Background

In the 21st and 22nd centuries mankind took its first steps into interstellar space. Bussard-ramjet ships were sent to distant stars at which probes and telescopes had revealed worlds suitable for colonization. Being limited to sub-light velocities the craft were either automated sleeper ships or vast generation ships. By the 24th century over a dozen successful colonies had been founded--luckily for the human race, because it was in the year 2308 that runaway biological warfare finally destroyed the underpinnings of Earth's biosphere, killing all multi-cellular life on Earth. The human race, and other terrestrial life, only survived on the colony worlds, both inside and outside the solar system.

500 years have passed since that time. Some colonies have failed and reverted to barbarism or extinction, others have continued to hang on by the skin of their teeth, while others have thrived and grown, sometimes even sending out second-generation colonies. All, however, have diverged drastically from one another. In those years communication was limited only to expensive and inefficient laser messages or, even more rarely, the occasional ramjet come to carry messages, goods, or people. Given their unique backgrounds and environments, each colony developed its own culture, technology, society, internal divisions, and sometimes, with the aid of genetic engineering, biology. They still, however, remain human beings, and the major worlds are aware of each other and share the same basic technology.

Suddenly, in the year A.D. 2849, all that was changed when scientists on one planet discovered a way to produce faster-than-light communication and travel. Luckily, instantaneous FTL messages were receivable on normal communication equipment of the day and all of the major worlds were soon aware of the breakthrough. FTL travel is a little more difficult and the engines require special "iridium crystals" to drive the reactions that power them. Now all advanced cultures are rushing to build FTL ships so that the far-flung worlds of man will once more be in contact with one another.

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