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There are more than seven billion people living upon Planet Earth at this very moment. Within the next 50 years, that population will increase to between 9.1 and 9.2 billion. By the end of the century it could be as high as 10 or 11 billion. All of this means that we are about to run out of real estate. Our one and only rock in space will become so over-populated, over-polluted, and over-exploited by the sheer weight of humanity that will force settlement elsewhere. In this universe, inspired by the works of my favorite author, David Weber, these events have already come to pass.
The Diaspora of Man began in 2103 A.D./C.E, when the Prometheus, the first “generation ship,” a massive construct encumbered with thousands of volunteers who boarded knowing that they would never leave, so that their descendants might eventually reach a star system that had been confirmed ten years before to possess a habitable world, departed the Sol system. Several more such vessels were launched on hundred-year journeys as increasingly reliable deep-space astronomical tech identified habitable worlds. Realizing that hundreds, thousands, potentially millions of suitable planets that were entirely new worlds existed if they could only be reached, ships began to be launched at a rate that no one could ever have hoped to keep track of. Wracked by war, disease, and all the other consequences of having too many people in one place, the governments of Earth had more important things to worry about than all of the desperate fools beginning journeys that they knew they would never see the end of.
About 50 years into the Diaspora, that requirement was suddenly lifted with the development of effective and safe cryo-preservation. Journeys to a foreign star still took in excess of hundreds of years, even with ships that travelled at a sizable fraction of the speed of light, but they were now able to reach where they were going in a state of suspension that permitted at least a glimpse of the final destination. The effect was immediate. Where a handful of ships had been launched every year before, hundreds were launched in the following cycle. Entire expeditionary international corporations were founded and loaded up willing emigrants in job lots, planning ahead for several centuries to ensure that colonies, which would still be cut off from the home world on arrival but with far greater survivability, had everything needed to succeed. As more and more people left the remaining population of Earth finally began to feel the pressure of the multibillion boots upon its neck alleviate and true prosperity came to past for the first time in more than a century. The future became far more secure as everyone planned for when Earth would be able to eventually contact and forge political and economic bonds with its myriad descendants. As the great Diaspora drew to a close some 300 years after it had begun (though colony expeditions still remained a relatively frequent event), the means to do so finally became unlocked. Using the forces of gravity which travelled faster than any other force known to man and connected everything in the galaxy, journeys previously requiring hundreds of years of slow travel could be made in a handful of years at the outside.
It is now the year 1903 P.D. (for post diaspora, the calendar was reset to reflect the massive changes prompted by colonization events). By this time hundreds of independent polities known as star nations exist throughout humanity’s region of the Milky Way Galaxy and regularly contact and trade with one another. The government of Earth has formed a confederated union with its closest daughters to form the Terran Federation, a faction that serves a similar role to the United States in the current political makeup, in that it is by the most powerful and prosperous entity that also plays host to most events and organizations that affect the entire scheme of galactic events. But all is not well. In the far future, outside of the security provided by the enveloping but still relatively insignificant reach of Earth’s powerful Fleet, there is only war. Great powers fight each other for the same reasons humans have always fought each other, resources, territory, and in some cases ideology (though as before, ideology often only served as a hollow justification, not the real reason). In addition to the chaos this causes, which Earth has no real interest or ability to stop, there are other threats. While during the Diaspora no world containing a peer of humanity, an advanced alien race, was discovered, it is widely accepted that, given the sheer number of habitable worlds now known to exist, the accident of evolution that produced humanity and permitted development to a similar if not more advanced degree had to have happened somewhere. As colonization continued, the likelihood of first contact became ever more pressing. And if a true peer was discovered, and that peer had any kind of hostile intent, humanity, as a whole, had to be ready.
To that end, expeditions were commissioned to locate as many worlds targeted for settlement as possible and, for the first time, in preparation for the final arrival of a semblance of order in a time approaching 2,000 years after travel amongst the stars became a reality, a true census began. This was a monumental task. The hundreds of established colony nations that exist in human space are just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of colony worlds exist that, for one reason or another, did not re-establish contact after settlement. Some have been completely isolated this entire time. Agents of the Federation government were dispatched to every place that records indicate even one of the old generation ships went to. This story begins with one such agent, Commander Markus Victor of the Terran Federation Navy, en route to the world of Bastion, located some 350 light-years from Earth. A true “neo-barbarian” case observed to nonetheless possess signs of civilization, Victor’s expedition was still a shot in the dark. As his ship, the TNS Fearless came out of hyper, bringing the system of bright blue-purple Richard’s Star into full view, he began a slow journey towards the very Earth-like Planet Bastion. For this lost world, he had to prepare for everything, and he had to do it alone. So many colonies had yet to be explored and the funding for each was incredibly tight. As expected, there were zero signs of advanced civilization present on the planet. Beyond that, Victor reflected, staring into his monitors as the ship finally came into orbit, nothing was known. Anything was possible.
