub.

>2110: He3-Deuterium fusion discovered, revolutionizes the power industry and largely ending poverty.

>2120: Instant communication invented, based off of quantum entanglement.  Revolutionizes everything.

>2135: Halley's comet is brought out of orbit, given weights to alter its mass, and slammed into Mercury at a 34* angle, causing it to be tidally locked with the sun.  It is subsequently colonized in the habitable zone between the frigid dark side, and the fatally hot bright side.

>2145: Mercury is now an economic powerhouse, and source of 90% of the raw materials used for spaceships, skyhooks, and all other space-borne constructs.  The Hermian Union is established, and controls the flow of raw materials to and from Mercury for export and processing, respectively.

>2150: Hermian Union constructs railguns to fire raw materials into orbit, has potentially infinite range depending on the time of year.  

 

America, the USSR, and China are three superpowers, both politically and economically.  Industrial meccas like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Independent Rhodesia are generally the ones responsible for building ships, stations, and other large projects for the UN/POTERRA.

 

3.) 2191: The Jovian Confederacy (JCON [pivotal political history, read this shit])

 

In the summer of 2191, the colonies of Europa, Ganymede, and numerous skyhooks in the Jovian system declared independence from the United Nations of Earth, due to a tariff on Hermian goods and materials.  This lead to the First Solar War, a swift conflict fought purely in space.  The Jovians united and began hastily refitting cargo ships and space-liners for military application.  

 

The UN/POTERRA sent a section of their Hermian-piloted fleet to the Jovian system, and subsequently kicked the Jovian's teeth in with nukes and mass drivers.  The JCON surrendered, but to prevent this from happening again, the UN/POTERRA wrote up a treaty to allow the illusion of independence from Earth politics.  This treaty was called the Tannhauser Treaty of 2201.  This formed an alliance between the tight-knit Earth nations, the united Jovian and Hermian systems, and granted the Martians unwarranted independence.  This created the TASEN, the Tannhauser Alliance for Solar Entities (Also known as the Solar Assembly).  

 

4.) 2210: Childhood's End (science drivel, still required reading)

 

During a hundred year period of peace and technological advancement, a Swiss scientist by the name of Agon Schwartzendruber discovered a form of exotic matter with negative mass as the result of a particle acceleration experiment.  This exotic matter was dubbed the "Agon particle".  Agons can be created by colliding a mass of Ununtrium-286 with a cloud of superheated Fermium-257 that equates to exactly half the mass of the Ununtrium-286 while in a microgravity environment.  Unless created inside a sealed container, it will launch itself as far away from matter with positive mass as it can go, and is un-retrievable.  The Agon particle was then used in the Soviet scientist Dr. Ivan Chesnokov's dangerous warp-drive experiments.  

 

The result of twenty years of testing was a device similar to an Alcubierre drive, where space is expanded in the rear of the drive, and contracted in front, except on a much larger scale than predicted.  This device is called a "Jaunt drive".  It creates a warp bubble seven miles in diameter at the least, and can expand as far as the microgravity environment goes until destabilizing in larger gravitational fields like planets.  

 

It was immediately applied to interstellar travel after its invention in 2239.  The power required for a trip between systems is enormous, and requires a very large fission reactor running at least Plutonium-239 through a liquid metal fast breeder reactor.  The more reactors you have, the larger the bubble can be.  This concept is applied in "Jaunters", large star-faring ships of at most ten crewmembers, and generally around five miles long.  They have a large Bussard scoop/real space projector on the front end, ion engines in the back, two mile of heat radiators running from the ion nozzles to the warp field generators, then a mile of empty space held together by scaffolding until it reaches the habitation rings, astrogation computers, and Bussard scoop/RSP assembly.  The Bussard scoop is just a large cone three hundred feet long with wires poking out an additional two hundred and fifty feet.  The "real space projector" is a tube that fires a bottle of negative mass, which then explodes, spreading Egons which are kept in place by the electromagnetic field generated by the Bussard scoop.  The negative mass is then projected around a monopolarized magnetic field, with the Bussard scoop as the singular pole.

