A brief overview of the history of the PlutoCrat universe, covering the Exodus, the Great Plague, the Long Darkness, and the Renaissance.

The Exodus

The Exodus is the term used for the large-scale waves of emigration from Earth that began about the middle of the twenty-second century and continued into the beginning of the twenty-fourth century. It is sometimes popularly called the Great Diaspora, but among historians that term technically refers to the waves of Jewish emigration in the twenty-second century that founded colonies such as Hefa.

In the waning years of the twenty-first century, the stars opened to man. Solutions to the Einstein equations that allowed for faster-than-light travel had been known since the last decade of the twentieth century. As the end of the twenty-first century approached, advances in engineering and physics led to production of the space-twisting machines that made interstellar travel possible, and sufficient quantities of the exotic matter necessary to power them.

The introduction of commercial interstellar travel in the middle of the following century gave rise to numerous colonies outside the solar system. The early colonies were founded by governments and large businesses, but as the cost of interstellar travel continued to drop many colonies were formed along ethnic lines. By the end of the twenty-third century, sixty percent of mankind lived outside the solar system.

The migration to the stars was not seen as a good thing by all. Even in the twenty-second century, many parts of the world were still dominated by oppressive governments. Already unable to compete with the free world, these nations saw the spread of their enemies to the stars as another threat. Thus a period of intense colonial expansion began. In the free world this was characterized by groups seeking new economic opportunities or a haven in which to preserve their culture. In the oppressed world this was characterized by forced relocation of large populations, under the boot of state.

Despite their efforts, the slave nations found themselves falling further and further behind the free world. Tensions mounted as minor conflicts became increasingly frequent and more severe. Something had to give.

The Great Plague

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the age of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ..." 1

In fact, those who survived the Great Plague were of one accord that it was the worst of times. In the days of terror no one was certain of the plague's origin, and that secret has been lost to history. Perhaps the forces of religious fascism, having three times before failed to impose their order upon the world, sought to destroy the societies they could not remake. Perhaps the apparatchiks of central planning sought to wipe the slate of bourgeoisie corruption. Perhaps the plague escaped the labs of a people who in their arrogance mistook liberty for license. Whatever its origin, as a weapon the Great Plague was poorly aimed.

The plague attacked the central nervous system of vertebrates. Where it took hold, none survived. Within days it spread from Earth to the core worlds. Terrified refugees, fleeing ahead of the plague, unwittingly carried it with them to other worlds. Within weeks, human space was thrown into chaos. Worlds closed themselves to space traffic, seeking saftey through isolation. The more rational worlds quarantined incoming space traffic or turned it away. Most simply destroyed incoming traffic immediately. Within months, interstellar travel became vitually non-existant.

The fortunate lived on hospitable worlds from which they could hope to scratch out an existance, however primitive it might be. The unfortunate lived on inhospitable worlds on which they could not eke out a living and from which they could not escape. Many colonies failed.

The Long Darkness

The end of space travel had a profound effect on humanity. Under the imposed balkanization, human culture splintered into thousands of patterns. The high technology that was the product of Earth and the core worlds was lost to all; many worlds lost any semblance of technology. Societies responded to the chaos in a myriad of ways, reproducing the patterns of mankind's birth world a thousand times over.

For hundreds of years the worlds of man progressed in relative isolation from one another. A few worlds maintained contact with one another, using powerful radios to span the distance between them. But with a decade needed simply to receive the other side of a conversation, communication was necessarily limited to sharing scientific and technological knowledge.

Like the Romans before them, the worlds of men looked upon the wreckage of their civilization and knew they once had been great, and that that greatness was now beyond their grasp.

A Second Renaissance

The great scientific and technological centers of humanity had been on Earth and the core worlds; their loss left man with only fragmentary records of scientific and technological progress. Spread across a region of space more than 300 light years across, it took centuries of tortuous radio communication to rebuild the engineering knowledge that produced interstellar travel. Eventually, on a few worlds, enough of the knowledge of the past was reconstructed to allow new interstellar vessels to be built.

For a generation, ships have been traveling between the most advanced worlds, building a tenuous web on which to base a new interstellar society. The time has arrived to weave the disparate worlds of man into the fabric of society. The opportunities are limitless for one with the determination to build a part of that future.

---

1. A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens.