In the ancient time of Earth, or Terra as it later became commonly known, there came to prominence in the latter half of the 21st century a figure known as the Scion Empress of Terra. Legends say she traveled the world before her rise to power and collected eight pieces of technology which, when combined granted her almost god like abilities.
She forged in secret an army known as the Legion of Terra, an elite force known for being highly selective of it's members. The Legion worshiped the Empress as a Goddess, calling her the Scion of Terra, some believing she was the reborn Christ or Buddha. Her warriors became fanatical in their devotion to her, and so she led them on a great crusade to conquer all of the earth.
In a few short years, the war is over and the official coronation of the Goddess Empress takes place, all of earth is united for the first time under her rule, she comes to be known as the Philosopher Queen as she is a figure of immense knowledge and wisdom, eventually, she gains legitimacy as an impartial arbiter of justice.
It was in this time that the vast redistribution of wealth and restructuring of the earth took place. This time period came to be known as The First Reformation. The Empress commanded that the earth should be returned in great part to its natural form and should remain for all time as a garden, her intention was to move humanity into space and bring the great majority of its industry and economy with them.
Breakthroughs in nanotechnology had finally allowed the total reversing of aging, and so it was that first the elite and well connected and later the vast majority of humans became ageless immortals, still able to die from battle or accident, but with no effective limit on lifespan. So it was that the Empress became immortal with the rest of her people and humanity multiplied over the next few hundred years and colonized the solar system, beginning the long arduous task of terraforming many of the barren worlds, Mars, Venus, Ganymede, Europa, and a few others.
This time period was marked by it's vast wealth inequality, never in history had humanity been richer, and never the baseline existence of it's lower class been at a higher standard, yet never had there been such a massive divide between the ruling class and the masses. Poverty as we knew it was gone, food, medicine, shelter and most technology was free, the economic and social controls over society that had existed for thousands of years were swept away.
The military became the primary means of control as there was no way to obligate citizens to comply by any other method, this was when humanity began building it's first warships and the empire began to slowly fracture under the tension created by the rush of colonization. As well the territories of humanity would expand faster than the fledgling Terran Navy could build up it's capacity. Thus, eventually the first empire of earth would fracture into many smaller territories and states, and never again would the Scion Empress of Terra rule over all of humanity.
The first to rebel would be Mars. There was a sort of New Enlightenment underway that rejected the autocracy of the Empress and hearkened back to the old liberal democracies of early earth before the crusades. With the Terran Navy weak and scattered, the Martians launched their revolutionary project and in a series of fast moving conflicts overthrew the imperial governors and drove the 3rd fleet from the system.
The Martians declared the Democracy of Mars, to be run through an elected senate and to serve as a beacon of freedom and enlightened thought that would spread through the system and ultimately see the downfall of the Empress and ultimately of authoritarianism itself. It would seem for a time that their world view would be seen out, as a rebellion in the outer systems seemed poised to succeed. Yet, the Terran Navy would successfully regain control and clamp down with an iron fist, it would be another hundred years before the outer systems would gain independence.
This crushing of decent in the outer systems, though initially effective, would spread the image of an illegitimate state clinging to power through violence. Ultimately, dissent spread through the whole system further destabilizing the empire. The Jovian System and the Saturn or Cronus System as it came to be known had been consolidating power and had gained more and more autonomy as the power of the Terran Navy waned. This would eventually come to a head as the Jovian's would launch a massive invasion of the Cronus System, when the Terran Navy attempted to intervene they would be obliterated, totally destroying earth's 5th and 6th fleets, crippling their ability to project power.
After successfully repelling the Jovians, both the Cronus System and the Jovian System would declare independence, as the Dominion of Cronus and the Jovian Empire respectively. With this, the inner planets now declared independence as well, calling themselves The Inner Planetary Alliance centered on Venus, this went uncontested by earth. At this time the Belt Corporation which had overseen the heaviest industries in the belt and the outer systems also declared itself an independent power, having it's own Navy it no longer saw the need to operate under the Empire's jurisdiction. Eventually as well, the planet Ganymede would successfully rebel against the Jovian Empire and create it's own independent republic.
Over the next 10,000 years, The solar system would be colonized to a great degree, it would become more and more one interconnected society and economy. Eventually colony arks would begin construction and the move toward interstellar colonization would begin.
Over the next hundred million years, wave after wave of colony ships would spread through the galaxy, immortal humanity could wait out the journey with relative ease, either by speeding up their perceptions of time or finding all consuming tasks to occupy themselves. By the year 25 thousand, humanity had colonized vast areas of the Milky Way Galaxy.
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