At the beginning of the 22nd century, humanity had spread throughout the Solar System.  Reaction-less drives, inertial compensators, shields and nanobot repair systems had made space travel relatively fast and safe.  Tachyon technology provided near instantaneous data communication between the far-flung outposts, but a faster than light drive was still beyond reach.

Space-based telescope clusters using a variety of frequencies - including visible light - had detected a number of planets in neighboring star systems, but an ill-fated and expensive attempt at colonization using generation ships and life suspension technologies failed miserably and horrifically. 

The two largest political entities of the era, Liberty (incorporating the old nation states of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand and various Pacific nations) and Rheinland (a fusion of Europe, Asia and Africa) decided to cooperatively expand outside the solar system using the new technologies of personality data storage and cloned organic bodies.

While a number of likely destinations were available, the New York system (named by its Liberty-based discoverer) seemed the most likely to support human life.  Both Rheinland and Liberty began to build the starship necessary to colonize New York.

Over 3 million citizens of both factions had their personalities copied.  This enormous amount of data was then transferred to the quantum data wells of the newly built starship.  This ship would carry no human crew, but be guided in their long journey by near-sentient computer Artificial Intelligences.  The ship left Earth in 2142 AD.

 

The journey to New York system took over 160 years.  During that period (longer on Earth due to time dilation) Rheinland and Liberty merged into a single planetary government and the outlook of Earth-based humanity turned inward to virtual worlds of immense complexity.  The colonization ships were virtually forgotten.

The Liberty-Rheinland starships arrived in New York and the AIs chose the best life-sustaining planet and went into orbit around the newly named New Earth.

The AIs wielded nanobot technology to create the infrastructure necessary to support human life.  Hundreds of thousands of organic clone bodies were grown and decanted awaiting imprinting with personalities stored in the quantum data wells.

On a single day, the citizens of Liberty and Rheinland came into being and began exploring their new environment and economy.  Even with nanobot technology, specific materials and energy were required and a money-based economy was introduced.  Citizens (or Players in the popular slang) were expected to actively support their economy.

The AIs had not wasted the long journey and had made significant advances to the clone bodies.  They showed no signs of age like a true human and were tougher, stronger and faster.  The AIs also embedded a small tachyon transmitter/processor in each body to allow for instantaneous update of the personality templates in the quantum data wells.  When citizens died, they could be resurrected from the personality templates and reinstalled in a new clone, with all their recent memories and experience incorporated.  However, in a rapidly expanding economy, everything had a price and reincarnation was expensive.  Unfortunately, not all reincarnations were entirely successful, resulting in humans with great reflexes and strength but limited intelligence and motivation.  Inevitably dubbed Non Player Characters (NPCs) by a somewhat uncaring public, they were successfully employed as pilots by all factions.

New Earth flourished and corporations grew and began to wield influence.  There were two marginally habitable planets nearby, Manhattan and Baden-Baden, which were colonized by the two major factions and system commerce began.  Although the citizens were a blend of quantum data storage and cloned bodies they were still, unfortunately, human and old antagonisms began to re-emerge between the factions.  This led to the formation of military groups.  Disaffected citizens of both factions left to form pirate bands that preyed on system shipping and harassed the military.

Tensions between Liberty and Rheinland were kept to a manageable level on New Earth, but the new colonies of Manhattan and Baden-Baden were becoming involved in minor skirmishes over resources and territory.

One powerful group to emerge was the Bounty Hunters.  They fulfilled the same function as the faction Police - for a price.  Bounty Hunters were able to sign contracts with both factions and became a significant player in the system economy.  However, their real ascent to power began with the discovery of a spacial anomaly some distance from Rochester base. 

The anomaly appeared to be a hole in space and various experimentation with sensor packages and AI missiles found that the Jump Hole (as it came to be known) gave access to another star system.  However, the jump hole appeared to be inherently unstable.  Bounty Hunter Research Division spent another decade implementing a Gate technology powered by singularity generators that kept the jump hole stable and entry and exit relatively safe.

The Bounty Hunters tachyon data-cast of their discovery and new technology galvanized New York.   The prospect of expansion and more resources appealed to factions and corporations alike.  Both factions signed agreements with the Bounty Hunters for access to the jump hole.  However, Rheinland also paid a significant amount for naming rights to the new system, which became Bering.  Expeditionary forces from both factions scouted the systems and found more jump holes to two new systems that were subsequently named Texas and Hamburg.

