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Post by Kenneth New on Jun 12, 2011 15:36:47 GMT -5
2350—The chronicle begins.
2300—Chumakh war begins and the New Lexington Treaty is signed bringing limited cooperation between the Earth Alliance, The Shoomari Empire and the Tekkaren Federation. This includes free passage through the Bubastis-Pharos wormhole.
2275—Pharos Corporation is given controlling authority over Pharos system and the Pharos terminus of the wormhole. Bubastis Corporation is created to control the Bubastis terminus of the wormhole.
2250—Janus expedition opens Pharos sector for colonization.
2200—Lyra expedition disappears in Pharos Sector. Shoomari war begins.
2100—Humans discover the hyperdrive.
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Post by Kenneth New on Jun 12, 2011 15:56:16 GMT -5
The Golden Age of Interstellar Colonization is generally considered to have occurred between the years 2100 and 2200. The hyperdrive was discovered at the beginning of the era and excitement to explore other star systems soared. When the ecological collapse struck Earth in 2109 due to centuries of abuse, millions of people with liquid assets used them to finance expeditions to other star systems. Within the next fifty years, nearly four expeditions a year set out from the Solar System.
After 2160, when the Earth's economy had finally begun to recover and the majority of those with both the will and the finances to flee had done so, expeditions began to trickle down to a about one per year.
2200 saw the beginning of the Shoomari war and the formation of the Earth Alliance. As humanity's energies were redirected towards fighting the Shoomari, new expeditions crawled to a standstill.
The number of expeditions may seem low for a golden age of colonization, but it should be noted that these expeditions were massive. Colony ships were built to transport thousands of individuals, livestock, machinery and everything necessary to found a new society. The ships themselves were modular, designed to be disassembled at the new planet and used in the construction of the colony.
Furthermore, these massive expeditions were designed to found new colonies. As they became firmly established, more colonists would arrive in trickles on transport ships.
These early colonies became the core worlds of the Earth Alliance. The most successful of them include Avalon, Formosa, New Lexington, Ukiyo, Penglai, Peregrine, Cheonsanju, Gaia, Arcadia, Gam Saan and El Dorado.
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Post by Kenneth New on Jun 12, 2011 15:57:07 GMT -5
The Silver Age of Colonization is said to have begun in 2250 with the opening of the Bubastis-Pharos wormhole corridor.
The Shoomari wars had ended and Earth Alliance had recognized that natural boundaries to expansion existed along the Tekkaren and Shoomari frontiers. Further expansion would have to be coreward into what is now called the Near Frontier or through the wormhole into what is now called the Far Frontier or Pharos Frontier.
For the first 50 years of this period, most of the expeditions headed for the Near Frontier, with only a few ships heading into the Pharos Sector. The outbreak of the Chumakh war in 2300 and the signing of the New Lexington Treaty made expeditions to the Pharos Sector more appealing. Since then, the number of expeditions leaving Alliance space for the frontier have been divided roughly evenly between the two frontiers.
No hard statistics exist for the number of expeditions in this period, mainly because the type of expeditions has changed. Gone are the days of massive colonial ships dedicated solely to the purpose of founding new colonies. Modern colonists are more likely to charter an existing freighter to carry them and their goods to their destination. Nonetheless, most sociologists agree that the number of colonists heading out towards the frontiers is much higher than in the Golden Age, but that they're more dispersed and the colonies are smaller.
Most colonists still come from Earth since it has the largest human population, but some are now beginning to move from one extrasolar world to another.
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