The 24th century began quietly without any major galactic war, and in 2340 another weapon technology was unveiled, that of disruptors and stunners. This technological advantage was used by Earth through its military and law enforcement capacities to try and regain power from the corporations. They re-equipped some divisions of the Inter-galactic Taskforce, Earth's strong arm of the law, with new phaser weapons. These devices utilized a technology known as PHASed Emission of Radiation to combine a laser, blaster, stunner and disrupter all in one weapon using one single emitter.
However, the corporations still kept their power due to stragetic advantages such as a monopoly on FTL flight, and therefore, communication. They ran all the stock-markets and controlled all the money. Earth was becoming less and less important. The rest of the 24th century was spent in retrenchment and regrouping, as had happened before during mankind's cyclical history. Earth had expanded out several hundred light years from Sol, and had that number again of colonies, but social and economic factors slowed down the advancement into space.
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