History and timeline

Timeline

Expansion (21st–24th c.)

Over a thousand years before the presentMankind first leaves its home planet.
21st–22nd centuriesWars on Earth: the Abundance War, the Confusion Wars and the Old Man's War.
NOVA
The early centuriesHumanity spreads through the solar system, building orbital structures and the Ring around Earth.
Ce-Co
From the 21st–22nd century wars onward ("for a thousand years")Ce-Co begins as an Earth mining company and slowly grows into a belt-spanning cooperative.
Late 22nd to early 23rd centuryPaul MacTavish's fleet reaches Mars and Mars Madness begins; waves of settlers follow.
The following century and moreForgotten Martian colonies turn to tribalism and become the wild Martian clans.

The Solar Supremacy (c. 24th–30th c.)

Supremacy
"After a few centuries of space expansion"The Solar Supremacy forms, and Earth's old nations become its protectorates.
2525 ("over five hundred years ago")The Solar government occupies Mars; the clans fight the Mars Insurgency and Phobos Station is built.
Saturn
About five hundred years agoA wealthy couple settle Titan and, half in jest, found the Kingdom of Saturn.
About four hundred and fifty years agoThe current Queen of Saturn is born. She still rules today.
Within the Kingdom's first centuryThe Supremacy leaves Titan alone, and the joke becomes a true kingdom.
Plutocracy Callisto
The Supremacy eraIndependent colonies grow, the Plutocracy is founded and the Supremacy hides the waystations.

The Solar War (turn of the 30th c.)

Opening of the Solar WarBattle of Rhea: the Queen of Saturn declares war on the Supremacy.
About a century agoSovereign appears and arms the nations.
The Solar War (many bitter years)The nations defeat the Solar Navy. NOVA joins late and tips the balance.

The quiet years (30th–31st c.)

After the war (quiet years)The Sol Waystation is found; Sovereign gives its law, the fold drive and the Sovereign class.

The Web (30th–31st c.)

Mars
Over the following centuryHumanity explores the first hundred systems and finds it isn't alone.
You are here
The present: "a hundred years on"A century on, the nations explore and settle across the Web.

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The present day is the 31st century. Most of humanity's history is remembered in relative terms, by centuries and generations, rather than in exact calendar years.

Sol and the Solar Supremacy

It has been over a thousand years since mankind first left its home planet. A thousand years of exploration and technical achievement have allowed mankind to spread throughout its solar system, using the vast resources mined to build immense orbital structures around moons and an entire habitable ring that orbits the Earth itself.

After a few centuries of space expansion, humanity came under the de facto rule of the Solar Supremacy, a government of the first great space companies and nations. A brief war, with objects dropped on cities from orbit, made Earth's old nations its protectorates, and its influence spread slowly across the solar system. See The Solar Supremacy.

Despite the Supremacy's strong grip, people still managed to reach further into the solar system and build fledgling colonies of their own, on the moons of both Jupiter and Saturn and even into the depths of the Kuiper belt. Mars had been settled long before, and its wild clans fought bitterly when the Supremacy came to occupy it (see the Mars Insurgency). These small nations grew and began to resent the great power.

The Battle of Rhea and the opening of the Solar War

At Rhea, Solar emissaries met the Queen of Saturn to force the Kingdom into taxes and subservience. Their terms were intolerable. She saw it as fight now and have a chance at independence, or be subjugated forever. In an act famous across the solar system, she declared war on the spot. The emissaries and their ships were massacred. This is counted as the beginning of the Solar War.

Pride and opportunity followed. Phobos moved next: the Solar government had long been a problem, and even the descendants of the old invasion force were now clan people, no longer Sol's. Around the same time they launched their own attack. Smelling blood, the Plutocracy began raiding wherever it paid, and some of the greatest Plutarchs coordinated to help bring the Supremacy down for their own gain. Ce-Co, caught in the middle, argued for a long time before joining once Titan and Phobos were clearly in revolt, then held the belt and supplied the rebels. NOVA watched from the Ring until late in the war.

Sovereign and the Solar War

From somewhere (no one truly knows where), an incredibly advanced Digital Intelligence appeared. It contacted every semi-independent spacefaring nation and gave them the weapons and technology to fight the Solar Supremacy. The nations rose up and, led by the instructions of this intelligence, defeated the Solar Navy. The war lasted many years and was bitterly fought. Both sides committed atrocities. The rebels — the Plutocracy, the Kingdom of Saturn, Phobos, Ce-Co and the rest — worked together but were not all friends. The remains of the Navy retreated to other solar systems using alien devices called waystations, which the Solar Supremacy had hidden from the nations.

NOVA entered only at the war's end and tipped the balance toward the rebels. See NOVA, the Ring and the Solar War.

After the war, the nations found the Sol Waystation by tracking the retreating Solar Navy.

The quiet years

Its war won, Sovereign gave its rules and more technology, then went silent (see Sovereign). For a few years afterward things stayed quiet: every nation was badly wounded and had no appetite for another big fight. Stellar law was signed, Sovereign-class ships were built, and flotillas left to explore. Even later, the major powers rarely fight inside the human solar system; they prefer to settle scores out in the free void. The waystations are now open and the solar nations are spreading across the Web.

Solar and Terran citizens

Under Supremacy law, every human living beyond Earth was a Solar citizen and fell under Solar authority. Those who stayed on Earth were Terran citizens, subjects of the old nations, which were themselves protectorates of the Supremacy. In practice the claim was never complete. Independents such as the Kingdom of Saturn and the Martian clans lived beyond its reach for centuries, and the Supremacy used the law as much to justify its conquests as to govern. When it came to occupy Mars in 2525, it did so in the name of its Solar citizens.

