Timeline
There are many pitfalls that science fiction authors can fall into. One of them is crafting tedious timelines that their stories take place in. Timelines can provide some context to readers, or just give people more things to scrutinize. This is especially the case with a future setting since it's so difficult to predict near-future technological trends let alone the accomplishments of large groups of people or a planet (and in this case, the course of events spanning many star systems over centuries). This is not an exercise in future prediction as much as it's a way for me to establish continuity within my universe. The former is notoriously difficult and the latter is both more useful and more fun. There are still gaps and places where I want to add more red letter events, but this is a start.
Pre-humanity
C. 800,000,000-100,000 BCE* – Unknown.
Precolonial Era and the Dark Years
2040-2070 – Global chaos ensues due to complications from global warming and political and social collapse. Many professions once requiring manual and technical labor are replaced with the latest generation of robots and AI, leading to an economic crisis and a general backlash against technocratic ventures. A number of space arks are built to scout and settle the nearest habitable extrasolar worlds. Some of the arks were built and sent in secret, and a number were lost in transit. There are rumors of self-aware sentient AI emerging from this time, but most of the first generation sentient "cognitive" AI seemingly abandoned Earth in a mass exodus using their own advanced faster-than-light interstellar communications network. Following the rapid decline of progress and development, humanity enters a dark age. The rise of the biohackers and the next generation of AI "synthetics," which help humanity rebuild and recover.
The Reconstruction Era and the Early Colonial Period
2090–2170 – new leadership emerges on Earth after the various balkanized states stabilize and rebound. The United Earth government is formed and interstellar communication allows the Sol system to contact the settlers and descendants of the arks which succeeded in their colonization efforts. Earth begins to form a relationship with the "first five" colonies (Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Eridani, 61 Cygni, Epsilon Indi, and Tau Ceti). Faster-than-light travel utilizing stabilized wormholes allows for travel, communications, and trade between star systems. The rise of the Marauders, interstellar crime syndicates, and various spacer enclaves like the Tyrians and so-called "free rider" communities. The first chapter of the Covenant religious movement begins to spread.
The Middle Colonial Period
2170-2237 – Earth and the Sol system form a political and military alliance with twelve neighboring systems called the Colonial Commonwealth. Ostensibly for mutual aid and prosperity, the thirteen colonies also aligned themselves for defense against interstellar piracy, crime syndicates, rogue spacers, and any other rival force.
2237-2337 – Various colony wars erupt between worlds competing over resources, safe lanes of interstellar travel, and access to new settlements and technologies. Some agrarian settlements could scarcely survive while more affluent and industrialized worlds branched out and established multiple generations of sister colonies in nearby star systems. Nine systems form a loose, decentralized political and military alliance called the Confederation of Aligned Worlds (retroactively renamed the Colonial Confederation). The Confederation routinely engages in aggressive, hostile acts against its neighbors, drawing in the Commonwealth and its allied protectorates. A sporadic colonial war is fought on a comparatively smaller scale between nearby systems, but the engagements serve as a testing ground for new and advanced space-borne weapons systems and interstellar military doctrine. The skirmishes flare up and subside as combatants struggle with ways to move armies and material across interstellar distances.
2337 – A second major colonial war begins between the Commonwealth and the Confederation after years of cold war tensions and minor acts of political hostility when a Confederation frigate opens fire on a civilian freighter which they mistook as a military transport, killing the crew. Conspiracies speculate that the explosion came from inside the ship and was orchestrated as a casus bellum between the two governments.
2338 – a prototype Pathfinder exploration vessel, the Nomad, is sent to investigate an anomaly in the Zeta Doradus system on her maiden voyage. She mysteriously goes missing along with her crew and the circumstances behind her disappearance are never revealed. Various spacer communities and interstellar travelers occasionally claim sightings of the ship throughout the galaxy.
2342 – The Battle of Beta Hydri. Commonwealth ships, identifying the agricultural world Ops as a vital Confederation food production colony, begin an orbital blockade that escalates to full-blown skirmishes and then the mass bombardment of the planet’s surface using kinetic kill warheads. Millions die in the major cities and a ceasefire is shortly thereafter signaled across Commonwealth and Confederation space.
