Doctor Patrick van Fluyten was not a typical university don, and liked to underscore his difference from all the other “stuffies” of the history department by dressing more casually, and was now sitting on the auditorium speaker’s desk instead of standing behind it as was custom. He was widely known as an unconventional and witty lecturer, normally teaching old Earth modern history rather than post-exodus, but this semester he was making an exception, the result being a ballooning of the number of students signing up. This was positive news in the eyes of department leadership, since more students meant a larger share of the collective pie of the Humanities’ educational budget, but it was creating unforeseen headaches for the actual staff that had to lead these classes, staff like Dr van Fluyten.

“It has come to my attention,” he said as the last of the students filed into the large auditorium, filling most of the two hundred seats, “hammered into me from multiple directions actually, that there are a large percentage of foreign exchange students taking this class this semester. To that end, several have, in confidentiality, expressed confusion regarding the earlier part of this course and this, unfortunately, have been on display in many of the term papers submitted so far. It seems we at the department have presupposed a higher degree of prerequisite knowledge about early Auroran history than was the case, which I apologise for, since it has clearly made this class harder than necessary for many of you. Which is why I believe we’ll dedicate the first half of this lecture to have an impromptu roundtable-cum-summary of the first half of this course, as the next few lectures will be more focused on the northern part of the Eos Spur and the activities of the United Earth Alignment, leaving local affairs for a while. I think I’ll leave the floor to one of you to start us off, and I will serve as moderator of the discussion instead. Feel free to discuss and debate openly, but please remain civil and on subject, or else I might have to pull out the heaviest stick in my arsenal; take the mid-lecture break away.”

As has been the custom of students of all millennia when asked to take the initiative and start speaking in public, nearly two-hundred pair of eyes looked at each other, silently begging someone else to be the one to take centre stage. Nearly two-hundred pair of eyes, as Edward’s was locked on the desk in front of him. I talked to Adea, I am having this class with Adea, I am sitting next to Adea, holy shit, this has to be a dream, it cannot be real. He ventured a shy glance to his right. Adea and Sandy were whispering back and forth, so she had his back partially turned towards him. His eyes were naturally drawn to her skirt and he noted her shapely thighs and legs draped in tall white socks. Then suddenly he was looking at the red upholstery of her chair, and as his eyes moved up in confusion, they met with Sandy’s blue ones, glinting with sudden comprehension and amusement. Oh shit, ohshitohshitohshit, I am never going to hear the end of this, he thought as he frantically focused his gaze back towards the front of the auditorium, first Arvind and now Sandy; I’m going to catch hell for the rest of my time at QMMU after today. First then did he become aware that Adea was standing and talking to van Fluyten.

“… good idea that Lady Adea starts off,” the doctor was saying, “unless anyone have any objections?”

Predictably, there were none, and at a gesture to go ahead from van Fluyten, Adea turned halfway around, drew in a deep breath and started speaking to the rest of the class.

“The arrival of the colonial ship Providence in the Euryphaessa System and the subsequent settlement of New Victoria on the planet of Aurora in 2199 was the first establishment of an extrasolar human presence. Previous astronomic models suggested Euryphaessa would contain an Earth-like in comparable size, but the habitable planet was nearly three times the size of Earth, with six major continents and a slightly lower gravity and slightly higher hydrosphere, perfect for human colonisation. The nine-thousand odd settlers of Providence were isolated from contact with Earth and the United Commonwealth for over two decades before a long-range scout ship confirmed that they had survived, at which point an Auroran-born generation was starting to mature. In these two decades, and for a long time after, multiple colonial ships were launched by the other supranational coalitions on Earth, resulting in numerous settlements; most of them located in systems along the galactic ‘south east’ of the Orion Arm, what we generally refer to as the Eos Spur today. This was mostly due to a combination of more favourable and stable Light Way lanes and a larger number of habitable worlds. The colony of Aurora was incidentally the first and one of very few truly concerted extrasolar settlement efforts by the old supranational institutions, as quickly regional, then national, and ultimately private expeditions were mounted as Light Drive technology became more and more commonly available and refined. The Commonwealth and the other coalitions on Earth had no hope of controlling far-flung colonial ventures at this point in time with their limited fleet of hyper-capable ships, and control devolved to local levels very quickly, especially for such far-off colonies as Aurora.

After 2235 the first waves of new colonists started to arrive in Euryphaessa, which created a problem for the Auroran population of about twelve thousand; they had started to cultivate the land, genetically adopting Earth breeds of fauna and flora to the Auroran climate and gravity, and had laid claim to areas where rare and valuable minerals could be excavated. A sudden influx of new settlers which would very quickly outnumber the original colonists was deemed an incursion on their economic and territorial rights. Which is why by overwhelming consent the original colonists created a constitution in which they all became ennobled and entitled to the lands they could realistically claim at the time of ratification in January 2236.”

