The Early to Mid Colonial Era (155 BDE- 39 BDE, 2 CSD - 118 CSD)

The colonial era began during a age of prosperity when Earth made her first colony on Luna. The colony took two years of construction before she became operational for her intended purpose. Acting as a forward base for the colonization of the system. In the second year of the colonial era, 2 CSD work began on mankind's first interplanetary colony ship, which would take two years to build and would arrive at her destination of Mars a year later. Life on these two colonies was hard in the early years, and large biospheres were required to survive on the surface. As such the colonies were built primarily underground.

In the year 12 CSD, a new invention the mining laser revolutionized life in the colonies. The mining laser allowed unparalleled digging speed compared to older methods, allowing the underground complexes that most colonists lived in to expanded faster at lower cost. Later in the same year, work began on a massive solar mirror array in orbit of Mars, while on the surface massive field generator coils were being built. It was the beginning of the Mars terraforming project. Millions began to flock to Mars searching for opportunities and work. Cities began to pop up all over the martian desert.

Elsewhere during the same year, a complex of space stations were under construction in orbit of Venus. These were primarily science stations, but some circles wanted to look into the feasibility of terraforming the planet. These science stations were built in a geosynchronous orbit between the sun and the planet. Each station was designed to be solar powered and as such massive solar arrays were built to absorb and convert sunlight into usable energy. To make them as self sustaining as possible the stations were outfitted with large hydroponic facilities to provide food for the scientists. In later years these solar arrays, would be used to provide cheap power to other colonies in the system. The solar arrays also reduced the amount of sunlight hitting the surface, which caused a slight drop in local temperature.

By 15 CSD, the growing trade network between colonies began to attract pirates and the age of space piracy began. At this point in time, neither Earth nor her colonies maintained an armed space navy. So these few pirates were able to plunder any ship they caught virtually unopposed. Radical action was taken quickly to put the growing pirate problem in check, and within a month Earth had designed and fielded her first armed spacecraft. Before long the colonies fielded their own versions of the ship. However the problems of space combat quickly became apparent. The spaceships of the era used spinning modules to generate artificial gravity, which was critical for crew health during a trip between planets. These components proved to be highly fragile and easily damaged in battle. Worse these spinning modules out of necessity created gaps in a ship's armor, and ships couldn’t have much armor due to mass limits. Despite the problems little action was taken as the few ships already in service, were proving effective and countering the pirates.

In the year 33 CSD, the first outer system colony was established on Titan. The moon was not the most hospitable and was cold and known for lakes of methane. Large biospheres were built on the surface, but like Luna and Mars the majority of the colony was being built underground. In orbit a shipyard complex was built, as the colony was being built to support operations in the outer system. Around the same time, tugs began pulling ice chunks into the inner system. While on Mars, efforts to terraform the soil and atmosphere were underway, while thanks to the mirrors its surface was warming up, and a magnetic field was being projected around the planet. Aiding in the terraforming efforts.

In the following year, efforts to terraform Venus actually began to much controversy on the Earth. Many didn’t believe it was possible to terraform the planet, and others thought it was too expensive an undertaking, but a large financial backing had been established and those backing the project wanted to prove that it was possible. They also wanted to make their mark on history and what better way than making Earth’s sister into a proper twin. In orbit satellites were erected to generate a magnetic field, each satellite powered by solar array. As for the atmosphere, drones were used to skim the top and extract carbon dioxide from it. Before long it was being shipped elsewhere for use in various industries. Later in the year, they would begin bombarding the planet. The bombardment would ultimately shift the planetary rotation and speed it up.