2345 – the signing of an Armistice between the Commonwealth and the Confederation on Pax in the Centauri B system. A tenuous peace treaty is drafted along with new interstellar laws. A number of allied systems send relief to post-war colonies that suffered the most, but a number also break contact with the Commonwealth and realign politically. There's a vast displacement of settler refugees as some colonies become unsustainable and a mass internal migration among the nearest colonies. The Commonwealth drafts a comprehensive Post-war Relief Act to ship emergency aid and supplies to the colonies most heavily by the war, though the efforts get stalled and fouled by bureaucratic mix-ups.
2347 – The Consortium rises as a powerful new corporate organization following the dissolution of the Confederation. The Consortium’s first major act is to initiate the Tratner Plan: a large-scale operation to convert the majority of the old Confederation Navy into a massive commercial shipping and trade fleet to ship food, emergency stores, building materials, and medical supplies throughout the former Confederation colonies to prevent further destabilization, death, and mass starvation.
2355 – the Draconis Insurgency occurs on the capital world Cybele in the Sigma Draconis system, one of the party members of the Commonwealth. The insurgency culminated in the surrounding of the capital city by the Draconian Guard Corps with tepid support from their Armored divisions and Artillery regiments. The military chiefs of staff stormed the House of Electives and assumed control of the government in a thirty-one day coup that ended when cooperative covert strike teams and intelligence units assaulted the capital and removed the insurgent militants by force. It was later revealed that the insurgency was either incited or supported by former members of Colonial Confederation Military Intelligence. The insurgency signalled to the other twelve colonies that the Commonwealth was vulnerable to outside influence and internal strife and was not uniquely immune to the kinds of political instabilities that occasionally occurred on extrasolar colonies.
Late Colonial Period
2355- 2384 – Marauders are purged from the inner colonies and get pushed out to the far and fringe settlements. The Colonial Consortium rises as a major political and economic force in the colonies. Colonial separatist movements rise as a wave of economic recessions hit the poorest worlds and harsh austerity measures are enacted.
2385 – Pappy is born in Castle Hill, Iowa, on Earth.
2392 – The Lauchner Incident occurs on Teojushin in Fomalhaut system following a number of general strikes and demonstrations across colonies adjacent to the charter Commonwealth worlds. Organized labor guilds and a militant worker organization called the Wildcats are infiltrated by domestic intelligence operatives and agent provocateurs. Although efforts to sabotage the movement largely failed, many of their leaders and key figures mysteriously vanished or were jailed using disputed rationale. A major show trial ensued and most of the accused figures were released and exonerated of all charges. In a leaked memo called the Lauchner Report, it’s revealed that the Commonwealth military and major industries colluded to escalate tensions among aggrieved parties and use it as pretext for expanded intelligence operations, mass civilian surveillance, and increased military action across the colonies.
2395 – Major uprising begin on Commonwealth systems and worlds close to the thirteen colonies. The Ek Chuah Volta campaign of Gliese 105 begins after a militant wing on one colony attempted to seize and control a neighboring world, using past territorial and resource disputes as justification.
2397 - The Bloody Monday student massacre occurs in the city of San Pellegrino on Tanit in the 36 Ophiuchi system. A peaceful protest against the colonial government and the Commonwealth is organized by university students. The protests grew and continued for days, disrupting business and travel and escalating as local peacekeeper brigades clashed with demonstrators. After days of staged demonstrations and brawls with counter-protestors led to a riot, a colonial guard regiment and deputized officers unleashed a barrage of nonlethal and then live ammunition into crowds of protestors, killing a number of unarmed civilians. The massacre is largely condemned and is cited as a reason for the rise of mass movements across the colonies, as well as the formation of armed rebel groups.
2403 – Pappy begins UEAF basic training. Separatist rebels launch a surprise attack on the New Tangiers space habitat, killing thousands when a large section of the O'Neill cylinder becomes structurally compromised and inhabitants get exposed to the harsh environment of space.
2405 – The Delgado Rebellion begins when a UEAF General named Gustavo Delgado leads a contingent of defected troopers against a Commonwealth military installation, Base Pontiac. He trains and leads separatist colonial rebels on a series of actions across Commonwealth space as well as neighboring systems and politically-aligned worlds. United Earth and Commonwealth allies begin Operation Iron Shield to root out and dispatch the disparate colonial rebel communities and shore up defenses on the constellation of extrasolar target communities. Pappy sees his first action in the colonies.
2405-2018 - Widespread separatist movements flare up among neighboring worlds adjacent to Commonwealth worlds, and also ruthless regimes and opportunistic strongmen take advantage of the growing dissatisfaction, seizing power or forming their own breakaway settlements.