Sandy suddenly shot up a hand, catching Adea off-guard, not stopping to wait for van Fluyten to give her the go-ahead.

“I believe what you’re referring to,” she said, “is the first confirmed case of Rashid’s Constant of Primary Settlement, in which the nascent body of colonists would more often than not create an upper class of patriciate to off-set later immigration and increased population.”

Dr van Fluyten blinked a few times before nodding in confirmation.

“That is correct, miss, the Auroran Constitution is the first known case of Rashid’s Constant, and though not all post-exodus societies have gone through the same process, a very large number initially started out as oligarchies and nations with marked differences between haves and have-nots. Luckily, this was rectified in the centuries after the collapse of the United Earth Alignment, which will be the subject of the next three weeks’ lectures, so we will cover that thoroughly soon. Good observation, miss…?”

Sandy, beaming like the kitten that got the cream, leaned back in her seat.

“Barham, Sir, Alexandra Barham, psych major.”

Van Fluyten nodded, seemingly taking notice of the name, before gesturing for Adea to continue. Edward leaned closer to Sandy.

“Damn show-off,” he whispered.

“Bite me,” she responded while sticking out her tongue, and Edward grinned back. Adea shot Sandy an irritated look and cleared her throat.

“Waves of immigration from primarily old Commonwealth countries on Earth boosted the population numbers of Aurora over the next few decades, and by 2245 the capital city was moved from New Victoria to Cordelia on the Goneril River as it lay closer to the equator and as such was a better spot to construct an orbital elevator, alleviating transport between surface and orbit. Aurora formally declared independence from the United Commonwealth on the latter’s dissolution in 2262, though it had in reality never been under Commonwealth control, and formed its own military, spearheaded by the Royal Navy. With such a large portion of its populace originally derived from the British Isles or Earth countries with British ties, Auroran politics and institutions naturally developed to imitate their British predecessors. With the dissolution of the United Commonwealth Navy, the Auroran Royal Navy took on the mantle as direct spiritual successors of the old British Royal Navy. As with most post-exodus societies that expanded outside the sphere of control of the Alignment, Aurora promoted a…”

Adea shot Sandy a mischievous glance while outwardly seeming to collect her thoughts, and Sandy’s eyes narrowed in annoyance.

“A syncretic approach to cultural development, shall we say, in an effort to create a cohesive societal model given the heterogeneous origin of its immigrants. This approach manifested in creating an advanced and etic facsimile of 18th and 19th century Great Britain and France. Admittedly, there have been quite a few dissident voices over the years claiming this has been a misleading approach, stymying any natural cultural evolution in what is essentially Humanity’s first opportunity to really create a cultural tabula rasa, free from old Earth ties and history. I’m sure Barham could tell us what occurred instead in some detail, but in short the opposite happened, and colonies and societies adopted idealised versions of old cultures. Other examples include the Republic of Corinth, trying to imitate ancient Athens, the Kingdom of Valhalla which is coloured in a societal facade of Norse mythology and history, and the Jericho Confederacy which is heavily inspired by ancient Israel.”

“What of Dionysia?” a student seated behind Adea asked, and turning to face him she noted a Valerian flag pin on his blazer lapel. Since basically every student wore the same clothes, someone had at some point had the inspired idea of making pins of different nations’ flags or national crests, giving students the opportunity to display their origins. It made it easier to avoid social faux pas and was often an ice-breaker in conversation, and for practical reasons it had become common practice on university grounds.

“The Sacred Kingdom of Dionysia,” Adea explained, “is an extreme example of taking an idea of a culture and transplanting it over a modern society. Dionysia has taken the idea of the ancient Hellenistic Greek societies of the Earth Middle East and created a militaristic society wholly centred on the royal family and the royal court, which is itself extremely internecine and known for feuds and political infighting. Despite this, they have created a thriving if very insular empire of their own.

Moving back to Auroran history, as the United Earth Alignment became more and more controlling and its political class increasingly corrupt, millions decided to move from the core of human space and settle along the –at the time– fringe. Aurora was a natural choice, and the population boomed. By 2350, Aurora was home to some two-hundred million, with a nobility of about a hundred and ten-thousand. In 2360 nobility franchise was re-examined since considerable amounts of non-noble landholders had amassed vast estates and riches, and were emulating the nobility in their mannerisms and constructing country manors of their own. This created a much needed infusion of new blood into the almost genetically stagnant old nobility, but created a tiered system of “old” and “new” aristocratic families, with the former being higher in status, despite not necessarily more affluent.”