In New York, Rheinland and Liberty designed and built new starships.  Large enough to incorporate living humans as well as the technologies and instrumentalities necessary to create new colonies in Texas.  All passengers were also copied into the new starship quantum data wells as no-one wanted to give up immortality.

Finally, both enormous starships waited at the New York to Bering jump-hole.  Liberty (through the time-honored tradition of a well-placed bribe) moved first into the jump hole, falling though what seemed a tunnel of brightening light until they emerged unscathed in the Bering system and after a relatively short flight entered the Texas system.  The Rheinland starship followed into Bering and headed for Hamburg.  Time passed and both systems prospered. 

Hamburg and Texas soon surpassed New York as the main economic force.  Tachyon transmissions allowed communication between the various systems, but Old Earth had become silent over the years.  No-one was sure as to whether some disaster had overtaken the home system or they had simply become detached from or above reality in their pursuit of electronic existence.

Liberty assumed that Earth's pursuit of technology and virtuality had led to the complete destruction of humanity and had placed various embargoes on research in personality templates, group minds and virtuality.  Ironically, Liberty espoused a belief in individualism and free choice, while in reality, an oligarchy of politicians and corporations moulded public opinion and remained in power through subtlety crafted 'democratic' elections.  No real opposition to the Liberty government existed, but a loose band of criminals and sociopaths had sprung up calling themselves the Rogues and styling themselves as pirates.

Rheinland believed the people of Old Earth had reached another plane of existence and actively supported research into areas that might help them attain the same goal.  Research had begun into the direct connection of personality templates to create group minds.  Rheinland had become more ideological and bureaucratic in its pursuit of new technology and while dissent existed in the population, it was actively discouraged.

Liberty and Rheinland remained in an uneasy peace with only occasional skirmishes breaking out in Bering which were usually quickly resolved through diplomacy.

Decades passed and the new systems of Texas and Hamburg flourished.
 

The prelude to war was a series of tremors in the crust of New Earth.  They seemed to be occurring on all sides of the planet and furious research revealed that there seemed to be changes in the planetary core. A short time later, a gigantic vessel appeared on the fringes of New York from an unknown direction.   The unbelievably huge alien craft glided silently toward New Earth.  All attempts at communication went unanswered.  As the craft drew nearer to the planet, the seismic activity on New Earth increased in intensity. Soon, intense interference caused the failure of all tachyon communication systems, preventing further communication with the outer colonies.   Once in orbit, the ship positioned over New Earth's Atlantic Ocean and emitted a blinding beam of light.  A steaming hole in the ocean appeared and the crust began to crack.  A series of massive earthquakes ensued followed by the near simultaneous eruption of every volcano on the planet. 

Both Libertonian and Rheinland forces tried valiantly to destroy the ship.  As the war fleets approached, a number of smaller vessels launched from the alien craft.  To the horror and shock of the Libertonian pilots, the ships defending the alien craft were identified as belonging to the Rheinland Military.  They had been betrayed! The Rheinland pilots were equally horrified to discover that the attack craft engaging their fleets were of Libertonian origin.

Troubling reports began trickling into the central commands of the Rheinland and Liberty Militaries.  These reports indicated that they were not just fighting an alien vessel, but also their former allies and friends.  Swift action was called for to avoid the destruction of the inner colonies as well, so nearly all available military vessels (as well as some retrofitted civilian ships) were pressed into an assault on the alien craft. 

The war fleets of the opposing factions were nearly equal in their firepower and ferocity.  The two fleets effectively destroyed each other without inflicting significant damage on the alien craft.

After several hours of combat, the beam from the alien craft illuminated the entire system with a final intense pulse.  The tachyon emissions from the pulse overloaded and destroyed nearly every tachyon emitter in New York, permanently disrupting communications with the outer colonies.  The crust of New Earth shattered and the entire planet exploded, sending millions of citizens to their deaths.  The resulting debris destroyed all but a handful of the remaining Liberty and Rheinland ships as well as several orbital installations.  One Liberty Navy pilot swore that he saw several thousand glowing objects move from the planetary debris and merge with the alien ship. 