2418 – the Regime War begins when the Regime's Imperial Armada crosses an ancient wormhole network called the Bridge and attacks a colony called Modron in 47 Ursae Majoris.
* I can't go too much into the pre-human history of the Pax Universe without major spoilers, but I do plan on going into it with my next novel project.
C. 800,000,000-100,000 BCE* – Unknown.
Precolonial Era and the Dark Years
2040-2070 – Global chaos ensues due to complications from global warming and political and social collapse. Many professions once requiring manual and technical labor are replaced with the latest generation of robots and AI, leading to an economic crisis and a general backlash against technocratic ventures. A number of space arks are built to scout and settle the nearest habitable extrasolar worlds. Some of the arks were built and sent in secret, and a number were lost in transit. There are rumors of self-aware sentient AI emerging from this time, but most of the first generation sentient "cognitive" AI seemingly abandoned Earth in a mass exodus using their own advanced faster-than-light interstellar communications network. Following the rapid decline of progress and development, humanity enters a dark age. The rise of the biohackers and the next generation of AI "synthetics," which help humanity rebuild and recover.
The Reconstruction Era and the Early Colonial Period
2090–2170 – new leadership emerges on Earth after the various balkanized states stabilize and rebound. The United Earth government is formed and interstellar communication allows the Sol system to contact the settlers and descendants of the arks which succeeded in their colonization efforts. Earth begins to form a relationship with the "first five" colonies (Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Eridani, 61 Cygni, Epsilon Indi, and Tau Ceti). Faster-than-light travel utilizing stabilized wormholes allows for travel, communications, and trade between star systems. The rise of the Marauders, interstellar crime syndicates, and various spacer enclaves like the Tyrians and so-called "free rider" communities. The first chapter of the Covenant religious movement begins to spread.
The Middle Colonial Period
2170-2237 – Earth and the Sol system form a political and military alliance with twelve neighboring systems called the Colonial Commonwealth. Ostensibly for mutual aid and prosperity, the thirteen colonies also aligned themselves for defense against interstellar piracy, crime syndicates, rogue spacers, and any other rival force.
2237-2337 – Various colony wars erupt between worlds competing over resources, safe lanes of interstellar travel, and access to new settlements and technologies. Some agrarian settlements could scarcely survive while more affluent and industrialized worlds branched out and established multiple generations of sister colonies in nearby star systems. Nine systems form a loose, decentralized political and military alliance called the Confederation of Aligned Worlds (retroactively renamed the Colonial Confederation). The Confederation routinely engages in aggressive, hostile acts against its neighbors, drawing in the Commonwealth and its allied protectorates. A sporadic colonial war is fought on a comparatively smaller scale between nearby systems, but the engagements serve as a testing ground for new and advanced space-borne weapons systems and interstellar military doctrine. The skirmishes flare up and subside as combatants struggle with ways to move armies and material across interstellar distances.
2337 – A second major colonial war begins between the Commonwealth and the Confederation after years of cold war tensions and minor acts of political hostility when a Confederation frigate opens fire on a civilian freighter which they mistook as a military transport, killing the crew. Conspiracies speculate that the explosion came from inside the ship and was orchestrated as a casus bellum between the two governments.
2338 – a prototype Pathfinder exploration vessel, the Nomad, is sent to investigate an anomaly in the Zeta Doradus system on her maiden voyage. She mysteriously goes missing along with her crew and the circumstances behind her disappearance are never revealed. Various spacer communities and interstellar travelers occasionally claim sightings of the ship throughout the galaxy.
2342 – The Battle of Beta Hydri. Commonwealth ships, identifying the agricultural world Ops as a vital Confederation food production colony, begin an orbital blockade that escalates to full-blown skirmishes and then the mass bombardment of the planet’s surface using kinetic kill warheads. Millions die in the major cities and a ceasefire is shortly thereafter signaled across Commonwealth and Confederation space.
2345 – the signing of an Armistice between the Commonwealth and the Confederation on Pax in the Centauri B system. A tenuous peace treaty is drafted along with new interstellar laws. A number of allied systems send relief to post-war colonies that suffered the most, but a number also break contact with the Commonwealth and realign politically. There's a vast displacement of settler refugees as some colonies become unsustainable and a mass internal migration among the nearest colonies. The Commonwealth drafts a comprehensive Post-war Relief Act to ship emergency aid and supplies to the colonies most heavily by the war, though the efforts get stalled and fouled by bureaucratic mix-ups.
