Forward
by Sandra Miesel
With the development of a faster-than-light hyperdrive in 2784, the eight century-long saga of Earthlings in space entered a bold new phase. Previously, slower-than-light craft had crept from star to star, each journey requiring decades, even generations, of travel to complete. But now at last, the whole galaxy lay open to our kind.
Yamatsu’s classic history Starward! may be consulted for details but let us pause here to commend those twentieth century pioneers who first pierced our homeworld’s sky. Achieving spaceflight has been called “a tragic era’s proudest boast.” That our remote ancestors, crushed by three world wars, could still spare enough energy from vital reclamation projects to launch spaceships demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit.
Moreover, space research was the one great twentieth century innovation that kept it’s initial promise. Neither the preliminary form of global government established in 1965 nor any succeeding regime was able to guarantee peace and justice. Psychodynamics, the ambitious science by which humanity sought to remake itself, not only failed to attain this goal, its techniques were grossly misused by the Psychotechnic Institute. From age to age, our species has remained indomitable but imperfectible.
Naturally, the pace of extraterrestrial expansion slowed or quickened in response to overall social trends. As our previous volumes have shown, that first idealistic surge of colonization gave way to frustration and then to conflict. In the twenty-second century, anti-scientific Humanism challenged the pro-scientific values of the New Enlightenment, only to be suppressed in its turn following the bloody Revolt of 2170. Afterwards, a precarious balance among factions was maintained well into the twenty-third century.
Given the chronic material and spiritual malaise afflicting the Solar Union, is it any wonder that the stars came to have the same frontier significance that the New World once had for the weary peoples of the Old. Both visionaries and malcontents sought an absolutely fresh start under some other sun. Indeed, the launch of the first Centauri-bound craft in 2126 was as much an experiment in sociodynamics as in astronautics.
Although starflight could not avert that systemwide plunge into ruin known as the Second Dark Ages, it gave the forces of renewal a potent rallying symbol. Just as in the aftermath of World War III, dire sacrifices were made to get Earthlings spaceborne again.
By the twenty-seventh century, improved STL ships ranged the stars once more. Stellar colonies again took root and seeded other colonies in their turn. Some of the communities thus planted grew in curious patterns far removed from the original norm of Solar civilization. The hyperdrive breakthrough meant an end to colonial isolation as well as quicker dispersal of new settlers.
Enthusiastic emigrants did not immediately recognize that transit time and distance scales made their cherished transatlantic analogy imperfect. Whether achieved slower or faster than lightspeed, the very process of interstellar travel itself would change the travellers.
One thing that did not change was humanity’s dream of finding a New Eden among the stars. But sometimes colonists assumed too quickly that their dream had come true.