In the 31st century, Earth and the Ring still call themselves Terran. The other nations, though, reject any shared "Solar" label and fiercely guard their own separate identities. Calling a Martian or a Saturnian a Solar citizen is a quick way to start a fight.

The Solar Navy today

A century after its defeat, the Solar Navy is still out there in the Web: aggressive, heavily cybernetic and never taken alive. See The Solar Supremacy: the Solar Navy today.

What is humanity like in the 31st century?

A brief tour of humanity's homes in the 31st century:

Earth: A war-torn, wild or sometimes quite patchwork below, and above it the great Ring: the biggest city that has ever existed, a democracy of family farming cylinders linked by trains, with NOVA shipyards on separate orbital stations. See Places: Earth and the Ring.
Mars: United under the Martian Confederacy, a union of the ancient Martian clans and the people of Phobos Station. See The Martian Confederacy and Phobos.
The asteroid belt: Home to many mining nations and peoples, the oldest and largest being the Ceres Cooperative.
Jupiter: Io, Ganymede and Europa war constantly for control of Jupiter; Callisto stands apart. See Places: Jupiter.
Saturn: The Kingdom of Saturn, based on Titan.
Uranus: Off limits under Sovereign law. See Places: Uranus.
Pluto and the Kuiper belt: The Plutocracy.

The scramble for the Web

Roughly a hundred years have passed since the Solar War. For that whole century the Web has been open, and every nation has been exploring, settling and staking claims across the free void, much as the old powers of ancient Earth did in the Age of Sail. They seek what the new systems offer: raw resources, habitable worlds, alien technology, and territory and prestige.

Timeline

Eras

Historians generally divide humanity's past into six eras.

Era	Roughly
Earth Wars	21st–22nd century
Expansion and Mars Madness	Late 22nd–24th century
Solar Supremacy	c. 24th–30th century
Solar War	Around the turn of the 30th century
Quiet Years and the scramble for the Web	The century since the war
Present	31st century

Events

#	When	Event
1	Over a thousand years before the present	Mankind first leaves its home planet.
2	21st–22nd centuries	A run of wars on Earth, in an order historians still argue over: the Abundance War, of which little is recorded; the Confusion Wars, civil wars and instability whose causes are still debated; and the Old Man's War, remembered for an average fighter's age of about sixty-five after generations that barely had children.
3	The early centuries	Humanity spreads through the solar system. It builds immense orbital structures around moons and a habitable ring around the Earth.
4	From the 21st–22nd century wars onward ("for a thousand years")	Ce-Co begins as an Earth mining company, moves into asteroid mining, becomes a cooperative, and expands slowly across the belt while mostly ignoring wider politics until the Solar War.
5	Late 22nd to early 23rd century	Interest in space had faded until Paul MacTavish spent his wealth on a small fleet for Mars. Years of silence, then proof reached Earth — messages of a built atmosphere — and Mars Madness began. Waves of settlers followed. The madness fades once O'Neill cylinders are invented.
6	The following century and more	The forgotten Martian colonies turn to tribalism and become the wild Martian clans, with their own faith in MacTavish's promised Eden.
7	"After a few centuries of space expansion"	The Solar Supremacy forms. A brief orbital war drops objects on Earth's cities, forcing the old nations into protectorates; panic and collapse follow, then slow expansion of Supremacy influence across the system.
8	2525 ("over five hundred years ago")	The Solar government occupies Mars, and the clans fight the Mars Insurgency, a guerrilla war. Phobos Station is built as the beach-head or staging point for the occupation.
9	About five hundred years ago	A wealthy couple descended from the House of Windsor and the Imperial House of Japan settle Titan, then a backwater, and half in jest found the Kingdom of Saturn. The young Supremacy resents it from the start.
10	About four hundred and fifty years ago	The current Queen of Saturn, daughter of the founders, is born. She still rules today, kept alive by organ replacements and cybernetics.
11	Within the Kingdom's first century	The Supremacy all but leaves Titan to the Kingdom, meaning to deal with it later. It never does, and the joke becomes a true kingdom.
12	The Supremacy era	Independent colonies grow on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and in the Kuiper belt. Criminals and fugitives flee to the outer dark and found the Plutocracy. Callisto is one of the earliest independent space nations. The Kingdom of Saturn is "always a thorn in the side of the Solar Supremacy". The Supremacy hides the waystations.
13	Opening of the Solar War	Battle of Rhea: Solar emissaries press intolerable terms on Saturn; the Queen declares war; emissaries and ships massacred. Phobos attacks soon after; Plutocracy raids; Ce-Co joins after long argument; NOVA stays on the Ring until late.
14	About a century ago	Sovereign appears and arms the nations. NOVA, once a UN void office, has long since become a Ring mercenary/police force, sometimes used by the Solar government.
15	The Solar War (many bitter years)	The nations defeat the Solar Navy. Atrocities on both sides; rebel nations cooperate but are not all friends. NOVA stays on the Ring most of the war, then joins only at the end and tips the balance toward the rebels (or chooses the winners). The Supremacy remnants retreat through the waystations. For the Ring, daily life barely changes.
16	After the war (quiet years)	The nations find the Sol Waystation by tracking the retreating Solar Navy. Sovereign gives Sovereign law, the fold drive and the Sovereign class, then falls silent. Stellar law is signed; exploration flotillas leave. Major nations rarely fight inside the human system thereafter. NOVA grows to fill the vacuum; Ring citizens see it as heir to the Supremacy.
17	Over the following century	Humanity explores "the first hundred systems" and finds it isn't alone. Clan and station blur together in the Martian Confederacy through "centuries of marriage, war and shared hardship".
18	The present: "a hundred years on"	About a century since the war: waystations open, nations explore and begin settling across the Web throughout that century.

Historians still argue over some of the order of events, including whether Saturn rebelled before or after Sovereign's arrival.