I. The Echoes of Dawn — Present to 30 Years Ahead
1. The Known Sky (Our Present)
We open in the age we know — the satellite constellations, the ISS, the lunar landing remembered in static-filled footage, and probes whispering data back from Mars and the edge of the solar system. Humanity is proud, but the stars still feel impossibly far.A quiet ambition pervades through us a mix of awe and humility: we have touched the heavens, but only with our fingertips.
2. The Second Expansion (30 Years Later)
Within a single generation, the silence begins to answer back.
Technological Leap: Reusable interplanetary craft are common; fusion impulse drives allow for efficient orbital insertion and planetary hop. Ships can now descend and ascend through atmospheres without burning through fortunes of fuel.
Artificial Intelligence: "Auxiliary Navigators" (A.N.s) emerge — early-stage shipborne AIs designed not as sentient minds, but as co-pilots: aware, loyal, precise, yet still learning what choice means.
Militarization of Space: Orbit becomes contested. Shipborne weapons — railguns, point-defense lasers, kinetic slugs — make their quiet debut. Humanity carries its old shadows into the new frontier.
Corporate Colonization: Private sectors push farther than nations ever dared, carving mining stations into moons and asteroids. The frontier begins to hum with life — and tension.
The First Deep Missions: Crewed vessels begin reaching the outer planets, and one or two expeditionary fleets prepare for something new: leaving the solar system entirely.