The Intersystem Alliance is one of the oldest and largest of the star nations in the known galaxy. Containing some of the oldest human settlements, including Earth itself, its history is integral to the history of humanity and its journey to find a home among the stars.
THE FIRST CHARTER OF THE ALLIANCE AND THE EARLY YEARS (2250-2350)
The Intersystem Alliance was founded on July 13, 2258, in a stunning unification of former, bitter enemies the United Nations and the Martian Federation. In conjunction with the Jovian League, the colonies of humanity in our home solar system came together in the hope of expanding humanity’s presence in the universe following the horrors of the First Stellar War. Under a single government – a clear evolution of the United Nations Charter with elements of the Martian Federation constitution – the Intersystem Alliance was created with the foresight of becoming an interstellar power. Its charter contained provisions established for governing human colonies beyond the solar system while the new government consolidated much of the power on both Earth and Mars, significantly weakening local governments in favor of the larger federal government.
One of the first acts of the new government was the establishment of the Human Continuity Project. Coordinated development and launch of massive colony ships – over two hundred – sent millions of humans with banks of genetic material to habitable planets discovered by the newly constructed Eden Array. With their primitive MAG-drive FTL technology, ships traveled for nearly a century to reach some of their destinations, seeding worlds that would give rise to the countless of star nations that exist in 3405.
ASTRUM DIASPORA (2350-2700)
With the launch of hundreds of colony ships between 2250 and 2350, the Alliance’s influence became limited to the human population within the small envelope made manageable by the limited faster than light technology of the time. Keeping close ties with worlds that would later comprise the “Core Worlds” region of the Alliance, the growing dynamic of an interstellar economy began to take shape. Trade between worlds grew, and human populations on those worlds grew with it. Additionally, communities with cultures once closely tied to their ancestors on earth evolved and developed in the lights of new stars and under the influence of alien worlds; and while influences from traditional earth cultures could still be seen, these colony worlds developed a very distinct character of their own.
In one of the most important events of the Astrum Diaspora period, the colony world of Delta Pavonis rebelled in a bid to seek representation in the Alliance Senate equal to that of Mars and Earth’s nations. The “Protest Wars” – as they became known – was a largely non-hostile movement headed by the Delta Pavonian political figure Ajin Hassan. For a decade, his peaceful methods drew tremendous support on Delta Pavonis, inspiring similar protests on other Alliance colony worlds and even Earth itself. In the end, the Alliance Senate sent troops into Delta Pavonis to restore trade in the wake of stoppages forced by Ajin led protestors. In the “massacre of the hundred,” Alliance forces opened fire into the crowd when they refused to disperse. Among the dead was Ajin Hassan himself. The martyred hero of the peaceful revolution was a rallying point in the Alliance Senate for representation sympathizers. Within a few months, the Alliance revised its constitution to introduce improved rights for colony worlds and enhancements to their representation in the Senate to include the right to vote. However, it would still be three centuries before Ajin Hassan’s dream of an equal government for all human colonies was realized.
The Diaspora period also saw revolutions in computer technology. In 2380, the first true, sentient artificial intelligence was created on Earth at the Cambrian Institute in New Mogadishu. Known as “Aditi,” the Artificial Intelligence adopted a female gender – a novel concept not previously considered in early computational models for her computer core. The new A.I. would go on to revolutionizes theories on artificial intelligence and their characteristics. Despite centuries of fear that humanity would be destroyed by the arrival of artificial intelligence, “Aditi’s” genesis had a positive impact on human life in the city of Mogadishu. There, the fledgling Artificial Intelligence helped city leaders to improve transportation, solve economic issues, and improve the cities overall efficiency. “Aditi”s framework became the baseline for future artificial intelligence in the years to come, and remnants of her matrix are found in almost all artificial intelligence in existence. More importantly, her existence paved the way for the explosion of artificial intelligence and the birth of a new species that would take centuries to earn rights equivalent their human creators.
Another important revolution in the Astrum Diaspora period was the development of gene-based therapies which significantly extend human life. Developed by Doctor Homer Kirsch on Arcturus Prime, the regeneration treatments extend human life to over a century by preventing the slow genetic decay of telomeres in human cells while slowing the oxidation of organs in the body. Initially hailed as a designer drug, quick action by the Alliance Senate prevented the commercialization of the treatment. Instead, the research and drug patents were transferred to the public and made available to Alliance citizens as part of their free medical care. These medicines – coined “Regen” – saw people live longer lives with aging frozen between the equivalent age of twenty-five to forty. After nearly a century of healthy living, the treatment’s effectiveness slowly began to degrade, and aging would start to progress again at its original pace. Regardless, these longer lives and improved health over a longer period revolutionized lifestyles, work efficiency, and helped grow the population further. Humans with greater prospects for life struck out into the stars as part of additional colonization efforts by the Human Continuity Project.
