The 22nd Century began with high crime rates within major cities, and life on Earth was tough. In 2105 the Terra Alpha colony reported back that all was well. Their planet had native plant and animal life, however, no sentient life had been found. Mining equipment was being set-up, and all was well.
It was news such as this which started to motivate mankind to continue its exploration of space. Opposition to T-Mat had already started to appear, but the final straw was in 2110, when Earth received a major shock as both the moon base and Earth itself was attacked by the Neo-Martians. Their plan was foiled by a crack group of three men, and the global councils had the task of repairing all the damage resulting from the Martian assault. The attack had taught Earth a lesson; the ISC was given greater powers and taxes were raised to finance space travel. "Co-operation Is Key" was the media hype, and work began in establishing a true world government.T-Mat was regulated to a more normal usage and a new space-exploration program began.
A true world government was finally achieved in 2113, with 99% of former countries joining. The other 1% dissolved and thereafter a new World President was elected. Individual countries were treated as federal states (for example, the USA was treated as five different states).
As the 2110's began, mankind discovered the first, still rudimentary FTL propulsion. In addition, sub-ether FTL communication had been perfected. Both of these technologies propelled matter or energy at Warp 2. Thus, communication was no faster than transport. A second wave of colonization ships, this time using warp drives, was launched. in 2114. The destinations were:
The Colony Office was also established at this period of time, to manage colonial affairs. A couple of the ships launched, the Olcanze ship and the Beta Hydra ship, were lost and never found. Their eventual destination was unknown. The Diplos colony reported back that their planet seemed to once be the seat of an advanced civilization. Long deserted, the planet featured irrefutable evidence of a once highly intelligent indigenous species. The planet was immediately classified as unsuitable for mining and many scientists voyaged over to marvel at the remains of the old Diplosian society.
The Macros colony was briefly taken over by strange Crab-like creatures, which were apparently the only intelligent life-form on the planet. News of this eventually filtered back to Earth, which both shocked and amazed scientists and the public alike. The ship bound for Alpha Centauri was scheduled for only a brief-stop before continuing to its destination, Sigma Draconis. However, the arrival of the ship coincided with the discovery of the first 'humanoid' intelligent life, native inhabitants of Proxima Centarui 1. The race was a couple of hundred years behind Earth's social and technological development. The mission to Sigma Draconis was canceled and the ship began ferrying back and forth between Sol and Alpha Centauri, carrying scientists, military, etc.
Finally, the Terra colonies reported that the planet had an intelligent humanoid species known as the Pipe People. The 2110's will be remembered throughout history as the decade when mankind finally encountered extra-terrestrial life: intelligent, hostile or otherwise.
In the weapons industry, circa 2118, two new technologies had been developed, that of compact fusion reactors and linear acceleration. Linear acceleration was a new technology developed separately by several major fire-arm vendors, in an attempt to prolong the life of the good, old-fashioned propellant gun. They succeeded, but in lieu with the 2090 Small Arms Act, most of the LA weapons were variants of the 20th century weapons.
The large fire-arm corporations were losing profits fast because of new legislation, and hence Smith and Wesson PLC stepped in and started reissuing old 20th century weaponry, but with hi-tech ammunition. The result was an instant success to S&W, and the company profits rocketed overnight. Before long, the streets were once again filled with thugs carrying Uzi's and AK-47's. Obviously not everyone was happy with this new market.
At the 10th World Peace Conference in 2120, many Earth states made it clear that trouble was brewing again, as it was easy to get hold of cheap, old but effective guns. The WPC considered this and after a majority vote the WPC pressurized the government to clean up the world's security forces, and equip them with all the latest in fire-arms technology. This was done in order that the security forces had a distinct advantage over the public when it came to fire-arms.
In addition, crack units such as the Trouble Elimination Squad (TES) and the Terrorist Operation Branch (TOB) were equipped with taser & laser weapons., powered by the newly developed CFRs. These new-age weapons were costly to make but by 2120 most government forces were equipped with the weapons.