 

The negative mass has a half-life of three years, restricting FTL travel to the Milky Way only.  At maximum warp as of 2299 (2201 light years per week [2201 lyP/W]), we can traverse the average distance between stars (approx. 4,150 ly) in two weeks time.  Many systems (like Sol and Alpha Centauri) are separated by distances of only one digit (Sol and Alpha Centauri are 4.2 ly apart), allowing a trip between the stars to be only hours in length when at a more stable, economical warp speed (such as 200 lyP/W).  

 

The empty space is filled with many smaller ships, which are then taken with the jaunter in its bubble of real space.  This is this advancement that takes humanity into the stars.

 

In addition, each jaunter takes four years to build, with most of that time being the construction of the RSP assembly.  

 

5.) 2329: Ninety Years of Solace

 

For ninety long years (2239 to 2329), we scoured the stars, establishing skyhooks, and colonizing planets.  We encountered primitive worlds of cave creatures and every manner of environment, but no sign of sizable intelligence.  Man discovered many new elements, and much technological progress was made.  

 

However, in the back of everyone's mind is disappointment.  Disappointment in the lack of friends from other stars.  We begin to create our own aliens from our imagination, and the much-neglected science of biological engineering is brought to life in the winter of 2357.  Eventually, we found ways to implant our consciousness in our creations, though not many people took that plunge.  To each their own, the men and women of the Solar Assembly said, allowing transhumanism to prosper wherever it may take hold.  Some worlds became transhuman majority.  This was neither here nor there, given that on the inside they were still human.  In the early 2360's, the secrets of advancing the mind was discovered.   Morally, there was no argument.  If one wishes to do something that only affects them, the Assembly permits them. However, the prospect of psychological transhumanism was seen as far too risky for it to be permitted, and was subsequently banned, although lifespan extensions can be allowed depending on your status and how much you give back to society.  

 

Alas, when a rule is made, it is destined to be broken.  Certain colonies eventually go rogue, with groups of people having augmented their minds and longevity in secret.  Their minds, superior in computing power, and far different in the conclusions they reach, generally led to a superiority complex and genocidal tendencies.  The psycho-transcendants became aliens, unfamiliar in mind and body.  But to them, we were all but mysterious.  There were insurrections, rebellions, and insurgencies all throughout inhabited space. By the time TASEN gets word of these insurrections, millions died.  By the time they can act, just under a billion.  By the time their jaunters reach the rogue worlds, almost two billion have perished at the hands of psycho-transcendants.

 

6.)  2369: The Abstersion War (Solar War Two: Genocide Bugaloo)

 

The psycho-transcendants (often referred to as "psytrans", "xenos", "mutants", or given nicknames based on their appearance) were labelled terrorists after psytran terrorist cells are linked to the destruction of the Tannhauser Ring in 2377, and anyone to bring the remains or other proof of expiration of a psytran to a TASEN Officer, Captain, or any other highly-ranked TASEN personnel got a hefty reward.  Tragically, in the wake of this witch hunt, hundreds of thousands of mentally human transhumans (MHTs, or "mentras") are mistakenly killed, or worse.  However, this number was peanuts in comparison to the estimated 200 billion humans in the Assembly, at least 7 billion of which are mentras.  In fact, many mentras joined the witch hunt, some posses being made up entirely of mentras.

 

From 2369 to 2389, Assembly Space is stricken with a bloody war.  More than two-thirds of the fighting is terrestrial.  Bloody and violent, the horrors of solar combat pale in comparison to that of terrestrial combat.  The very prospect of a ground war was out of humanity's mind for a century.  The TASEN's Solar Marines were much underfunded and neglected at the time, calling for quick recruitment of mercenaries and guns-for-hire.  The heavily armed and ever vigilant population of Independent Rhodesia on earth's continent of Africa jumped at the opportunity, and the ranks of the new branch of the Solar Marines (SOMA), the Colonial Militia of the Solar Assembly (COMSA) mushroomed into the largest terrestrial-focused army in the history of humanity.  Comprised of mainly South and West African, Yugoslavian, American, Soviet, and Chinese ex-military personnel and mercenaries, the COMSA ended the war doing what humanity has done in every war since WWII, by sending a desperate blitzkrieg of conscripts complimented by precise strikes by special forces from numerous earth-based nations.  For planet-wide insurrections, we generally had cut our losses and glassed the whole planet from space if it didn't have widespread advanced infrastructure.