On Earth in thirty five CSD Earth erupted into global turmoil that tore nations apart. After a long period of unrest the ever widening ethnic and political tensions had split the United States into two with a bloody civil war. During this period of unrest that split the nation, the principles she was originally founded upon were forgotten and neither of the new states were republics. The west became known as the West American Empire and was highly authoritarian and nationalistic. Yet some elements of the original government remained in that leaders were elected, but instead of a new president every four years it was a lifetime appointment. The east was reformed into the East American Union and was a socialist government. Elsewhere other nations collapsed, following a population implosion the Nation of China was torn apart by economic collapse and civil war. While many of the colonies remained mostly unaffected and continued to prosper every nation on Earth suffered from economic backlash as the systems that supported them finally collapsed under their own weight. Governments collapsed as their crippling debts maintained for decades could no longer be ignored.

In the year 37 CSD, the situation on Earth finally stabilized, but half the countries on Earth had disappeared. Some had merged with others, and a few had been split in two by the crisis. With the situation stabilizing, the planet was soon divided between two major alliances. That became known as the Western Coalition which included the West American Empire, Japan, Eastern China, The European Union, the South American Empire, the Canadian Empire, and Parts of Africa. The rest of the world fell under the control of the Eastern Alliance. Tensions between the two alliances were fierce, and many through their weight into projects system wide in effort to gain more influence.

In the year 42 CSD, terraforming of Mars had reached the point that the surface could support life. Planet wide introduction of plant life began, both on the surface and in her growing oceans. Elsewhere on Venus, eight years of terraforming were showing their effects, with planetary temperatures having fallen by half. A noticeable drop in atmospheric pressure had accompanied this fall, and it was now possible for machines to operate on the planetary surface. The bombardment of the planet was changed at this point to introduce water to the surface of the planet.

In the year 44 CSD, industry was revolutionized by the introduction of the microbot, the immediate predecessor to the nanite. These small bots soon found themselves in high demand, in every industry for the work they could do. Later in the same year, the Coalition authorized clandestine antimatter experiments aboard their research facility Star Tech One. The Alliance authorized clandestine FTL research, these experiments ultimately ended in failure when the budget ran out two years later with no results.

In the year 45 CSD, space travel was revolutionized by a remarkable step forward in ion propulsion technology. The new generation of heavy ion engines, could move twice the mass of previous generation engines with the same movement profile. This lead to the development of the first armed space cruisers, including the famous Olympia class of cruisers. Other advancements led to the creation of the Orbital Slammer. Large bulky satelites the size of a cruiser, carrying a large bulky early particle weapon with a destructive yield four times that of the average nuke. Both alliances began to employ these devices in large numbers. As an added bonus these new weapons didn’t have the nasty side effects of nukes when fired. Nukes being smaller weapons, were soon being transferred from planetary silos to fleets. As they were now being seen as high yield ship weapons. An interesting new device that also appeared around this time was a new form of catapult that could be used to surface launch large space vehicles. Which had a massive impact on space industry, making it easier to build large ships, and possible to move more goods in a shorter period of time.

Changing economics sparked a new wave of colonization in 47 CSD, leading to the colonization of the more hospitable moons of jupiter. New mining outposts and colonies sprang up in the asteroid belt. While the populations of existing colonies multiplied as immigrants from Earth caused their populations to swell. Newspapers claimed the system wide census had marked the population as exceeding the twenty billion people mark. A minor accident on Star Tech One occured with its antimatter research claiming the lives of three promising scientists and wounding a dozen more. The Coalition managed to cover the accident up, and avoid suspicions getting out. The Alliance authorized their own, clandestine antimatter experiments with a focus on weapons. A new life extending gene treatment was announced, that compared to previous claim was actual effective, but required continued treatments. These treatment soon became known as cellular treatments.

Late in the year 57 CSD, another accident occured on Star Tech One. This time the accident claimed the lives of fifty nine people, and the explosion was noted by multiple spacecraft. The coalition station failed to escape notice of Alliance of officials, and tensions spiked as accusations of the clandestine development of dangerous antimatter weapons flew around. Despite the double-standards of the alliance. Within three months both the coalition and the alliance were at war. Marking the beginning of Earth’s third world war, both sides opened fire on the other with no regards for collateral damage. The war lasted nine days, and destroyed every single major city on Earth. No one was left unscathed and some countries were completely wiped out, and when the dust settle contrary to expectations it wasn’t a draw. For several members of the Coalition remained standing, while all members of the alliance had been wiped out. The brief war was devastating however and claimed nearly seven billion lives, reducing Earth’s population to just over two billion people.

