The story of The Expansion spans some four millennia.  Nations have 
risen, fallen and risen again.  Only to be thrashed back into oblivion. 
Religion has long since gone away, but it'll come back like it always 
does.  For now, billions of humans are battling across the great 
expanses of the skies.  It's not a peaceful Universe.  Few would argue 
it was ever meant to be.

The history of humanity is sketchy through most parts and even the 
present is fuzzy at best most of the time.  The majority of records were 
either destroyed during the numerous World Wars or simply not maintained 
due to priority or apathy.  The webs that Man has woven are too numerous 
to count, too complex to follow and too gruesome to recount.  The 
following crude account is the most accurate information yet assembled.

??? to Circa 3000.  The Age of Nations.	
Also referred to as the Age of Bliss and the Age of Ignorance.   In 
these early years, relatively few wars were fought and those that did 
take place were between nations - the largest denomination of people.  
It wasn't until around the year 2000 that Mankind really started to 
advance, sending probes (both manned and unmanned) into space and 
developing weapons of mass destruction.  These were naturally very 
primitive probes - few reaching the outskirts of Earths Solar System - 
and weapons compared with today's technology.  This is referred to as 
the Age of Bliss due to the plentiful resources that the Earth still 
provided.  With a population of only 7 billion at the start of the 3rd 
Millennia (around the year 2000), there was still plenty of animal life, 
plant life, clean water, pure air and unpopulated lands.  

This period is called the Age of Ignorance for a very different reason.  
Peace among nations enjoyed continued popularity until late in the 3rd 
Millennia when the goal of One Earth One Nation became a reality.  
Several valiant (and misguided) attempts were made at this.  For a short 
while, total tyranical rule from a single source (Alexandre Torne, 
Mexico, 2200-2220) covered 80% of Earth.  On the eve of complete 
domination, revolution sprang in 328 areas around the world.  Discontent 
raged, resulting in the dismantling of the Torne regime.

Political scholars concluded that for One Earth One Nation to happen, a 
perfect democracy had to be established where each and every person 
could vote on all the issues if he so chose, a concept commonly referred 
to as The Vote.  Humanity was more than willing - even hungry - to 
accept The Vote!  Compromise and Man Before Me banners became vogue.  
People dutifully went to the polling stations on a weekly basis, feeling 
that no issue was too small that it couldnt benefit from their opinion.  
Needless to say, society stagnated.  Lacking the need  to advance 
(essential in times of war) and with The Vote supporting the status quo, 
people happily and uneventfully went about their daily lives.  (Note:  
It is widely thought, and generally accepted, that the people of this 
time period were not the clear thinkers of today, utilizing a mere 10% 
of their thought capacity.)

Circa 3000 to Circa 4000.   The Downward Spiral
Around the year 3000, the population hit 20 billion humans.  The Earth 
could no longer support the population on its own, but technological 
advances let Man take care of himself.  The Vote had long established 
that having children was a birthright and not to be taken away (See Age 
of Ignorance, above).  To support this weighty population, all 
competitors - wildlife and plantlife together - were eventually 
eradicated to make way for more cities.  Only Vote-supported animals and 
plants deemed necessary for food were allowed a continued  existence - 
and this was done with a vengeance to support the Earths voracious 
appetite.  The inevitable happened late in the 4th Millennia.  A 
population of 50 billion experienced severe famine and lost half its 
number over several generations.  Nothing could be done to stop this 
incredible catastrophe and society fell apart.  Mankind returned to the 
way of the now extinct animals.

Circa 4000 to Circa 4500.  The Awakening.
The second catastrophic blow was emotional in nature.  Ransacking the 
One Earth One Nation Headquarters (OEON-HQ) revealed what the whole 
movement was really about.  A group simply known to the populace as the 
Vote Counters (VC) ran the whole operation.  It began with a group of 
powerful men and women who were previously heads of states and found 
prosperity for their nations could best be begotten through peace and 
understanding.  They devoted their lives to bringing the world together.  
Their posterity lost sight of this.  The VC was infiltrated by greed and 
ambition.  All too soon, a new vision was in place:  Prosperity could 
best be attained for themselves by keeping the populace mellow and 
despondent.  This was accomplished in the name of Peace and The Vote.  
Everybody was responsible for everyone.  The idea that some people 
should be better off than others was akin to blasphemy.  Great effort 
was made to educate and inspire the lower end of the populace.  When 
that was found to be infeasible, the higher end was dumbed down.  In the 
meantime, corruption ran deeper around the VC.  The group became tighter 
and tighter and great quantities of power and wealth were wielded with 
little regard for anyone - the general populace, in particular.

