History

Mankind reaches the stars

In the early 23rd century, the United States develops a hyperdrive capable to traveling to distant worlds. Early drives allow ships to travel one light-year per week. Further enhancements over the next few centuries reduce the transit time even further.

Colonization of space begins with world powers claiming numerous habitable systems for their own. Inevitably, individual nations begin building fleets of warships to protect their new colonies.

War breaks out between the colonies of Russia and China, followed by France and Britain against the United States. Fighting erupts on Earth, leaving much of the world population devastated. Overall casualties on Earth and the colonies number in the billions.

A world council is formed, replacing the United Nations. Individual nations are abolished and one centralized government, dubbed the First Terran Republic, takes control of Earth and its colonies.

First Terran Republic

Rebuilding the wartorn planets, many with insufficient resources to start anew, left the newly formed Republic with a immense manpower shortage. After much heated debate, it was decided to use advanced cloning techniques to create enough workers to alleviate the crisis.

Over the next century, clones are integrated into nearly every labor-intensive or hazardous environment job.

Meanwhile, mega-corporations, exploiting loopholes in colonization regulations, begin staking out their own fiefdoms and begin to wean themselves from the increasingly oppressive and decadent First Republic. Preparations are made for the corporations to form a government, the Galactic Trading Alliance.

Alarmed by the GTA's sudden rise in power and influence, the First Republic increases the size of its clone armies and fleet. Attempts to weaken the GTA financially fail as the fledgling nation is very rapidly becoming self-sufficient. The situation escalates when the GTA Chancellor dies under mysterious circumstances. Evidence links the Chancellor's death to Republic covert operatives.

The GTA military launches a devastating first strike, destroying several Republic fleet bases and inflicting massive casualties. Subsequent invasions net the GTA twelve Republic systems for minimal losses.

The Republic launches a major counter offensive. Four fleets, totalling nearly three thousand ships, strike back in three daring attacks.

The first assault wreaks heavy damage on the main GTA fleet at Mauser IV. The second lands troops in an attempt to retake the lost worlds. The third is a bold deep strike at the GTA capital world.

The offensive costs both sides dearly. The Republic regained three of the worlds, but were bloodily repulsed on the others.

The assault on the GTA capital turns grim when the Republican fleet commander, realizing his fleet is severely outgunned and outnumbered, orders the bulk of his planetary assault dreadnoughts to begin an orbital bombardment while the remainder of the fleet engages the GTA armada. Civilian casualties number in the millions. Combined Fleet casualties approach one million.

The war settles into a series of battles of attrition lasting nearly thirty years. Dozens of planets are razed in the fighting. Both sides field armies of clones to shore up battlefield losses. The Republic begins to crumble as the entire Cameron district secedes, taking with it a third of the Republic's industrial capacity. Within three years, three other districts pull out of the Republic, reducing its size by nearly sixty percent.

The war ends after thirty-five years with no decisive victor. The First Terran Republic is a hollow shell. Total casualties are over four hundred million.