REUNION WITH THE COLONIES (2700-2800)
By 2737, with the improvements in MAG-drive technology, the starships of the Intersystem Alliance began to venture out to the charted destinations of the colony ships that had left over three-hundred years before, marking the end of the Astrum Diaspora period. Their findings were astonishing. Burgeoning worlds like Pantheon, Nihonedo, Citadel, and Elysium rivaled Earth itself in their standard of living and technology. Even they had made vast strides in FTL technology, colonizing new worlds in the vicinity of their own (so-called indigenous colonies). Paving the way for its expansion, the Alliance quickly established diplomatic relations with the re-discovered colony worlds with many joining the Alliance as a member state if only for protection from the growing number of hostile groups in the galaxy.
Of course, not all colonies were willing to accept the governance of a distant political body over a years’ travel away from their home. More so, other star nations had also greatly improved upon MAG-drive technology during the Diaspora period, expanding their presence in the centuries since they had left. The Coalition of Independent Systems – a massive federation of worlds to the Alliance’s galactic south – refused to incorporate citing “no need for foreign interference.” Others met the Alliance’s olive branch with hostility, the nomads of Ishara famously sending the Alliance envoy home headless. Other nations ordered the Alliance representatives out of their space, with the Kingdom of Eirangard chasing the Alliance starships out of their space with consecutive warning shots across the fleeing ship’s bow. Despite these setbacks, over the course of the next century, the Alliance slowly began to solidify its territory, incorporating dozens of old colonies into its fold.
THE SECOND CHARTER OF THE ALLIANCE (2800-2825)
In 2802, member state representatives in the Alliance finally outnumbered the Earth nation representatives in the traditional homeworld controlled Alliance Senate. With their new found power, the colonial members forced a revision to the charter which further de-emphasized the powers of earth and the earth governments, establishing a star nation with greater equality among its member worlds in fulfillment of the original dream of the martyred Ajin Hassan. That same year, the first non-earth president of the Alliance was elected – President Onaki Atsugi of Nihonedo.
In addition to the reforms on representation, the Second Alliance Charter saw an increase in the powers of the Alliance federal government. Increases in taxation powers, trade regulation powers and enhanced military powers gave the Alliance government the ability to function as a fully formed federal entity over its member worlds. Additionally, the new Alliance government – in hopes of removing financial and military power from Earth and Mars – was able to establish for the first time a true centralized military able of protecting its worlds and providing some tangible product from the federal governments’ taxes. Coupled with the first wave of social programs to receive federal funding, the Second Charter was truly the last stage of evolution towards the modern Alliance government.
SORTIS HUMANAE (2825-2998)
The adoption of a new Alliance Charter coupled with a more welcoming atmosphere for new colonial additions to the Alliance meant a period of unprecedented growth in the Alliance. Borrowing from the pages of history, the period became known by the Latin phrase of Sortis Humanae, or our ‘human destiny.’ A new push began to search for stars with habitable worlds. As more and more worlds were found, new colony missions were launched and the Alliance invested heavily in establishing settlements on these planets. During this period, worlds like Veracruz, Alexandria, and Arcadia were settled – so-called ‘second wave’ worlds. With populations exploding on Earth, Mars, and the other old world colonies thanks to the regenerative medications that were now common, there was no shortage of interest in these new colonial efforts.
During this period FTL technology continued to expand, allowing the Alliance to make contact with more interstellar nations and older colony worlds – nations like the Kingdom of Sunderland, the Akrian Hegemony, and Bertaeyn Federation. Much like the initial colonial reunion period, some nations chose to join the Alliance while others remained independent. Other nations developed a less than friendly relationship with the somewhat imperialistic policies of the Alliance. The Empyrean See – one of the three large interstellar monarchies that the Alliance had rediscovered to the galactic north, in particular, reacted to the Alliance’s growth negatively, viewing it as a direct threat to their expansion efforts. The end of the 2nd millennium saw rising tensions between the Alliance and the Holy Empyrean Empire, including high-profile standoffs between the two nations’ militaries. However, not all pressures on the Alliance during this period were external.
The second wave expansions pushed by the Alliance were a costly endeavor, and with tensions growing with their galactic neighbors – such as with the Empyreans – the Alliance was funneling significant funds towards improving its defense budget while still providing a healthy degree of funding to the new colonial efforts. This meant that a considerable number of worlds were ignored or cut short in terms of funding from the Alliance’s federal budget. In a few cases, this led to individual worlds seceding from the Alliance to join other star nations. In some cases – as was the case with the worlds that would become the Threshold – worlds left the Alliance in groups to establish their own government.
