Time Line:

2011 The creation of the first known viable human clone is announced by the German corporation NeueMensch GmbH. Created in a Munich laboratory using cell samples from an unnamed donor, the clone is a white male infant dubbed "Adam." Religious and cultural shockwaves resonate across the globe, and massive protests occur outside the company's headquarters. Fundamentalist billionare Henry Prall announces his intention to purchase NeueMensch and destroy all records and research related to the cloning process. NeueMensch's supporters, both known and anonymous, act to oppose Prall's plan, and the corporation's stock skyrockets as a fierce bidding war ensues. Seventeen days later, Adam dies of respiratory failure. Prall eventually succeeds in buying and closing NeueMensch. He also founds Pure Humanity, a non-profit organization opposed to cloning and all forms of genetic tampering.

2013 Several former NeueMensch employees found Genix, Inc. to continue NeueMensch's cloning studies. The company is privately held.

2014 Self-repairing organ tissue which is based on the way cancer cells reproduce, is used to help save a 57-year-old woman from pancreatic cancer.

2016 Genix announces that a human clone has just passed her first birthday in good health.

2022 Genix's second-generation clones are seven years old and perfectly healthy. The corporation quietly begins creating clones for a select few, extremely wealthy customers. Individual organs are also being cloned from donor tissue to create replacement organs.

2023 Orbital facilities create the first stable "exotic matter", materials with negative mass.

2024 Genetic engineering leads to the effective elimination of sickle-cell anemia.

2025 The neural mechanism for storing memories is deciphered. Memories can now be stored in digital form.

2026 Earth’s population reaches 8 billion.

2028 Attempts to "give" selected memories to another human being are abandoned after several early volunteers develop severe personality disorders. The theory is that individual memories are simply too interrelated to be effectively passed from person to person.

2033 As the pressures of overpopulation and limited food supplies grow, numerous local conflicts across the globe erupt into shooting wars. The largest of these is the Mongolian War, which begins as a border clash between China and the Russian Commonwealth, and eventually grows to include Japan, Korea, India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as increasing numbers of American and United Nations peacekeeping forces.

2034 Dozens of Genix clones born in the early 2020s begin dying as they reach puberty. Approximately 10% survive. The deaths are attributed to the "unexpected intensity" of the hormonal changes occurring during puberty.

2035 The Mongolian War ends. All involved countries have taken horrific casualties, and the nations' borders are essentially unchanged. In an attempt to avoid future conflicts, the United Nations is granted greatly increased powers to stop local wars by force.

2038 Under exacting laboratory conditions, physicists at Princeton University create what they refer to as an “Alcubierre/Van Den Broeck (or A/B) sphere,” a “bubble” of subatomic size which encloses a space nearly fifty meters in diameter. The A/B sphere remains in existence for approximately .3 seconds before collapsing. The four leading researchers on the project share the Nobel Prize for physics.

2041 Biologists create a biochemical record of an entire human brain.

2043 Earth’s population reaches 9 billion.

2044 All existing nuclear weapons are confiscated by the United Nations. All are supposedly destroyed.

2047 All known Genix second-generation clones are dead, most of cancer or suicide.

2048 An 8cm long lab mouse named “Lucky” spends three hours inside an A/B sphere approximately 1mm in diameter. Lucky suffers no ill effects from her stay.

2052 A biochemical researcher suffers severe brain damage after an auto accident. The damaged portion of his brain is regrown using cloning techniques, and implanted with memories from a recent research scan of his own brain. Private hospitals begin making and storing memory scans of patients' brains for use in case of brain damage.

2053 The Space Exploration Collective, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the exploration of the universe, completes the construction of their orbital space platform.

2054 A small-scale border conflict between Zambia and Mozambique escalates as Zambia begins to conquer most of South Africa. Repeated warnings from the United Nations do no good, and UN peacekeeping troops are decimated by Zambia's use of biological and chemical weapons. After a final series of warnings, a neutron bomb is detonated over Zambia's capital of Lusaka by a United Nations bomber on September 1.

2055 The United Nations unilaterally declares itself to be the united government of the planet Earth.

2057 During the investigation of a homicide, Houston police learn that the 19-year-old killer is in fact a clone of software heiress Elena Bloom, made by Genix without Bloom's permission. Upon further investigation, it is discovered that Bloom's 20-year-old "daughter" is also her clone, and also has a history of violent behavior. After fulfilling Bloom's request for a clone, Genix produced a second clone from Bloom's DNA without her knowledge. As the investigation spreads, other previously unknown clones are revealed, some of whom did not know they were clones. All have severe personality disorders.

