The closing years of the 23rd century are a time of great shift for my Empire. Here’s a short general overview.
For about twenty years humanity has been attempting to terraform Venus, to create a verdant sister world to the homeworld of Terra. At first the project was expected to take a century, but with improved technology and another 45 million tonnage of terraformer stations hastily constructed the terraforming is now mostly complete in April 2292. All that humanity needs now is time for the new oceans of the world to settle. Citizens rejoice that the morning star now appears blue in the skies of the homeworld. These new terraformers are now being moved over to other venusian worlds in Alpha Centauri. Terraforming Venus is always a fun mark to hit in an Aurora campaign.
Recently humanity also upheld it’s sovereignty over the Pupilae system after the friendly alien race known as the Virar attempted to usurp the system by dropping colonists in a world under terraforming by the Empire. In the negotiations the Virar decided to leave their citizenry behind, numbering 15 million, after a human ultimatum. These have now been granted protectorate status by the Empire, with the caveat that they forbid space travel for their own. These are the first non-humans in the Terran Empire, and as you might expect that causes quite a bit of turmoil as the unifying trait of the Empire’s citizenry is their shared racial fraternity. You can read more about this here if you’d like.
More than this colonial dispute, the Sigma Tucanae Incident and following Operation Brynhildr & Battle of Valkyrie challenged the notions of human sovereignty over deep space. The difficulty of crossing 23 billion kilometers of space with no logistical outposts makes deep void operations difficult and draws much of human naval tonnage. You can read more about the operation here.
These issues and the eventual raider strikes at the edges of human space have lead humanity into an unprecedented military buildup. Currently shipyars in Terra, Mars, and Luna are constructing a total combined 932 kilotons worth of naval assets from Osprey Fast Attack Craft to Corvettes for orbital defence to the first capital ship, the 100kt Arsenal Ship Sol Invictus, as well as the 100kt Science Carrier von Braun. For reference, in the 192 years of Terran Empire space exploration it has only ever launched 1520 kilotons of naval tonnage into the void. At the current pace the total tonnage will be matched in half a decade. Humanity is no longer in a period of peace and exploration, but one of enforcing it’s dominion and right to own the stars.
This buildup can only occur now that there no longer are any mineral shortages or rationing. New rich mines deep in space and well-defended supply lines have finally allowed for grand fleets to be built. And yet the Empire prepares to expand it’s shipyards to other worlds and systems.
And yet mankind also prepares to perform Freedom of Navigation operations into the Gaia expanse, a series of systems that have been quarantined after a science ship was attacked. The Admiralty believes this will lead to war with both the Panstellarian robotic armies but also the newly discovered hitherto unnamed alien races in that direction. Gaia is full of verdant worlds that can teem with future human settlers, and the Empire has ambitions of settling it as a sector as powerful as the Solar Core Sector through operation Titanomachy. After the early treatises with the Virar Coalition many lament the limitation of allowing alien races from determining the boundaries of the Empire, especially after the recent breakdown in relations.