By the end of the third millennium, the Alliance had exploded out to include over two-hundred habited worlds over thousands of star systems, and while the next few centuries would see additionally member worlds join the Alliance, nothing would quite match the Sortis Humanae period.
ALLIANCE-EMPYREAN QUASI WAR (2998-3051)
By the start of the first decade of the third millennium, the Alliance found itself in an undeniable cold war with the Empyrean See. The two nations’ borders had become heavily militarized in the decade before, and regular military standoffs – including both government’s finding the others’ ships having “inadvertently” stumbled into their claimed territory – created an air of inevitable conflict. The Alliance Navy was, at the time, still transforming from a collection of smaller military organizations into a single, coordinated entity. Early commanders like Aker Vanderhorn from the Kingdom of Sunderland relied on their own, under-funded fleets to survive on the frontier of the Alliance and often found themselves grappling with second-rate Imperial commanders not fit to send to the front line of the Empire. It was a growing period for the Alliance Navy with the pressure of the Empire seemingly waiting to crush the fledgling navy.
Around the same time, however, the Empyreans were facing internal political struggles that would become a distracting agent in the years to come. Part of the Empire known as Atlantea – a vast region to the galactic east of the Imperial Seat – was in a state of flux. With increased taxation and political pressures levied by the Candelario, the Atlantean people were starting to build up their military presence to challenge the rule of the church. For the majority of the next 50 years, the Empyrean military grappled with the Atlantean separatist and the inevitable civil war engulfed the Empire; the Alliance would use this opportunity to build their military and establish a base of capable officers. By the end of the quasi-war, with the Empyrean See withdrawing the majority of their military presence from the border, the Alliance had established a foundation for a growing and powerful navy.
GOLDEN AGE OF THE ALLIANCE (3051-3364)
With an established, growing military and a more unified government, the Alliance entered a golden age following their quasi-war. Political treaties with the Coalition of Independent Systems to the galactic south and a non-aggression pact with the Kingdoms of Eirangard and Ishara guaranteed a period of stability. Burgeoning industry married to a prolific trade network fueled a high standard of living, and the Alliance invested heavily in both the development of its member states as well as its national programs. A growing military presence both within and beyond the borders of the Alliance saw a Navy, nurtured by now Admiral Aker Vanderhorn whose name would be attached to the Alliance Naval Academy he founded, ventured beyond the frontier, engaging pirate fleets and organized crime.
In the civilian sector, Alliance based corporations like Renaud Heavy Industries, Armstrong Engineering, and Lawson Aeronautics expanded their base of operations beyond the Alliance’s border, becoming truly interstellar corporations. Investments in resource mining saw massive expeditions into uncharted swaths of space in the Alliance and beyond, and huge jobs programs established federal institutions for learning, academia, research, and technical progress. Federal programs – such as state-funded higher education – pushed the overall education level in the Alliance higher than
COLLAPSE OF THE COALITION (3380-3385)
Main Article – History of the People’s Coalition
With the onset of the Second Coalition Civil War, the Alliance found their pesky neighbors to the south in great strife, though there was much debate in Alliance government circles about how much they should exist with the incumbent government over the rebels. Neither were preferable to the Alliance future nor could any tell just which government would be better for the Coalition peoples, as the previous Compact Government had been growingly dictatorial.
At the conclusion of the war, the Alliance sheltered former government forces and fleets, as well as the unexpected Raymond Antar, a rebel admiral who betrayed his forces by fleeing after the Raizing of Petheon.
THE COALITION-ALLIANCE COLD WAR AND MODERN TIMES (3385-3405)
As the People’s Coalition began their own build-up and accusations of wrongdoing against the Alliance and her Allies, the Alliance began to fear an economic boom among the Coalition. Politicians around the regions noted High Chancellor Adler’s increasingly aggressive speech and actions that were considered widely inhumane. However, the Alliance would take nearly a decade after the Coalition buildup to begin a buildup of their own, counter-arguments citing that the Coalition was becoming increasingly insular for all their talk of aggression against the surrounding nations.
It was not until Alliance and Thresholder espionage units uncovered missile and laser weapon development facilities testing their weapons against ships with specifications similar to that of the Alliance Rapier that Alliance politicians were galvanized into action. By the turn of the century, many theorized ship designs had been laid in truth, enabling Coalition claims that the Alliance was themselves going on the offensive, which only served to fuel both sides against each other. By 3404, all trade between the Alliance and Coalition had ceased.