2058 In the landmark State v. Litzsinger decision, the World Court declares the cloning of human beings illegal except in cases of medical necessity (i.e. as organ donors). Genix is acquired by a shell corporation called Gemini, Incorporated.

2060 The first privately-funded extrasolar space probe, Sagan I, is launched towards the Alpha Centauri system by the Space Exploration Collective.

2069 By a narrow margin, the World Court rules that death falls under the "medical necessity" exception in Litzsinger and allows 87-year-old author Kelvin Ward to have his memories implanted into the "blank" brain of a pre-grown clone upon his death. The clone and the memory transfer process are provided by Gemini, Inc.

2074 Kelvin Ward dies. His memories are implanted into a 21-year-old clone body, which awakens believing that he is Kelvin Ward. Ward's will states that the clone inherits his entire estate, but his heirs immediately contest the will.

2075 The clone of Kelvin Ward is legally declared to be Kelvin Ward, thereby voiding all probate proceedings.

2079 Genetically engineered divers, designed and cloned by Gemini, Inc., begin manning undersea magnesium mines. Labor unions across the globe threaten to strike unless the practice is outlawed, and Pure Humanity demands that Gemini be disbanded and their research destroyed. The World Court declares that any existing genetically altered humans are legally human and are free to work wherever they wish; however, any future genetic manipulation of human beings, except for medical reasons, is outlawed.

2082 The Sagan I arrives in Alpha Centauri and begins transmitting data back to Earth. The public is initially captivated by the images, but interest soon wanes. There are several planets in the Alpha Centauri system, but none show any signs of being even remotely habitable.

2088 The SEC completes the construction of a large space vehicle, dubbed C Plus, which is launched away from Earth via the Collective’s orbital platform. It vanishes from all detection systems approximately six hours after being launched, and is widely regarded as an expensive failure.

2089 The C Plus abruptly reappears on Earth’s radar systems. The SEC announces that the vehicle has completed a journey to the Alpha Centauri system and back – a distance of more than eight light-years – in just over ten months, traveling inside a microscopic A/B sphere. The claim is widely considered to be a hoax; the SEC vows to prove its claims, and launches the C Plus again. As before, it vanishes from view shortly after launch.

2090 Data being transmitted from Sagan I begin to depict an unknown object in the solar system, approaching the probe itself. As the image resolves, the foreign object becomes clear. It is unmistakably the C Plus. The SEC refuses to divulge the secrets of the C Plus’ method of transportation, but agrees to use the craft (and several sister “bubbleships” under construction) to transport scientific equipment and personnel out into the universe.

2091 An SEC corporate crew traveling aboard the bubbleship COBOL arrives in the Alpha Centauri system and begins setting up a new orbital platform called ACCESS. For the first time, mankind permanently resides in orbit around a star other than the sun.

2092 Gemini, Inc. sends a massive expedition to Alpha Centauri aboard the C Plus. Once there, the crew begins construction on its own gigantic orbital lab, called GEMACS, in orbit around one of the system’s planets.

2093 SEC crews begin sending Sagan-class probes to other nearby star systems, “mapping” paths for future bubbleship travel.

2094 Construction of GEMACS is complete, and Gemini, Inc. begins creating genetically engineered humans aboard the station. The World Court censures the corporation, but Gemini claims that it is beyond the Court's jurisdiction. Bowing to pressure from the World Court, the SEC refuses to carry any Gemini equipment or personnel aboard any of its bubbleships. Gemini has little choice, and ceases the production of genetically engineered beings for the time being.

2095 Gemini, Inc. begins ferrying personnel and equipment to and from GEMACS with its own bubbleships. The SEC charges the corporation with industrial espionage, but the case drags on for years.

2097 Anonymous sources reveal that Gemini is once again proceeding with the design and “manufacture” of gengineered humans. The World Court moves to seize the corporation's terrestrial assets, but most have already been moved to Alpha Centauri. Gemini’s gengineering program continues unabated.

2100 Multiple permanent orbital facilities are now in place in the Barnard’s Star and Wolf 359 star systems, built and operated by a variety of commercial corporations and non-profit organizations. Neither system includes any habitable planets.

2102 Mihir Dubash, a Gemini engineer, attempts to murder his supervisor aboard GEMACS. The attmpted shooting fails, but Dubash’s bullets come perilously close to puncturing a critical bulkhead which could have led to the depressurization of an entire wing of the space station. Gemini security guards apprehend Dubash and immediately realize how close he came to accidentally killing dozens of employees, themselves included. He is savagely beaten before and during his imprisonment. GEMACS has no facilities for a trial, and Gemini is unwilling to foot the bill to send Dubash back to Earth to face a terrestrial court, so he remains imprisoned in a secure cell aboard the space station. The entire incident is hushed up and no one outside Gemini knows anything about the case.