Its task complete, the alien vessel slowly turned and began moving toward the jumpgate to Bering.  Fearing that the alien vessel meant to either destroy the gate or the colonies beyond it, those military craft that survived the Destruction struggled valiantly to slow its progress.  Seemingly oblivious to the remaining opposition, the craft glided silently toward the gate.

As the craft approached the gate, a pulse of light emerged from the vessel and struck the unstable jumphole within.  Immediately the jumphole flared to life, and enlarged in size.  Soon it had nearly engulfed the jumpgate itself.  Straining under the increased load, parts of the jumpgate began to tear free.  The alien vessel began to enter the jumphole.  At this moment, the captain of one of the few remaining cruisers gave the order everyone on board knew was coming.  The cruiser stopped firing on the alien craft and instead concentrated its firepower on the main reactors of the now damaged jumpgate.

The subsequent explosion of the massive fusion reactors so close to the active jumphole led to the formation of an unstable singularity inversion.  The jumphole imploded. The explosion vaporized the alien vessel and everything else within 30K.  The explosion was reported to be so powerful that people on the surface of Manhattan and Baden Baden received second degree burns on exposed skin.  The remnants of the explosion resulted in a highly radioactive nebula, which has since been named "The Blood Clouds".

A shocked peace returned to the New York system.  Both Liberty and Rheinland fleets were virtually destroyed and Manhattan and Baden Baden began the task of rebuilding their now fragile economy - no longer connected to the Texas and Hamburg systems.

In the outer systems, accusations were hurled and rumors flourished.  Tachyon communications with New York were cut off, so only reports prior to the Destruction were available.  Combined with a handful of eyewitness reports, Liberty and Rheinland were quick to blame each other for the attack. 

Fearing that the other side would re-establish communication with the Enemy (as the aliens were now called), the two governments declared war on each other.  In Rheinland, some voices of reason protested the war and the Head of Military Intelligence, Von Hesse, refused to believe that they could be so wrong about the capabilities of Liberty that such an attack could have occurred.  His reports from spies in the Bounty Hunter organization hinted that the Libertonians were not, in fact, working with the Enemy.  His beliefs were ridiculed in the Rheinland Senate.  Unwilling to allow Rheinland to descend into a costly war without adequate justification, Von Hesse loudly denounced the growing call for military action. 

The next day the Chancellor declared Von Hesse an Enemy of the State and attempted to apprehend him.  Alerted by his security forces, Von Hesse managed to flee to a secret base he had previously established in a nearby asteroid field.

Both Liberty and Rheinland transformed their economies to support Total War.

While death was no longer permanent - it did have a sting.  Citizens were required to plan for their death and expensive resurrection (or respawn in the popular vernacular) by buying shares in the economy - commonly called Economy Points.  Social status and prestige within Liberty and Rheinland were determined by the number of Economy points you acquired.   In addition, pilots who managed to acquire zero-point energy generators transported in high ranking enemy ships were rewarded with Military and Neutral points which further increased their status.  This quest for social status also affected the pirate factions and they implemented their own Economic Points system.

Storage capacity in the quantum data wells was becoming strained and all factions decided to restrict resurrections.  All citizens were required to usefully contribute to the economy and any citizen falling below a specific number of Points would not be resurrected and their personality template wiped from the quantum data wells. 

Sometime after the Destruction, the Bounty Hunters managed to repair the tachyon data transmitters on Rochester Base.  This equipment, coupled with a new broad spectrum transmitter and an improved compression algorithm, provided the Bounty Hunters with the ability to transmit individual personality templates from New York to quantum data wells in the outer colonies.

The Bounty Hunters, realizing that they controlled access to the outer colonies, charged large fees to permit citizens in New York to transmit their personality templates to Hamburg or Texas.  Never averse to more profit, the Bounty Hunters also functioned as agents for the pirate bands of Texas and Hamburg which also availed themselves of new (if somewhat anti-social) cannon fodder.

So the war continues.  Everyday, humans throughout Texas, Bering and Hamburg die and are resurrected.  In New York, aspiring cannon fodder are decanted in Rochester and scrabble to accumulate funds to bribe an agent to transmit them into the Big Game.

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