The same war left a political and economic vacuum that affected the colonies. The two oldest colonies were soon at odds. While Earth set about rebuilding and creating their first worldwide government and laying down laws that would shape the next century, the colonies were debating who would be the new center of trade. Which natural carried the most political capital with it, along with a healthy economic boost. Ultimately tensions between the colonies remained high, and neither side could agree on anything. As a result, the First Colonial War began in the year 63 CSD, 95 BDE.

At the beginning of the war, Luna colony held the advantage. They had been established as a shipbuilding colony by Earth decades prior and had a long tradition of building spaceships. Along with developed shipyards and no shortage of talented shipwrights. While they had a smaller population and fewer resources than Mars they also had a larger navy. Mars however controlled vast fields of fertile farmland, and had the largest population of any world in human space at six billion people. During the first two years of the war, both powers skirmishes throughout the system as they secured allies and resources from other colonies. Many of these battles ended in favor of Luna thanks to their larger, more experienced fleet. Luna even launched several successful attacks on Mars orbit destroying her limited orbital shipyards and weakening her orbital defenses.

All of this changed, when Mars began surface launching new ships of her own. Having built a number of underground shipyards and taking the ship catapult to a new level in order to compensate for her destroyed orbital yards. Her growing new fleet allowed her to regain enough orbital control to rebuild her orbital shipyards. With those yards online the war took a whole new dynamic. Mars having managed to get a fleet large enough to even the field, didn’t go for a direct attack on Luna, but instead targeted the smaller asteroid colonies that supported her.

Being a war fought with slow, fragile ships both sides raced to develop better ships. Missiles proved themselves to be the deadliest weapon in both colonies arsenal, and the soon focused on developing faster deadlier missiles and better countermeasures. Lasers also proved to be effective weapons, but primarily as a highly effective pd weapon. Some ship classes of the period even mounted early ship to ship versions of the laser. The most notable developments of the war was the gauss cannon and first generation photon missiles. Which were employed by both sides during the war. Another thing to note is that fleet sizes were fairly small during this period, with an average fleet being around a hundred or so ships in size.

Ultimately the war ended in the year 72 CSD, almost ten years after it began with Martian invasion of Luna. Luna colony was hit by a large force of three Martian fleets, after there main defense fleet was sent to intercept a two decoy fleets. The fleets burned through the outer defenses and sank the remaining defenders during the opening moments. Having caught the defenders off guard. The defense fleet turned around and came on scene quickly, but with the decoy fleet on their tails and ended up caught in pincer. Allowing the Martian fleet to destroy them with minimal casualties. In total, the martian fleet sustained forty percent casualties, but achieved total space control in a matter of hours. Then they began landing troops and occupied the capital. Luna formally surrendered the next day, bringing mankind’s first space war to a close. Following the war, many new inventions were created to solve the issues with ship design that became so heavily apparent with the war. Analyst also spent hours studying the tactics used on the war, and military strategists debated on what worked and what didn’t.

The following decade saw a period of revolution for ship design. Most notable was the advent of grav plating and the earliest precursor to the pulse wave engines the Enterprise would be using decades later. These earlier versions were laser based, and employed a crude Rydium core. Rydium itself was discovered quite by accident in the year 76 CSD and its amazing properties soon led to it being in high demand. In the same year, nanites were introduced to the economy. In 77 CSD, nanites found themselves revolutionizing the medical field with the introduction of new medical treatments involving nanites, including a life extending injection called a nano-cellular treatment. Which was basically a refined version of the original cellular treatments. Most people would often leave off the word nano later, as the old type disappeared.