Armed with this knowledge, the people of the 5th Millennia hardened.  
Despair turned to anger and hate turned to inspiration.   Emotions that 
weren't felt in a thousand years were now widespread.  Nations sprouted 
overnight and borders were drawn.  Each leader and much of the 
population knew what lay next.  Faced with a ruined world, it was widely 
understood that man needed to start again - elsewhere.  This time, 
Mankind didn't wallow in complacency!  A great urgency was instilled in 
every man, women and child.   Only through fanatical dedication to The 
Great Plan could any nation make it off the planet and start fresh 
elsewhere.  Borders were closed and heavily guarded to prevent espionage 
and spying.  Power coagulated around the largest technological 
corporations, since the future of each society lay within.  Eventually, 
Government combined with the corporations and what emerged became known 
as the CityCorp.  Each CityCorp consisted of millions of people and 
spread over hundreds of square miles.  Every sized business was annexed 
into the CityCorp, until the entire population was essentially working 
for one, great, all-encompassing Corporation, complete with housing, 
food production and, of course, defense.

Midway through the millennia, it happened.  The Void Drive was 
discovered and perfected by the KromCorp CityCorp.  The Void Drive is 
the name for an ingenious, complex and arcane device that opens an 
ethereal portal in a parallel reality.  This parallel reality (referred 
to as The Void) doesn't mirror our own exactly.  Scientist found that 
traveling a short distance in the Void can send an element light years 
in the Universe.  This process of mapping The Void was long and 
frustratingly tedious.  A hundred thousand lives were lost and many labs 
destroyed as the first portals were opened on Earth.  Later, this 
discipline was taken into space where the creation of a portal wouldn't 
break down the atomic structure of the matter it came in contact with.  
Eventually, portals large enough for space fleets to pass through were 
realized.  It is of the utmost importance to note, however, that 
computers capable of KiloBit accuracy were required in order to map the 
very precise paths within  The Void.  Several fleets of the Space 
Pioneer Program were lost entirely...)

Circa 4500 to Circa 5000.  The Age of Endless War.
KromCorp, immediately and fully realizing the advantage of being the 
first to travel to other worlds, founded the Space Pioneer Program 
(SPP).   KromCorp citizens were told of a space flight that would take 
20 years and land them on a new world that may or may not be hospitable.  
Not an extremely large or popular CityCorp to begin with, KromCorp's SPP 
was overlooked with a mix of indifference and disdain by its 
competitors.  Within days of taking off, SPP landed its first cargo of 
one thousand startled pioneers on a brave new world dubbed Genesis - 
full of greenery and teeming with life!  The KromCorp president 
personally introduced the citizens to their new pre-built city.  
(KromCorp techs had arrived several months earlier in order to ensure 
success through a  smooth transition.)

This process repeated itself scores more times over the next generations 
until the secret could no longer be kept.  A faction of KromCorp's 
executive board broke off, stole the Void Drive plans and announced the 
ability to travel to new planets within weeks.  As expected, the 
population swarmed to the new company and its stock sky-rocketed.  
Naming itself Stellar Travel CityCorp, billboards around the world went 
up with the promises and pictures of clean and thriving ecosystems just 
waiting to be inhabited by intelligent life.  This attracted such an 
excitement and media blitz that the armies of other CityCorps marched to 
the doors of Stellar Travel right along with the wannabe pioneers.  Such 
was the unexpected ferocity, that Stellar Travel folded and the leaders 
barely managed to make their way back to KromCorp for refuge.  

KromCorp was prepared for an outside attack such as this from the very 
beginning, having realized the importance of its discovery.  The traitor 
executives were welcomed back with open arms and then promptly executed.  
The long and incessant siege/attack/siege of KromCorp began and, facing 
the angst of the rest of world, could not help but capitulate near the 
end of the 5th Millennia. The secret of the Void Drive was released into 
the public domain.  It is interesting to note that this was the longest 
war in the history of humanity, lasting several centuries.  This was 
possible due to the constant resupplying by KromCorp's new worlds.  
KromCorp actually tried for a 50 year span to conquer Earth in an effort 
to control the exploration of the Universe.  It simply wasn't meant to 
be and KromCorp resigned itself to beefing up the defenses of its 
colonies for what was thought to be an inevitable onslaught.

Circa 5000 to Circa 7000.  The Expansion.
The onslaught never came, however.  Many planets were still uninhabited 
and as The Void envelope was pushed, more and more fresh planets were 
found - an inexhaustible supply!  Several competitors in the Space Race 
stand out.  The first is O'Dougal CityCorp, named after the ruling 
family.  KromCorp carefully researched a planet, set up test 
settlements, then, when all was ready, moved in the settlers.  O'Dougal 
stands in stark contrast.  A tough and brutal city-state, O'Dougal 
dropped its settlers in quick and armed with everything necessary to set 
up the first settlements themselves - earth moving equipment and earth 
defending equipment alike.  

