Encyclopedia

The History of Sol

As with the first space race, it was a cold war that spurred countries to colonize the solar system. A new imperialism expanded national borders to colonies throughout the inner system, money was fed into the corporations to engineer newer, better, faster everything.  The politicians resurrected manifest destiny, to explore a new world in the most literal sense. Surprisingly enough, colonies elsewhere became more than survivable, they were profitable. Ships of war were built to protect these growing cities as the way was paved for life throughout the system. Some claimed that populating the stars was an inevitability, a maturing of the species. Others claimed it a race against time, that rising oceans and epidemics were the sign of impending extinction. The latter were right, but nobody expected it to come from the earth itself.

The largest caldera on the planet was located in the western plains of North America. When it finally blew, it was Pompeii on an unimaginable scale. The entire continent was covered in at least 15 feet of deadly ash. The sky went dark. It signaled the collapse of the western hemisphere, and the cold war became world war. The death toll in the following quarter-century is not measured in numbers, but in a percent of the world's previous population. It is not a high percentage. The Dynasty attacked even before the acid rain reached the East. The United Earth Resistance formed to counter the onslaught, and was largely crushed. The Corporations, replacing government throughout the solar system, struck the Dynasty from space with hateful vengeance. It was the first and last war in space, the price of orbital combat too costly to consider again. 

In the century following, life has found a state of normalcy. The Mars colonies flourished, and the Corporations dissolved to competition, ever expanding. Civilization now exists largely unchanged on planetoids and moons as far as Jupiter.