2347 – The Consortium rises as a powerful new corporate organization following the dissolution of the Confederation. The Consortium’s first major act is to initiate the Tratner Plan: a large-scale operation to convert the majority of the old Confederation Navy into a massive commercial shipping and trade fleet to ship food, emergency stores, building materials, and medical supplies throughout the former Confederation colonies to prevent further destabilization, death, and mass starvation.
2355 – the Draconis Insurgency occurs on the capital world Cybele in the Sigma Draconis system, one of the party members of the Commonwealth. The insurgency culminated in the surrounding of the capital city by the Draconian Guard Corps with tepid support from their Armored divisions and Artillery regiments. The military chiefs of staff stormed the House of Electives and assumed control of the government in a thirty-one day coup that ended when cooperative covert strike teams and intelligence units assaulted the capital and removed the insurgent militants by force. It was later revealed that the insurgency was either incited or supported by former members of Colonial Confederation Military Intelligence. The insurgency signalled to the other twelve colonies that the Commonwealth was vulnerable to outside influence and internal strife and was not uniquely immune to the kinds of political instabilities that occasionally occurred on extrasolar colonies.
Late Colonial Period
2355- 2384 – Marauders are purged from the inner colonies and get pushed out to the far and fringe settlements. The Colonial Consortium rises as a major political and economic force in the colonies. Colonial separatist movements rise as a wave of economic recessions hit the poorest worlds and harsh austerity measures are enacted.
2385 – Pappy is born in Castle Hill, Iowa, on Earth.
2392 – The Lauchner Incident occurs on Teojushin in Fomalhaut system following a number of general strikes and demonstrations across colonies adjacent to the charter Commonwealth worlds. Organized labor guilds and a militant worker organization called the Wildcats are infiltrated by domestic intelligence operatives and agent provocateurs. Although efforts to sabotage the movement largely failed, many of their leaders and key figures mysteriously vanished or were jailed using disputed rationale. A major show trial ensued and most of the accused figures were released and exonerated of all charges. In a leaked memo called the Lauchner Report, it’s revealed that the Commonwealth military and major industries colluded to escalate tensions among aggrieved parties and use it as pretext for expanded intelligence operations, mass civilian surveillance, and increased military action across the colonies.
2395 – Major uprising begin on Commonwealth systems and worlds close to the thirteen colonies. The Ek Chuah Volta campaign of Gliese 105 begins after a militant wing on one colony attempted to seize and control a neighboring world, using past territorial and resource disputes as justification.
2397 - The Bloody Monday student massacre occurs in the city of San Pellegrino on Tanit in the 36 Ophiuchi system. A peaceful protest against the colonial government and the Commonwealth is organized by university students. The protests grew and continued for days, disrupting business and travel and escalating as local peacekeeper brigades clashed with demonstrators. After days of staged demonstrations and brawls with counter-protestors led to a riot, a colonial guard regiment and deputized officers unleashed a barrage of nonlethal and then live ammunition into crowds of protestors, killing a number of unarmed civilians. The massacre is largely condemned and is cited as a reason for the rise of mass movements across the colonies, as well as the formation of armed rebel groups.
2403 – Pappy begins UEAF basic training. Separatist rebels launch a surprise attack on the New Tangiers space habitat, killing thousands when a large section of the O'Neill cylinder becomes structurally compromised and inhabitants get exposed to the harsh environment of space.
2405 – The Delgado Rebellion begins when a UEAF General named Gustavo Delgado leads a contingent of defected troopers against a Commonwealth military installation, Base Pontiac. He trains and leads separatist colonial rebels on a series of actions across Commonwealth space as well as neighboring systems and politically-aligned worlds. United Earth and Commonwealth allies begin Operation Iron Shield to root out and dispatch the disparate colonial rebel communities and shore up defenses on the constellation of extrasolar target communities. Pappy sees his first action in the colonies.
2405-2018 - Widespread separatist movements flare up among neighboring worlds adjacent to Commonwealth worlds, and also ruthless regimes and opportunistic strongmen take advantage of the growing dissatisfaction, seizing power or forming their own breakaway settlements.
2418 – the Regime War begins when the Regime's Imperial Armada crosses an ancient wormhole network called the Bridge and attacks a colony called Modron in 47 Ursae Majoris.
* I can't go too much into the pre-human history of the Pax Universe without major spoilers, but I do plan on going into it with my next novel project.