“You’ve completely forgotten to mention the establishment of the monarchy,” a serious voice came from somewhere to the rear of the auditorium, and Edward had to crane his neck to see who had spoken. His eyes landed on a pale petite girl with hair so blonde as to be almost white, an almost impossibly cute oval face dominated by grey eyes with a pinkish hue. She was sitting alone, with no one seated to her left and right, and her eyes were bored into Adea, and looking up at her, Edward could see Adea’s eyes hardening and her jaw muscles tensing.

“You’re right, of course, Lady de Vere, it slipped my mind completely and I apologise.” Edward couldn’t help but note the two noblewomen were almost as physically opposite as possible. The white-haired girl crossed her arms over her chest as Adea continued.

“The monarchy was established as a countermeasure against the original nobility a few years after the constitution of 2236. Within only a few years the original colonists, now forming the aristocracy that held control of a large percentage of Aurora’s surface, were outnumbered by newly arrived immigrants. Infuriated at their lack of political representation and a very real fear of exploitation by the aristocracy, they demanded an addendum to the constitution and a safeguard against malfeasance. In exchange, the nobility would retain all their current privileges and land rights. This compromise ended with the creation of a bicameral parliament, which had originally been unicameral, and the establishment of a monarch to serve as the head of state and ultimate political guardian of the rights of the common people. The agreement of this revised constitution as well as the aforementioned expanded nobility franchise more or less ended the tug-of-war between the commons and aristocracy, leading Aurora down a much more peaceful path than many other extrasolar polities. A figure both sides could agree upon was hard to come by, but the eventual result was a minor noble by the name William de Roze who had sided with the commons and had been an instrumental negotiator during the discussions. The de Roze dynasty still reigns to this day, and enjoys widespread popular support. Aristocracy has over time become more meritocratic, new entries are relatively common nowadays, and the balance of power between the Houses of Commons and Lords in Parliament and the monarch as the supreme overseer and guarantor of political good conduct, has created a very stable and fundamentally solid societal base.

This allowed Aurora to start colonising planets of their own at a relatively early stage in its development compared to many other nations. While the United Earth Alignment was busy tearing itself apart in brushfire wars and internal upheavals, Auroran settlers founded colonies on Amaranth in the Aditya System in 2378, and on Angevin in the Cronus Major System in 2398. Unfortunately, too ham-fisted and rushed expansion and terraforming had severe effects on the climate on Amaranth, melting the polar caps and increasing the already very high hydrosphere. This further enlargement of the kingdom naturally created more noble families as wealthy entrepreneurs from Aurora sought inclusion into new planetary aristocracies. This expansion made the Kingdom of Aurora a multi-system polity and as such the need for a larger military was amplified. The Royal Navy was given further duties, and heavy investment was put into shipbuilding and orbital infrastructure. Immigration started to peter out as more planets in the surrounding regions were settled, and expeditions went even further afield to the galactic east and south. During the reign of King Henry II from 2410 to 2453, it became common practice to approach neighbouring star nations with the intent of forming as close economic and military ties as possible in an attempt to build up a credible regional power to rival the rapidly expanding Co-Prosperity League and the now defunct Verge Federation. This was the antecedent to the modern Royal Union, and grew rapidly in size.”

Van Fluyten made a hand gesture to speed things up and Adea nervously brushed some hair behind her ear.

“Anyway, skipping ahead a bit, the alliance network expanded rapidly, as did the Auroran economy, which was and still is, heavily based around shipbuilding, merchant shipping, and economic services like investment banking, and information technology. Over the next few hundred years, the planets Westernesse, Cymru, Avalon, and Nova Caledonia were also settled and added to the expanding Auroran kingdom. In 2564, Novorosyia in the Draconis sector, three-hundred-and-seventeen light years to the galactic north of Aurora, asked to join the kingdom as its eight member world, following eighty years of alignment in the Royal Union. The reasoning behind this request was the instability and unpopularity of the ruling oligarchic class, who were forced off-planet after the planetary plebiscite was confirmed. In 2570 the process was finalised, and Novorosyia became the Grand Duchy of Novorosyia, with King Edward III and his descendants the Grand Dukes in perpetuity.

During this time, the Verge Federation had collapsed, and the Independent Systems Alliance was rapidly filling the void, based out of the economic superpower of the Republic of Elysium, and an increasing number of minor star nations caught between the Alliance and the Union were forced to pick a side. This became even more critical when the Corinthian Corridor was discovered, the super high-efficiency Light Way lane that straddles the two interstellar coalitions. Corinth and Dionysia fought a bitter war over control of this incredibly valuable and strategic astrographical asset from 2598 to 2607, when Aurora finally managed to mediate a truce. Both star nations chose to ally themselves to Aurora following this, but the other end of the Corridor was lost when Starfall chose to align itself with the Alliance, and the remaining systems along the Corridor chose to remain neutral.