 

We were winning the war, then we stumbled across our first glimpse of the future of humanity.  

 

7.) 2399: The Groombridge 34 Incident

 

Groombridge 34, a system of two red dwarfs surrounded by several dead worlds of rock and metal, changed the way humanity sees the universe.  The mining and research colonies on the barren worlds around the red dwarfs were shaken when the red dwarfs stopped orbiting each-other.  The orbit of the planets were disrupted, and that destabilized the entire system.  The two stars then showed their true nature when from out of the clouds came two planet-sized creatures, named Castor and Pollux after the mythological Greek twins, who proceeded to destroy the surrounding colonies with beams of exotic matter.  These creatures entered warp shortly after, somehow reaching roughly 77090, far beyond the capabilities of any jaunt drive.  They accelerated rapidly, and traversed the length of the Milky Way in six hours, and were never seen again.

 

This single action resulted in the entirety of TASEN's governing body to drop everything, scratch their heads, and call a group meeting to find out what to do.  The majority of the psytrans took this opportunity, and escaped into uncharted space and multiply, leading to a new galactic hazard to inevitably encounter again.  

 

8.)  Solitude's End

 

After the Groombridge 34 Incident, humanity was tasked with dealing with the knowledge of immense, unknowable beings roaming the galaxy.  The universe appeared to be much less predictable than they had thought, so the TASEN began expanding its black budget, which became entirely militarized.  Weapons with immense destructive power were created and sealed away, waiting for the time the tides of the unknowable wash over humanity. It was inevitable, so we had to prepare for it.

 

A single month after the Groombridge 34 Incident, humanity was hit with another curve-ball.  Intelligent life found us, and they didn't take kindly to us.

 

Their first action was destroying the colony of Pamwe Chete of planet Selous, in the 82 G. Eridani system.  They then glassed the whole planet, then the whole system, and then there was a large spatial disruption in the area, denoting use of a jaunt drive.  The spatial disruption created a gravity well larger than that of all the combined mass in the system, which subsequently tore the star apart.  

 

They have nothing in common with us, physically or mentally.  As described by COMSA Commando Jake Haddock of the planet Selous, they

 

"[..] were about one-third as wide as they were tall, with skin that looked like the bastard offspring of a hairless elephant, a rhino, a boulder, and an agave plant, all a spotty dark brown.

They had the radial symmetry of a plant, cut up into fourths.

For each one arm were two crab-like legs, underneath a curtain of thick, hardened skin (more like plate mail with inch-thick plates) that covered the legs around the circumference of its body.

The arms looked sort of like an outwards-facing chicken wing, with three stout truncated cones sticking out, two on the bottom, one on the top. These cones held eight purple tentacles, all varying in thickness.

The head, however, was the only feature that broke this quadrilateral symmetry (It instead was bilaterally symmetrical).

Most had between one and six tubes on both the 'front' and 'back'.

With no way to distinguish front or back, I assumed they had two front ends.

All of the tubes have thick androgenic hairs, probably for their equivalent of sight, packed into the tubes, the spacing between which gets smaller as it goes deeper, soon becoming just thick vertical strands, which must serve as eardrums.

The void inside of these tubes sparkled vaguely, inspiring a sense of wonder and caution in me.  Sparkling dust is never a good thing.  The head was accented with fairly long spikes, with luminescent membranes underneath smooth, opaque skin. The number of these spikes also ranged between one and ten."

 

Neurologically, they have no brain.  All autopsies have resulted in no main nerve cluster being found, nor any nerves in general.  Instead, they are filled with some form of exotic matter as of yet unidentified.  It is unknown how they operate their muscles, work in groups, or pilot their starships.  The aliens were named the "Vaparadzi Huru" (means "Great Destroyers" in Shona, often shortened to "Vaparazi") by the survivors of the destruction of Selous.

