It is the year 2493, and science is leaping forward faster than ever before. The gleaming towers of earths great citys shine with light, and the colonys of mars seem to shimmer with the light of a thousand vid-screens. Today is the day. After five years in the great shipyards of Jupiter, the first deep-space colony ship is complete. With room for over 12000 colonists, and the supplies for that number half again, humanity can finally make themselves known in the universe. With the cheers of billions echoing behind them, the crew of the Ever Forward prepares to charge the experimental FTL drive, and sets the course for Nova Satus, humanitys fresh start. The command is sent, relayed, and double-checked. The master engineer pulls the lever, and the nine kilometer long, tubular ship begins to hum as the fusion reactors start to pump out energy with the strength of one-hundred-thousand nuclear power-plants, and supply it to the warp drive. For fifteen minutes the deep thrumming bass steadily increases, until it permeates the very being of the crew. Humanity collectively holds their breath with anticipation. A blinding flash, and a sound like the thundering of the largest storm the world has ever known, and the Ever Forward is gone. The entire system is silent for a moment more, as the whole of mankind realizes what they have just witnessed. And then, in one unified noise, humanity bursts into shouts of joy! This is the start of the great expansion. For four-hundred years, mankind spreads across the galaxy, ever-increasing and always exploring. This era comes to be known as the golden age.
However, with the expansion of the New Terran Republic, comes the expansion of its people. With an empire now spanning thousands of worlds, the population soon exceeds twenty billion, then fifty, then one-hundred. And more people, means more workers. The Republic soon put this to use, the number of laborers grew exponentially, and production was at an all time high. But the Republic wanted more. Laws were set in place to assure that the populace stayed powerless, ready to be used to whatever ends their leaders desired. Taxes rose, rights were stripped, and dissenters were publicly tortured, to serve as an example of the consequences rebellion would have. Tensions rose until finally, in the eastern reaches of space, on Pherros-Delta, a mob formed at the gates of the local governors manor. the guards fired into the crowd, but were quickly overwhelmed by the horde, who began smashing down the gates and stripping weapons off of the fallen soldiers. After breaking in, the governor was quickly killed along with the rest of his guard detail, and the rebels gathered the rest of the weapons from the local armory. The mob had soon amassed the rest of the citizens to fight against their oppressive leaders, and rapidly took the city. Now armed with military-grade weapons, they rallied the rest of the citizens, and began their takeover of Pherros-Delta.
By the time word reached the Republic, the planet was already under rebel control, as well as a few other planets getting the same idea and defecting. The rebellion soon had established a new government; the RIM Coalition. The next twenty-three glorious years are remembered as the First Division. Many other minor divisions followed, but the most prominent remains the creation of the Coalition.
Fast-forward twenty years, and the RIM Coalition has formed into The Empire of Iron, a rapidly-expanding dominion bent on the conquest of their former masters. Jump approximately three-hundred and seventy more years and the grand regime once known as the Coalition is decaying under the constant onslaught of the NTR, and is being pushed into the edges of deep space. This brings us to today, 3563/12/6/SEC, on the Hive-class Carrier Unreachable...