In the year 81 CSD, Luna rebelled against the continued martian occupational forces and managed to regain control of their colony. This act sparked the beginning of the Second Colonial War. Luna was at military disadvantage and knew it so, they negotiated an alliance with Titan Colony and Venus Colony. Venus may have been lacking in warships, but they were a science colony and the produced large amounts of food and cheap solar power. Resources that they could use in large amounts, and the local science facilities would be need in order to compete with the martian space navy. Mars had been caught mostly unprepared, by this and was a bit slow to respond. Between wars ships had changed greatly and both Mars and the new Alliance had their own theories on tactics and ship design. Ships were also faster, with better protection than in the previous war.

Many of the early skirmishes of the war happened in the asteroid belt, and between Mars-Earth orbit. Ballistic weapons which had been popular in the last war, quickly fell out of favor. As high energy lasers proved to be the better weapon for ship to ship combat, but the ballistics did have a longer maximum range and remained in use as a ship to ground weapon. Where they were more effective. The two faction also had differing ideas on general design during this period of time. Martian ships resembled saucers with back swept nacelles linked to the rear. They had moderate armor, along superb maneuvering and acceleration. During the early years of the war the often carried lasers supplemented with a battery or two of photon missiles. Along with early generation fusion torpedoes and some even carried a few gauss cannons.

Alliance ships were long with a disk like fore section sweeping back to a rising tower on either side of this tower were large hangar bays. Alliance ships had thick armor, Poor Acceleration and Moderate Maneuvering. The alliance made heavier use of fighter craft and also employed lasers in ship to ship combat. However instead of fusion torps they would carry nuclear torpedoes and they often carried a greater number of ballistic cannon in the early years.

For well over a decade the war was pretty much a stalemate, as neither faction managed to advance enough to threaten the other’s bases. Mars often proved superior in one on one combat, but Luna and her allies made up for it with numbers.

The war underwent a radical change in the year 97 CSD, when Martian scientists invented the particle cannon. Particle cannons were a massive step forward in weapons technology and were capable of punching right through the early powered ship armors of the day. At the same time the invented the first generation of overlord armor, rendering their ships nearly indestructible. These new weapons and improved armor were instrumental in allowing Mars colony to break the stalemate in the asteroids, and by 99 CSD they had broken all the way to Titan and forced their surrender. Two years after Titan surrendered Luna followed suit, but this time Mars did not establish an occupation.

During this entire period Earth had remained mostly silent, being in the middle of a reconstruction and conducting limited trade with the colonies. However this changed in 103 CSD when the first of Earth’s mega cities was completed along with a massive spaceport. Soon Earth began trading with the colonies in much greater quantities. This in turn led to widespread industrial development on Earth. Her government forcibly limited this development to the mega cities in order to prevent widespread impact to her agriculture. Which is where most of her economy was built. She made millions trading food to the outer system colonies in exchange for resources. Earth was also trading with her volatile inner colonies as well however.

In 107 CSD, Luna and Mars colonies began clandestinely encouraging piracy on the others trade routes. This led to a widespread increase in pirates throughout the system. Who also began to attack Earth’s trade with the colonies. While Earth did have a navy, it was small and outdated. Its navy was hard pressed to defend its transports from the pirates forcing a response from Earth. Who began purchasing more advanced ships from Mars, and even a couple of carriers from Alliance members. In 109 CSD, Titan formally left the Alliance and signed a treaty with Mars. The Jupiter colonies signed a treaty with Luna and joined the Alliance later the same year.

In 111 CSD, Titan invented a new alloy which proved to be incredible for military ships. Sold the manufacturing secret to Earth later in the same year for thirty billion credits. Earth began building a fleet using this new alloy. Mars purchased the alloy from Titan at a higher price the following year. Lunar Colony agents managed to steal a copy of the data during the transaction and began using it in their own ships. The use of this new alloy led to the creation of second generation overlord armor, making ships built with it nigh indestructible.

By 118 CSD the system was split between three powers, Mars, Luna and Earth. Earth was remaining mostly neutral, while tensions were high between the other two powers. With many fearing that another war could breakout any day now.