 

The Vaparazi's display of power enticed the TASEN to mobilize a section of their newly refitted fleet, which was then destroyed trans-jaunt by unknown exotic matter from a Vaparazi dreadnaught.  This action started the Vaparazi Offensive, a war with an arguably larger scope than the Abstersion War.  

 

Their ships, being made of a previously unknown alloy made up from elements discovered in the Solace Years, are all one piece.  Their engines are apparently semi-organic, and they forgo many systems that humans require for space travel (meteoroid shield, life support, toruses, conventional electronics, the list goes on).  They are each outfitted with an atypical stardrive, similar in application to a jaunt drive, but either far more advanced, or equally advanced in a different way.

 

Their ships can be cracked with nuclear weapons, melted with lasers, and cooked with particle beams with consolidated effort.  However, kinetic weapons have negligible effect.  Half of the Vaparazi Offensive is spent studying the Vaparazi in an attempt to find a weakness, and the other half is retreating.  We never do find a weakness, and we lose the war.  Out of 233 colonies and skyhooks established beyond Sol, 70 remain.  The Vaparazi were knocking down our door with unknown weapons and unknowable tactics, and in an act of desperation, the TASEN launches J9 Bolo.

 

The Bolo is the flagship of the Assembly's fleet which was previously used throughout the Abstersion War, carried every important figure in the TASEN's political ring as well as many revolutionary scientists and engineers out of Sol and into Skylark 5, a testbed Jaunter hidden in-between the systems Sigma Draconis and Delta Pavonis in deep space.  Upon arrival at Skylark 5, the Bolo received a message from a ship orbiting Delta Pavonis, on a human frequency using a QUECOM (Quantum Entanglement Communications) matrix.  Upon hailing the mystery ship, the bridge crew of the Bolo was met with the face of another alien species.  Large, lanky, and bipedal, this species looked somewhat familiar.  As Bridge Yeoman Christopher Foss described in his autobiography, the alien

 

"[...] had a recognizable face, with two eyes above the mouth (albeit on the side of its head), a fleshy face, lips, but with a distinct lack of ears.  It had visual skeletal, muscular, vascular, and cartilaginous systems making up its body.  It was roughly seven feet tall, with whitish-yellow fur, lanky four-jointed arms ending in long, creepy hands. It wore a garish yellow suit with orange lines running vertically over the chest and upper arms. Its legs were out of sight at the time, but it walked as if it had two.  When it opened its mouth it showed that it had a flip-top jaw, but could enunciate with proper human syntax due to an extra joint in its upper jaw. It spoke in a human manner, speaking plain English with a neutral accent and the mannerisms of a human individual."

 

The recording of the conversation between Captain Horace Smith and the unknown alien is now common knowledge, as it marks the beginning of the union between humanity and another species.  This excerpt from the Bolo's black box tells all you need to know about the intercourse.

 

>0:00:Horace: I am Captain Horace Smith of the SAS Bolo.  State your intentions or prepare to be destroyed.  

>0:12:Alien: We seek only peaceful relations with you, Captain Horace Smith.  The creatures you call the "Vaparazi" are a dangerous, warmongering species that, according to your lack of information on them, is of a nature that eludes both of us.  They have killed countless billions of our kind, and we know they have done the same to you.  We have knowledge of the Vaparazi's tactics, as well as the solution to your the problems encountered in the testing of your ███████.  We are willing to share both with you should you wish to agree not to attack us.

>0:41:Horace: I'll think about it.  What are you, where do you hail from?

>0:44:Alien:  We come from a star system known to you as Rama 990.  You may call us the Ramans.  What we are, are lifeforms similar to you in physical makeup, as well as societal practice.  To reiterate, we mean no harm, and we seek only to be allies.

>0:53:Horace: Likewise.  What do you refer to yourself as individually, if anything?

>1:01:Alien: Call me by whatever name you see fit.  My name is unpronounceable to you.

>1:09:Horace: Alright Jack, on behalf of the human race, we welcome you into our Solar Assembly.

[Hailing ends, the following has been deleted from the public's version of the intercourse]

>1:21:Horace: What the fuck was that?  We never made any fuckin' protocol for that!  First we [DATA REDACTED] then we go to the fuckin' super secret space base for a goddamn tea party and [...]