The Hydran Co-Prosperity League, evidently believing Aurora and the Union to be militarily weak since they hadn’t responded with force to the Corinth-Dionysia conflict, decided in 2610 to invade the southern part of the Union, securing orbital control of Cyrene and New Saxony in lighting strikes before a response could be formed. More or less the entire Royal Navy was committed to throw the Hydrans back, its proper baptism of fire in a major conflict. Squadrons and smaller task forces had been dispatched to fight off pirate and rouge mercenary groups in the past, as well as minor scuffles with single-system polities, but the Auroran-Hydran War was its first proper fighting war against a multi-system star nation. Led by Admiral Charlotte de Chandlier, the Royal Navy systematically destroyed the Hydran fleets at the battles of Mindarion, Nebuchadnezzar, and Xi Cassiopeia, the war barely lasting twenty months before the Hydrans sued for peace. Terms of the peace treaty was free use of the Nebuchadnezzar-Taiping Lane in perpetuity in order to access the Lucidia and Pannonia sectors at the very southern edge of settled space.

Over the next hundred-and-fifty years, the Royal Union reached the extent it does today, while the worlds of the Kingdom were developed further, as was the Auroran economy to the point where it has the largest gross output per capita in human space. Apart from short conflicts and interventions in the collapsing Midwinter Entente, the Solus War, the police actions in the Rhodante Arm, and the peacekeeping operations in Lucidia, Aurora and the Royal Union has enjoyed a remarkable level of peace and calm compared to other regions of the galaxy. But tension with the Independent Systems Alliance have only been increasing over the past centuries, and are reaching an all-time high. It certainly wasn’t helped by Alliance President Uriel Konstantin when he in 2809 enacted the ‘Truscott Doctrine’ and tried to forcibly gain control over the neutral Corridor systems, and did manage to secure the Lorelei Arm, creating the Lucidia Pocket as it is now completely enclosed by the Alliance and Co-Prosperity League.”

Adea finally paused, frowned a bit and looked at van Fluyten.

“Is there anything major I’ve missed?”

He smiled a bit.

“Well,” he said as Adea sat back down again, “there are a few things like the Lucidia Insurrection which is why that system is now a quasi-member of the Kingdom sort of out of necessity, and there is the whole Pegasii proxy war with the Coma Berenices Star Federation, and a good few development in internal Auroran politics you forgot. But overall, I’m very pleased, and very good inputs from the other students. I would advise anyone who still are a bit in the dark to look at chapters ten through thirteen in Collett and Zegras….”

“What about the clones?” the Valerian student from before asked. One could almost feel the air be sucked out of the room, and more than a few eyes squinted disapprovingly. Edward shrunk a bit in his seat and van Fluyten opened his mouth to say something, but diminutive Lady de Vere beat him to the punch.

“I don’t know what common courtesy on Valerian is, but in the kingdom we generally abstain from such racial slurs.” For such a small person, she emanated a very menacing aura and her voice was like titanium. “The acceptable term is Generation Two Human, or Gen-Two if you will, and what do you mean ‘what about them’? It is common knowledge that during the ascendant period of the United Earth Alignment genetic manipulation reached such a sophisticated level that human embryos could be manufactured right down to detailing the molecular level of DNA. This in turn became a profitable business of many large commercial conglomerates, and the artificial fabrication of humans became widespread.

This is part of the reason why the human race was able to settle so many worlds in such a relatively short amount of time. It did of course mean that Gen-Two’ers were by and large ‘better’ than one-hundred per cent natural humans, with increased physical strength, improved mental capabilities, more aesthetically pleasing, and so forth, creating resentment from naturals. Ethical questions surrounding the practice cropped up quickly as the immediate need for people to settle new worlds died down, and the interstellar accords of Tau Ceti of 2503 forbade the practice in most nations, making artificial creation of humans legal only through naturally extracted DNA from would-be parents or donors. Not all nations signed on, but most did, the Kingdom of Aurora one of the very first.”

Awkward silence stretched on for a little while, only a few subdued whispers could be almost-heard. The Valerianese stared daggers at de Vere but didn’t say anything else. A few others did as well, and not all the whispers were about the foreign exchange student. De Vere’s face was an unreadable mask of stone. After a few moments van Fluyten clapped his hands together.

“Alright, I think we’ll take our break a little early, grab a cup of coffee and start back again at one o’clock, putting this discussion in the rear view mirror. Next half I’ll present the overall economic shift caused by the creation of the intergalactic communications web in 2424, and how that ties in with the ascendancy of the Independent Systems Alliance. Afterwards we’ll discuss if this explains the departure from solid currency and… hey, I didn’t say you could go yet, I’m not done speaking!”