2104 An anonymous source inside Gemini leaks information about Dubash’s imprisonment to Amnesty International, which declares him a “prisoner of conscience.” The World Court seizes the moral high ground and demands that Dubash be returned to Earth for trial. Gemini counters that neither the criminal, the victim, nor even the crime itself was within the jurisdiction of the World Court. The Court, in turn, states that Dubash is a citizen of the Earth, and thus the Court has a responsibility to ensure his safety and fair treatment. The legal wrangling and political posturing continues for months, growing more and more tense and hostile

2105 When the standoff between Gemini and the World Court seems certain to erupt into violence, SEC negotiators manage to hammer out the Zaragoza Accord. The Accord states that anyone traveling to any non-Earthly environment may, at their discretion, give up their Earthly citizenship and become a “citizen” of whatever corporation or organization is responsible for their presence in the system. The World Court reserves the right to maintain a law enforcement presence in non-Earthly facilities to ensure the safety of Earth’s citizens, but will have no jurisdiction over citizens of other entities. Gemini, the SEC, and other organizations with a presence in Alpha Centauri are responsible for their own law enforcement, and extradition treaties are established between all such organizations.

2106 Mihir Dubash is extradited to Earth, where he is convicted of one count of attempted murder and twenty-six counts of reckless endangerment. Relations between the World Court and Gemini, Inc. return to an unfriendly but peaceful state.

2108 Gemini offers to sell the “bubbledrive” technology to other corporations in exchange for a non-competition clause, which would give Gemini an almost unstoppable monopoly in their primary business arenas. Several days later, detailed descriptions on how to build and operate a bubbledrive are posted to dozens of public-access databanks and InfoNet sites across the globe, thus rendering Gemini’s offer worthless. The SEC’s Board of Directors claims that the information was stolen and illegally published, but popular opinion holds that the SEC deliberately leaked the plans. A wide variety of corporations and private organizations, as well as the World Court, begin building their own bubbleships

2112 The United Nations bubbleship London arrives in the Ross 154 star system and discovers that the system’s second planet will support human life with only slight terraforming. “In the interest of protecting this historic discovery,” the World Court declares the entire star system off-limits to all non-UN traffic, and declares that it will use any means necessary, up to and including deadly force, to preserve that quarantine. The planet is named Accord.

2114 Gemini, Inc. discovers another habitable planet, this one in the Ross 128 system. When the UN learns of the discovery, it sends a science team to quarantine it as was done on Accord. However, Gemini defense forces refuse to permit “foreign influences” to enter the system. Stating that they are acting on the UN’s precedent, the corporation declares the system off-limits to any vessels other than its own. The planet is named Gemini Prime.

2117 Gemini, Inc.’s gengineered laborers are responsible for approximately 10% of the corporation’s income. They are provided with subsistence housing and food, and are unpaid, but perform long shifts of dangerous labor mining asteroids and planets throughout the star systems where Gemini has a corporate presence. In the corporation’s annual reports, they are listed as assets rather than employees.

2118 The first reported cases of the so-called “Ikali Virus” are reported in eastern Africa. Within weeks, the virus has spread to the Mideast and southern Europe, causing horrific casualties throughout the affected areas. Global panic begins, and the UN recalls all available troops to active quarantine/riot-control duty.

2119 Shortly after a supply ship from Earth arrives, several cases of the Ikali Virus are reported on the Space Exploration Collective’s Earth-orbital platform. Within a week, everyone on the platform is dead. The SEC announces that it will no longer permit any ships from Earth to dock at any of its facilities, and other off-Earth entities quickly follow suit. Anyone from the extraterrestrial colonies who returns to Earth will not be permitted to return.

2121 The SEC discovers a habitable planet in the Lalande 21185 system. Dubbing it St. Augustine, they follow the lead of the UN and Gemini, Inc, in claiming the system for their own.

2122 Thousands of genetically engineered workers at a Gemini, Inc. orbital facility at Barnard’s Star revolt. Seizing control the Gemini bubbleship Pisces and renaming it the Spartacus, they travel into deep space towards an unknown destination.

2124 SEC explorers reach a star system referred to as BD-12, a resource-rich system containing several habitable planets. As they begin to explore the system, they are met by the formidable defenses of the Gengineered rebels from the Spartacus revolt, who demand that no one enter the system uninvited

2125 NOW.