The Diaspora of Man began in 2103 A.D./C.E, when the Prometheus, the first “generation ship,” a massive construct encumbered with thousands of volunteers who boarded knowing that they would never leave, so that their descendants might eventually reach a star system that had been confirmed ten years before to possess a habitable world, departed the Sol system. Several more such vessels were launched on hundred-year journeys as increasingly reliable deep-space astronomical tech identified habitable worlds. Realizing that hundreds, thousands, potentially millions of suitable planets that were entirely new worlds existed if they could only be reached, ships began to be launched at a rate that no one could ever have hoped to keep track of. Wracked by war, disease, and all the other consequences of having too many people in one place, the governments of Earth had more important things to worry about than all of the desperate fools beginning journeys that they knew they would never see the end of.
About 50 years into the Diaspora, that requirement was suddenly lifted with the development of effective and safe cryo-preservation. Journeys to a foreign star still took in excess of hundreds of years, even with ships that travelled at a sizable fraction of the speed of light, but they were now able to reach where they were going in a state of suspension that permitted at least a glimpse of the final destination. The effect was immediate. Where a handful of ships had been launched every year before, hundreds were launched in the following cycle. Entire expeditionary international corporations were founded and loaded up willing emigrants in job lots, planning ahead for several centuries to ensure that colonies, which would still be cut off from the home world on arrival but with far greater survivability, had everything needed to succeed. As more and more people left the remaining population of Earth finally began to feel the pressure of the multibillion boots upon its neck alleviate and true prosperity came to past for the first time in more than a century. The future became far more secure as everyone planned for when Earth would be able to eventually contact and forge political and economic bonds with its myriad descendants. As the great Diaspora drew to a close some 300 years after it had begun (though colony expeditions still remained a relatively frequent event), the means to do so finally became unlocked. Using the forces of gravity which travelled faster than any other force known to man and connected everything in the galaxy, journeys previously requiring hundreds of years of slow travel could be made in a handful of years at the outside.
It is now the year 1903 P.D. (for post diaspora, the calendar was reset to reflect the massive changes prompted by colonization events). By this time hundreds of independent polities known as star nations exist throughout humanity’s region of the Milky Way Galaxy and regularly contact and trade with one another. The government of Earth has formed a confederated union with its closest daughters to form the Terran Federation, a faction that serves a similar role to the United States in the current political makeup, in that it is by the most powerful and prosperous entity that also plays host to most events and organizations that affect the entire scheme of galactic events. But all is not well. In the far future, outside of the security provided by the enveloping but still relatively insignificant reach of Earth’s powerful Fleet, there is only war. Great powers fight each other for the same reasons humans have always fought each other, resources, territory, and in some cases ideology (though as before, ideology often only served as a hollow justification, not the real reason). In addition to the chaos this causes, which Earth has no real interest or ability to stop, there are other threats. While during the Diaspora no world containing a peer of humanity, an advanced alien race, was discovered, it is widely accepted that, given the sheer number of habitable worlds now known to exist, the accident of evolution that produced humanity and permitted development to a similar if not more advanced degree had to have happened somewhere. As colonization continued, the likelihood of first contact became ever more pressing. And if a true peer was discovered, and that peer had any kind of hostile intent, humanity, as a whole, had to be ready.
To that end, expeditions were commissioned to locate as many worlds targeted for settlement as possible and, for the first time, in preparation for the final arrival of a semblance of order in a time approaching 2,000 years after travel amongst the stars became a reality, a true census began. This was a monumental task. The hundreds of established colony nations that exist in human space are just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of colony worlds exist that, for one reason or another, did not re-establish contact after settlement. Some have been completely isolated this entire time. Agents of the Federation government were dispatched to every place that records indicate even one of the old generation ships went to. This story begins with one such agent, Commander Markus Victor of the Terran Federation Navy, en route to the world of Bastion, located some 350 light-years from Earth. A true “neo-barbarian” case observed to nonetheless possess signs of civilization, Victor’s expedition was still a shot in the dark. As his ship, the TNS Fearless came out of hyper, bringing the system of bright blue-purple Richard’s Star into full view, he began a slow journey towards the very Earth-like Planet Bastion. For this lost world, he had to prepare for everything, and he had to do it alone. So many colonies had yet to be explored and the funding for each was incredibly tight. As expected, there were zero signs of advanced civilization present on the planet. Beyond that, Victor reflected, staring into his monitors as the ship finally came into orbit, nothing was known. Anything was possible.
