The year is 2911. Humanity has expanded as far a hundred light years from its cradle on Earth in multiple waves of exploration, colonization and terraforming. In the last hundred years, weak signals from other civilizations other than humanity have allowed the first tentative contacts with even more remote civilizations. In this time some humans have exhibited strange abilities akin to the legends of the past. With humanity spread far and wide and communications and government limited to local space, opportunities for freebooters, pirates and criminals of all kinds have been growing. Those with these mutant abilities have been part of the background of many of these activities, but not all. Some choose to side with law, order and what is right…
The Human Spheres
The human colonies and home world are divided into four discrete types. The first are the Core Worlds, these include Earth, Luna and the orbital colonies, Mars, Asteroids and the Venusian atmospheric colonies. These worlds are nominally controlled by Earthgov. With the exception of Venus, all these were first colonized in the 22nd through 24th centuries by humans selected by various space agencies, the best of their people. Eventually after the EcoWars of the late 22nd century, vast numbers of refugees left Earth for these and the Outer Colonies, giving all worlds of the Sol System (other than Venus for the most part) a mix of cultures.
The next set of colonies started only as research stations out in the Jovan and Saturnian moon systems. With the development first of high-speed V-Drives in the 23rd century and later the first stargates in the 24th century allowing for lightspeed travel. These Outer Colonies are descended mostly from refugees of the EcoWars and the subsequent large scale migrations of people who refused the birth control and genetic profiling programs of the late 24th and 25th centuries on Earth.
Inner Sphere: The next set of colonies were founded over two hundred years from the first explorations of nearby desolate star systems by Stardrive equipped exploration ships. Limited to lightspeed at first these ships explored several worlds over many decades. The best of these worlds became the first outsystem, or Spacer worlds. Colonized by the best and the brightest, by the late 26th century they refused any more immigrants and Earth colonists were forced to use more fringe worlds. After the rebellions of the 27th century, the majority of the Spacer worlds declared independence and decisively defeated EarthGov attempts to reassert control. Only Aurora the first of these worlds, maintained significant links with Earth, and those were tenuous at best. Others are beginning to do so as well. Note: not all Inner Sphere worlds are Spacer worlds. A few didn’t rebel such as Centauri and others were colonized later on less-attractive worlds.
Outer Sphere: The final set of colonies are more recent. During and somewhat after the Spacer rebellions some freelance colonies and corporate colonies kept up attempts at colonization. But for most of the 27th and 28th century Spacer rules, regulations and fleets kept Earth colonies limited mostly to the Inner Sphere. However, in the mid 28th Century, a resurgent EarthGov, pushed by population pressure made peace with the Spacer worlds and colonization began anew. These colonies, the Outer Sphere, soon outnumbered the old colonies, but being so far away from Earth they to this day constantly struggle with supplies, corruption, and simple survival. It was these worlds that first encountered the signals that led to alien first contact in the first years of the 29th Century.