The 2140's introduced faster and more efficient travel technology: Warp 3 Drives and Warp 3 communicators. The Vulcan colony's message had been received the following year, and the faster drives were a welcome relief to IMC, who were afraid of going into liquidation because of the apparent failure of the Vulcan mining colony.
In 2145 the delayed IMC ship to Vulcan was sent. During the delay, the ship had been upgraded, and was one of the best mankind had built. With Warp-3 engines, it carried a 5000 crew, as well a massive cargo. Arriving at Vulcan in 2147, it initiated a large-scale mining program, as well as taking over control over the colony. IMC also commissioned the building of another, slightly smaller ship, for cargo transport only. This too, would have Warp-3 drives. With the two ships, IMC began shipping minerals back to Earth every 10 weeks. Within a year's time, IMC had became one of the richest corporations on Earth, taking advantage of the lack of mineral resources on the home planet.
Military research was at this time working on a new
type weapon, one which the media claims would make the laser redundant.
By 2150, the military had their first immobile prototypes, but it wasn't until 2170 that the
first, useful working alpha-versions went into productions. Beta-test prototypes
followed in 2172 an the military had their first Proton Accelerator, or blaster,
by 2175.![[*]](icons.gif/foot_motif.gif){kind=icon}
Another technology researched during the 2150's was terra-forming, the remodeling of entire planets to support life. With the combination of weather-control, the mastery of anti-gravity, and the invention of atmospheric processing -- the procedure of fast-forwarding and directing ecological evolution through controlled release of chemicals and bio-organisms, terra-forming was beginning to look like a realistic venture.
By the mid 2150's, Earth had a number of colonies, space-stations and bases through-out its galactic sector. The list below briefly summarizes the extent of Earth's colonization:
Earth's slow but continued space expansion inevitably attracted the hostile attentions of other galactic powers. One such power was the Daleks, a species feared throughout their galactic sector for their aggression and ruthlessness.
By 2160 the Daleks had launched a secret plan to invade Earth. First, they spread virulent plagues through a swarm of meteorites. As a result of the ensuing diseases, the solar system was put under quarantine by the colonies. The Daleks attacked in 2164, invading an almost depopulated and isolated Earth. At first a few colonies sent a batch of ships armed with crude laser cannons to try and destroy the Daleks, but the DalekÕs space fleet, which was blockading Earth, ensured that the colonists did not have a chance. After this, other friendly races which Earth had just discovered, such as the Alpha Centauri and the Xerons, were either unable or unwilling to help. This became known as the First Dalek War.
In 2167 the Daleks were finally defeated by Earth based rebels. Earth was in ruins, and it took a good twenty years to rebuild the planet to its former glory. Earth has decided that its only chance to withstand other alien assaults was in strength and unity. Earth renewed relations with its colonies and tried to establish some sort of link between Earth and its colonies. It was at this period that the Colonial Office was set up, to manage EarthÕs external resources. Also, a new military division was set up, Space Fleet, which would deal with all interplanetary military matters. The other military branches such as NATO, UN, etc, were dismantled or had their influence restricted to interplanetary matters.
One of Space-Fleet's first tasks was to finish exploring and charting our own Solar System. At the same time, an enormous military training program was put into action, and hundreds of battle-ships were commissioned. In hindsight, the First Dalek War was the event which resulted in a turning point for mankind. Earth's space- military, Spacefleet, was born out of the Dalek War, as was a new attitude to space and exploration. Gone was the nativity of mankind -- space was not the romantic holiday resort the media had painted. It was cold, dark, empty, with hostile entities lurking always around the corner. Earth's aggressive attitude towards space exploration was with little doubt shaped during the First Dalek War.
As mentioned previously, most of the rest of this century was spent rebuilding Earth to its former glory, and also creating the military power, Spacefleet, which had been equipped with the latest weaponry -- blasters.