2184; Present Day.

The initial years of the 21st century were turbulent. Taiwan voted for total independence, setting of a war with China, which they quickly lost after other countries refused to get involved. Indonesia broke up into a dozen minor states, which were quickly conquered by China. The United Russian Protectores emerged as an alliance of former Soviet states for mutual defense from Chinese aggression. The re-emergence of a major Soviet state hastened the merger of the European powers.

Humanity's future in space took a massive boost with the formation of Federated Europe in 2025, and more specifically their enhanced European Space Agency program. Fuelled by national pride and paranoia of rivals achieving orbital supremacy, the 2nd space race rapidly put humans throughout the solar system. NASA managed the first Mars landing in 2028, while the ESA managed the same feat the following year. By 2040 research and mining colonies had been established on Mars and some of the moons of Jupiter.

In 2042 the skirmishes between South American nations boiled into all out war. Brazil, Argentina, and Chile were by far the most powerful, and quickly absorbed the smaller nations, then settled into inconclusive artillery battles and defensive tactics. The stalemate was only broken when the United States allied with Argentina, quickly conquering Brazil and forcing Chile into a non-aggression pact. In the aftermath of the conflict Chile and Argentina were the only independent nations remaining in South America. The smaller nations opted to remain protectorates of their conquers, while Brazil's government was rebuilt by an American military governor. The United Americas was formed, initially as a military alliance of the US, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada. Its role gradually expanded over the next few decades to include trade, law, and human rights.

The ESA, having gained a massive lead in the space program while America fought its wars, began the ambitious orbital mass-driver project in 2062. Construsted on Mount Kilimanjaro, the project injected a huge amount of capital into the African economy, and forced massive upgrades to their industrial capability. Other projects started at this time included the terraforming of Mars and Venus, the Uranus explorer missions, and the interstellar probes. But the biggest changes didn't come from the high-cost projects, but from an unexpected breakthrough in tachyon physics.

Both NASA and the ESA had been researching tachyons for decades, and while there was serious consideration of the possibility of FTL communications systems, FTL travel was considered impossible, and the research was low-priority and theoretical. But in March of 2068, a team headed by Doctor Edmund Romberg sent a probe from Earth to Jupiter in less than two minutes using hyperdrive. This result sent governments and corporations everwhere into a frenzy, as everybody attempted to maintain a monopoly on the technology. But less than a week after the discovery Dr Romberg had posted the complete technical schematics for the working hyperdrive, plus the science behind its operation, to a dozen different websites worldwide.

Hyperdrive technology proved very easy to install on existing colony ships, and both NASA and the ESA sent of dozens of manned and unmanned explorers in just a few years. By 2075 all the major nations had colonies on the fifth planet of Alpha Centauri, a world with native vegetation and animal life called Aurora 510. The next twenty years are a period of rapid expansion and colonisation as the superpowers attempt to establish themselves in the stars. The colonial arms grow during this period.

The colonization efforts pushed massive amounts of traffic through the Orbital mass-driver, which in turn spurred African economic development. The Sub-Saharan Coalition was formed in 2072 as an economic agreement between leading African nations. Its role has since expanded to include a military alliance and common law for all member nations.

The first interstellar war occured in 2103, when a Russian starship destroyed a Chinese freighter they claimed was violating Russian territory. The Chinese responded in force, and millions of lives were lost before a treaty was finally signed in 2106. The war was devestating to both the Russian and Chinese colonial efforts, which took decades to fully recover. Skirmishes between Russian and Chinese forces are still a monthly occurance.

In 2128 centuries of religious tension in the Indian region reached a climax when the Indian government deployed a nuclear weapon to destroy a rebel position. The Indian Jihad lasted for thirty years, during which time a dozen nuclear weapons were deployed, devestating the region. In 2154 Federated Europe moved in (at the request of Corporate interests) and occupied the entire region, including India, the middle-east, and parts of north Africa. Today the region is an occupied hot spot, patrolled by a coalition of Federated Europe, Chinese, and Sub-Saharan Coalition forces. Orbital kinetic weapons stand ready to decimate the entire region should the situation warrant.