Humanity
When the first colonists began to leave the solar system, the Great Rush began- millions of ships streamed away in all directions, carrying humanity out to the stars. Colonies began popping up in all directions- there were countless planets, and, while the vast majority were uninhabitable, they were still useful. Mining quickly became one of the largest and most profitable industries, and many people made their fortunes by selling top-of-the-line equipment, since the market was ripe for mining drones and ore transport systems.
The Great Rush overshadowed another breakthrough, though: just as the first colonies were being established, NeuroComm Industries was releasing the first mainstream digital-neural interface, or DNI, which allowed mental communications with a computer. Consumers could access data or input a command to their systems just by thinking about it.
It quickly became fashionable to have the interface node embedded in your temple, and anyone who didn't have one was left behind, in more ways than one. A DNI provided access to a wealth of knowledge and incredibly fast calculations, and not having one became something of a handicap. In fact, a growing number of people were of the opinion that DNIs were advancing humanity to the next stage in their evolution, and those without them were viewed as an inferior race altogether.
Many of the people who didn't get them had no choice (either they were too poor or they had a medical condition that prevented them from using them), but they weren't the only ones to avoid them- a few people saw what was happening as a crime against humanity, an abandonment of what it was to be human.
The tipping point came with the release of the first DNI-compatible video game. Games played via DNI were so immersive that people would spend days on end, and a number of people simply died of starvation and dehydration. The Pro-Humanity movement was formed by people strongly opposed to the use of DNIs, and they protested at DNI implantation clinics and production facilities. Whole governments began to support the Pro-Humanity movement, while others stood behind NeuroComm and the DNI technology.
Unfortunately, this was not destined to be a peaceful movement. The Pro-Humanity Coalition of Governments declared war against the supporters of NeuroComm, and humanity's first interstellar war began.
No-one quite knows how long it lasted. The two sides pushed their ships' dilation generators to their limits, and the very first weapons making use of lopsided fields were developed during the war as well. Some said the war lasted for only a few decades, some said it lasted centuries- the only real consistency was its brutality. A single DNI user could command an entire armada, and NeuroComm had massive production facilities that could churn out automated warships at an incredible rate.
Eventually, though, the NeuroComm Confederacy, as it came to be known, was defeated. The Pro-Humanity Coalition devised massive electromagnetic bombs that disabled DNI links and left the automated armadas useless and vulnerable, and a series of quick strategic attacks crippled the NeuroComm Confederacy beyond recovery.
The war officially ended with the signing of the Humanity Preservation Treaty, which absolutely forbid “the improvement or augmentation of homo sapiens through any technological means,” classifying it as a crime against humanity.
It also addressed the inconsistency of dates- there were too many differing accounts of how long the war had taken, so a decision was reached to start anew. The Humanity Preservation Treaty was signed on January First, year 1 After Treaty, or 1 AT.
It was April 13th, 218 AT when the ASV Temporos received the message showing its destruction, and in the years since the signing of the treaty, humanity had continued to expand outward from Earth. The many human colonies were scattered in a rough sphere around the planet, and the Alliance had its central government offices on the Earth's moon. Humanity's ancestral home was of great importance, and despite being ravaged by a desperate humanity in the years before the Great Rush, many people would still make the trip to see the planet that had given rise to their species.
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© 2010 B.C.K.