Jackals and scavengers, the self-styled Vikings of Old (from the 
"CityCorp" of Hyenna) would arrive on a planet hours to days after a 
competitor landed and wipe out the settlers.  This eliminated the effort 
of originally finding the planet and then to transporting the equipment.  
Feared and despised, the Hyennian Vikings were surprisingly successful.  
It was not beneath the other CityCorps to found inferior planets in an 
attempt to divert the Viking's attention.  

Another major CityCorp was EtherTron.  As the name implies, EtherTron 
was highly industrial and depended almost exclusively on automatons for 
fighting and defense, while humans went about the business of laying the 
vast slabs of metal and concrete that dominated their cities.  In 
contrast, Narbellians lived in vast, beautiful cites built into the 
ecosystem in such a way, that nature was left undisturbed.  On Earth, 
Narbella was one of the few CityCorps to boast a forest of several 
acres.  However, Narbellians were fierce and violent , known to have 
wiped out entire groves to eradicate an enemy.  Nature could rejuvenate, 
there was no guarantee they could do the same.  The last of the big 
CityCorps was BioGen - big in the sense of the individual as well the 
population.  A leader in human genetics long before the Void Drive was 
ever discovered, BioGen grew its own exceptionally muscular, remarkably 
adroit and particularly lethal armies of superior intelligence from 
altered-state embryos.  BioGens main objective was to put humanity on 
the forefront of evolution.  But in the meantime, there were wars to be 
fought

Many smaller players were involved in The Expansion as well.  Not all 
survived, but many still have a couple planets that they cling to and 
defend with an iron will.  

Circa 7000.  Armies of Armageddon.
The whole notion of an endless supply of planets was a fallacy.  Circa 
6000 planets started getting scarce and territorial fights became 
common.  Even so, the planets that were started certainly weren't 
burgeoning over like Earth.   Nevertheless, the seed of Expansion took 
deep root and it became every citizen's duty to procreate in order to 
provide a never-ending supply of pioneers.  Later, as planets became 
more scarce and war less scarce, it became every citizen's duty to 
procreate in order to provide a never-ending supply of soldiers. 

Now, the source of inhabitable planets has definitely been exhausted.  
When the occasion arises that a new planet is found, a dozen CityCorps 
will pounce on it.  Fighting will rage for 20 years before the planet is 
ripped apart and the armies move onto the next new find.  Space fleets 
from every side rove the solar systems, attacking weaknesses on other 
planets and trying to gain a foothold.  Peace reigned on planets that 
were founded by only one CityCorp, but that's a luxury nowadays.  
Several sides can take root an a planet spawning hundreds of years of 
war.  

In an effort to find more inhabitable planets, nations are pushing Void 
travel way beyond prudence and finding themselves in areas they never 
meant - nor wanted - to go.  (See Vol XXXII, Sec.V.I.III:  The Hell 
Wars)  Surprisingly, few other races have been found en masse.  However, 
it's widely thought that's it's simply a matter time.  On the fringes of 
the charted Universe, there have been rumors of  unknown races 
successfully attacking human settlements.  The lack of any witnesses 
points to these stories being either made up or a great threat.  Time 
will tell.

Most remarkable is the wide range of weaponry and living standards 
throughout the Universe.  Many, if not most, planets are highly 
developed (Knowledge is Power) and highly intelligent.  Others, mostly 
on the Eastern Fringe, are poorly stocked and have atrophied to the 
point of supporting barbarians - humans who use the earth, wind and fire 
to battle out a meager existence.  

What's beyond argument though, is the state of humanity.  Suffering from 
lessons learned too deeply, each CityCorp battles daily for its 
identity.  It's not enough to own land and populate it, the desire to 
expand and conquer is now innate in the race.  Money and possessions 
fall to the wayside in view of intelligence, cunning and victory!  Once 
again mankind is heading into an age of One Universe, One Nation.  But 
this time, there's no compromise, there's no politics and there's no 
quarter - and it's coming to a head.  After 1000 years, the battles are 
cataclysmic in nature with entire planets twirling in havoc within a 
matter of weeks.  Historically, the tide has swung in favor of one 
nation until it looks like its all over.  Then the rest would band 
together and bring the balance back - only to throw it off again through 
a series of broken treaties and contracts.  However, the days are 
numbered until the pendulum swings and stays.  Each person, each day, 
everywhere, must totally dedicate himself to the greater cause until 
these armies of armageddon decide once and for all who will hold the 
torch for humanity.






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