New Horizons: Prologue

This story is the background history of the anthology of stories in this series going forward.

In the mid twentieth century astronauts from a country on the North American continent would achieve perhaps one of Humanity's greatest triumphs by setting foot on Luna's surface. It is said that on that day a new fire ignited in the hearts of our ancestors and almost eighty-five years to the day a new wave of astronauts would set foot on the Lunar surface once again, not as explorers but as colonizers. The Lunaran Colonies were just the first fledgling steps of Humanity's greatest challenge, the colonization of the Sol System and later the nearby stars.

Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Procyon, Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti, each system presented their own unique challenges that made the first colonies little more than research outposts or mining sites for decades, but Humanity carried ever forward for two hundred years until a signal of unknown origins from the direction of the Delta Pavonis system was detected by the colony on Tau Ceti IV. The signal was quickly followed by silence from the outer colonies and the United Earth Naval fleets were sent out... only to find fleets of alien origin burning the colonies to glass and dust and ash.

The alien attackers never identified themselves, but their strength was unmatched by anything Earth could throw at them and within a few short years all of the outer colonies were destroyed with only minimal survivors telling stories of armies of dozens of species that ground everything in their path to dust and ashes.

As the inner colonies in Sirius, Procyon and Alpha Centauri were buried and glassed one by one under the alien invaders, the United Earth Parliament would decide on one last desperate gamble, the remaining colony ships being built in the Sol System would be retrofitted into a fleet that would jump into deep space so at least something of Humanity could possibly survive. The United Earth Navy did their best to hold the invaders back for as long as possible, but to no avail as the invaders soon encircled the Sol System.

Scientists worked around the clock desperately trying to find a jump point, but it was decided the ships had to make a suicidal blind jump. This option was an absolute last resort as each jump had to be planned carefully and each one was different, but as the invasion of Sol began, the Flotilla of dozens of colony ships containing one hundred million citizens from all across the Earth engaged their jump drives making a desperate blind jump deep into the Milky Way.

The jump took months to complete and it was unclear if they would even survive, but when the Flotilla reentered real space they found themselves in an unknown trinary star system with dozens of planets. A census was taken and it was discovered that of the twenty-two ships only nineteen had survived the jump. All materials were collected and counted before probes and scouting vessels were sent out and discovered fifteen promising planets that could support human life. To ensure the greatest chances of Humanity's survival it was decided the Flotilla would be split among these planets according to the individual needs of each site. Just before the ships split up and went their separate ways, the captains of each ship came together in the hangar of the UES Providence and the last decision made by Fleet Admiral Wilma Harper was to name the system Haven and some words were said that would carry a then unknown divine weight to them.

"Here we shall stand most excellently."

Approximately ninety-three years later primitive satellites shot up from many of the colony sites and communications were slowly established. After an additional forty years of combined scientific and engineering effort the first Haven made shuttles rocketed Humanity back into space once again and a democratic coalition of nation states formed called the Haven Parliament.

As the Parliament grew in strength, shuttles and satellites were built and the fledgling coalition searched out the other colonies. But their fears were quickly realized as it became clear that not every colony had survived. One site had starved to death, another had frozen over, two had succumbed to alien diseases and one was bathed in lethal levels of radiation. Out of the original fifteen sites only twelve were at acceptable technology levels and out of those twelve eight would require significant amounts of assistance to be self-sustaining.

Despite the Haven systems slowly developing into a proper civilization it seemed like Humanity wouldn't be able to outgrow our baser instincts and the Parliament eventually shattered and many planets joined sides into smaller more concentrated governments.

The Anchorhold Federation, a democratic capitalist coalition of the United States of Washiphila, the Republic of Oskla, Maheurian Commonwealth and the Zarichan Islamic State.

The United Heliosan Cities, a theocratic oligarchy made of the purple gas giant Heliosa's five largest moons of Reth, Tallios, Haliuk, Urdhor and Terg.

The Oln Union, a neo-fascist state formed of the Peoples' Republic of Wenzholov, the Shangrilan State, and the Jheron Confederacy.

A tense period of brushfire wars would stretch approximately fifty years before an unaligned movement gained traction among the weaker colonies called the Belwikha Pact, after another nine years the Belwikha Pact united with the United Helosian Cities. Soon after, the Oln Union declared war against the rest of the Haven systems. Declaring themselves the only remaining pure strain Humans left.

The First Havenite Civil Wars stretched on for nearly twenty years before the Oln Union was defeated, at the time it was Haven's bloodiest war with approximately one hundred and twenty-eight million casualties, forty-two percent of which were civilians fleeing from battlefields or used as meat shields by the Oln Liberation Army. Haven's governments reopened the Haven Parliament and rebuilt a new stronger federation to build a better future for all of Humanity. It was decided that the new multinational government would hold a degree of authority over its member states but each state would be mostly self-governing.

Upon the opening of Haven's first multinational democratic election the First Chancellor, Lucas Ishigowa, declared the new federation's name would be the United Havenite Colonies.