[Rage intensifies for a minute and a half, and upon being asked to calm down by Yeoman Foss, Horace tackled Foss and was subsequently relieved of command.  First Officer Michael Hunt took the chair.]

 

The Bolo dropped their passengers off at Skylark 5, and against better judgement, set course for Delta Pavonis.  

 

9.) New Romans

 

The result of the trip to the alien signal was our first galactic friendship.  Technologies beyond anything that humanity could dream of were shared.  Knowledge of the Vaparazi's tactics was passed on to the crew of the Bolo.  Said tactics are classified, but what we did with them isn't.  The Bolo was hastily refitted with alien technology, as well as several superweapons invented post-Groombridge 34.  Civilian ships and research stations reported seeing the following as the refitted Bolo confronted the advancing Vaparazi fleet:

 

>The Bolo was fired upon by the Vaparazi's exotic matter projectors, but was unaffected.  Astronomers reported the Bolo "flaring up like the sun" upon being hit, but no visible damage was seen.

>A single projectile was fired from the bow of the Bolo and into the center of the Vaparazi fleet, which subsequently detonated, warping space and leaving no trace of the fleet.

>The Bolo continued out into Vaparazi space, and destroyed fleets and glassed planets as it went.  For three days, this continued, until the Huru presence was largely destroyed.

>An immense ship exited warp and hailed the Bolo.  The Bolo proceeded to fire it's main gun at the ship, which did nothing more than futilely warp the space around it.  

>Battle resulted in the Vaparazi ship being thrown into a nearby brown dwarf, which was then destroyed by a bombardment of exotic matter from the Bolo.  No trace of the ship was released to the public.

>The Bolo patrolled Assembly space, and upon finding no Vaparazi, reported back to Skylark 5.

>A small, lone Huru ship exited warp with the Bolo, and hailed both the Bolo and Skylark 5. The contents of the hailing were unrecorded, but it resulted in the ship retreating into Vaparazi space, disappearing along with the presence of Vaparazi in Assembly space.

 

The Ramans, who had shown their trust in us by giving us the advanced weaponry used in the prior battle, admitted their plight at the time. Their species was dying just like ours, however, they had pity for us, so they swallowed their nationalistic pride and allied themselves with us.  We exchanged goods, knowledge, and building materials, and in 2440, their assimilation into the Assembly had completed, expanding the Solar Assembly into a multispecies organization.  The Ramans embraced our culture, as we did theirs.  As they gained our trust, we admitted our gratefulness to their intervention, and relations between the humans and Ramans had blossomed into a brotherly bond not seen since the USA and USSR united in WWII. By 2500, our collective species acted as one, with each embracing the other's differences and reveling in our similarities.  The Ramans had shown themselves to be incredibly human in their thought processes, as well as in their societal structure.  

 

10.) 2501: Orion's Arm

 

With the Ramans on our side, we moved to conquer our arm of the galaxy, side-by-side.  A friend of the Raman's, the tapir-like Birrin, cannot communicate with us without a Raman middleman.  Through a Raman middleman, the Solar Assembly gained much knowledge. Some of that knowledge is listed below.

 

>How to perfect large, man-carrying walkers designed for war.

>How to create an "antimatter spray rifle", a weapon far too powerful to be used in the hands of a human.  

 

And, the most important of the knowledge: How to create artificial gravity through use of the Agon particle.

 

This artificial gravity can only be created in a circular area.  First, there must be tubes running around the perimeter of the circle, filled with a gaseous form of Agon particle called "Quasphenium".  Then, there must be more Quasphenium-filled tubes in the shape of a circle cut into fourths inside of that circle, followed by a grid of graphene charged with the Agon particle's negative-gravity properties.  The grid of graphene creates a super-powerful monopolar gravitational magnet that, because of the Quasphenium-filled tubes cooling it with negative-gravitational properties, projects a gravitational field in the shape of a cylinder upwards until it hits glass, which radiates it back downwards.  The gravity can be tuned to anything between 0g to 5g by regulating the flow of Quas in the tubes.