4.2 Major Events

MAJOR EVENTS

2049-2050 • The First Earth-Kzin War

2049 • The colony ship Hawking launches from Terra. • The Adam & Eve is destroyed by the Kzinti just short of its goal of reaching Barnard’s Star. • The First Battle of Alpha Centauri. • Alpha Centauri is attacked by a Kzinti battle fleet looking for the homeworld of the Sakharov. A combined Terran-Centaurean effort is able to drive them away through the use of portable mass drivers converted into giant “space shotguns.” This marks the first time that the humans of Terra and Alpha Centauri have worked together on a joint enterprise. • The Terran vessel Icarus takes heavy damage during the Battle of Alpha Centauri. It is forced to lay over for several months longer than planned in order to effect repairs. • The inventiveness and vigorous tenacity of the humans surprises the Kzinti. They had no idea that the “softskins” would prove to be such formidable opponents. • One small boon gained by the Kzinti during the Battle of Alpha Centauri is that they learn the location of Terra. A second battle fleet already enroute to Alpha Centauri is rerouted towards the Sol System. • Upon hearing the news of the Kzinti attack the New United Nations declares martial law in those sectors of Terra it still controls. All civilian craft are appropriated by the UESF, armed, and pressed into emergency service. What remains of Terra’s orbital weapons network is redeployed outward. Work begins on converting the Sol System’s interplanetary “beam rider” laser network into a defensive weapon. Mass drivers are deployed across the Sol System at all key points in anticipation of the impending attack. • Zefram Cochrane’s efforts into turning his warp drive theory into a practical reality are given a sudden boost by both the Terran and Centaurean governments. He doesn’t care about the new Earth-Kzin war; however, he gladly welcomes the new funding and resources without question. • Sol System activity in the Terran space colonies continues to boom via new industrial methods, boosting the Gross Solar Product yet again. • The Monticello class military transport enters service.

2050 • The First Battle of the Sol System. • A Kzinti battle fleet arrives at the Sol System and begins to systematically attack its outer outposts and UESF bases. Humanity is ready for them, however, having been in preparations for almost a full year. A week of savage fighting will take place throughout the outer Sol System before the Kzinti are stopped at the Asteroid Belt. Most of the Kzinti ships are destroyed by a combination of asteroid based lasers and mass driver fire. A surprising number are also caught when the Sol System “beam rider” system is activated, catching and destroying them as if they were flies in a web. A fleet of UESF vessels led by a number of armed DY-500s, which had been laying in wait behind the asteroids, destroys most of the survivors. Only a handful of Kzinti ships escape the battle. • The dual victories of humanity at Alpha Centauri and the Sol System mark the official end of the First EarthKzin War. The Kzinti will not be heard from again for another two years. • The starliner Enterprise finally arrives at Alpha Centauri. By some miracle it has managed to avoid the Kzinti. The common answer given as to how is, “Space is a big place.” • The Terran gravitic distortion engine, better known as the “Firecracker drive,” is first tested. It proves unworkable and is shelved. A positive side benefit of the program is the development of the inertial dampening system, which will become standard on all Terran (and Federation) vessels once it enters service. • Zefram Cochrane’s unmanned test drone exceeds the speed of light for 1.004 seconds by use of subspace field technology. His efforts represent mankind’s first working warp drive. For this he will be honored on his homeworld and receive the Nobel Prize on Terra – the first non-Terran ever to receive the honor. Despite the accolades he knows that the test did not go as planned and major problems still remain with warp drive. More work is needed in order to make it a practical reality.

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• Unknown to all concerned, a Vulcan survey ship has quietly observed Cochrane’s first successful warp drive demonstration. They are the only species in the Local Group that currently posses the secret of faster-than-light drive. Logic dictates to the Vulcans that they should initiate contact with humanity once a stable human-built warp drive is achieved. • Cochrane is offered the chance to go to the Sol System aboard the returning Icarus to continue his warp drive research.

NOTE: Convergence point between the Prime One and Prime Two timelines (see Volume 3).

2051 • The Icarus begins its return trip to Terra. They leave without Zefram Cochrane, who has decided to continue his warp drive research on his homeworld Alpha Centauri. • All Terran colonization flights are put on hiatus due to the conflict with the Kzin. Human exploration of the stars, save for military excursions and isolated flights, will not resume on any great scale until the end of the Fourth Earth-Kzin War. • Terran shipyards begin producing new spaceships of all sizes and classes in anticipation of the continuing war with the Kzinti. • The rapid increase in the number of civilian and military military transports and transports within the Sol System has a profound impact on the Sol System’s war economy. • Rail gun technology is developed by Terra and deployed on the next generation of UESF warships. Both single and dual railgun systems are backfitted onto older vessels and civilian craft whenever possible.

2052 • In view of the situation regarding the Kzinti, the scheduled retirement of the Galileo class transports is delayed “for the duration.” Some will even continue in service for their owners (with first-generation warp drive upgrades) until the 2150s. • The Glenn class space bus enters service.

2053 • On Alpha Centarui, theorist Zacmar Hodgkins publishes his thesis on the Law of Parallel Planetary Development. In brief, it states that similar lifeforms on similar worlds will develop similar cultures along similar timelines. This will later become known as Hodgkin’s Law and will be proven time and again as mankind explores the universe around him. • Colonel Green’s War occurs as part of the Post Atomic Horror. This is another genocidal war carried out by Colonel Edward F. Green, who had escaped prosecution during World War III. Millions more will die on Terra as a result of his tactical nuclear strikes against the “impure peoples” of Asia before he is finally killed. • The main laboratory at Kashishowa Research Station literally disappears from the surface of Luna on 08 August 2053, taking most of the station with it and leaving behind a perfectly smooth crater 18 meters in diameter. This event appears to have resulted from an overload due to a Terran warp drive experiment. • Data gleaned from the Kashishowa Event provides Zefram Cochran with the information he was missing to perfect his warp drive theory. The modified base equation for warp travel now includes a variable (known as Cochrane’s Constant) that takes into account distortions in the local space-time continuum, such as the gravity of large stellar masses.

According to Section 31 this marks a common convergence point among many of the various Prime and Mirror timelines. The track that the timeline will follow depends on whether or not Cochrane elects to inform the Terran-Centaurean militaryindustrial complex of his revised warp drive equation. Should he decline, then his “masters” will seize it from him by force in order to win the war and permanently divert the track into the realm of the alternate Mirror timelines.

2054-2056 • The Second Earth-Kzin War

2054 • The Icarus returns from Alpha Centauri. • The Wayne class scout enters service. • The Kzinti return in force, attacking both the Sol System and Alpha Centauri simultaneously. • The Second Battle of the Sol System. The Kzinti come in from below the plane of the ecliptic and attack all major Terran space colonies simultaneously. This is to keep them from sending reinforcements in their planned attack on Terra itself. • The L-5 space station Brynner City is hulled by attacking Kzinti craft during an intense space battle. Over 6000 colonists die within 20 seconds from depressurization and loss of atmosphere. The shattered space city will later be declared a total loss and scrapped for parts and materials.

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• Particle beam weaponry is used by Terran forces for the first time at the Battle of the Line in defense of Terra itself. It proves devastatingly effective against the Kzinti, disrupting the graviton field of their ships and sending them spinning out of control. The Second Battle of the Solar System ends in victory for humanity. Never again will Terra come so close to conquest and occupation by the Kzinti. • The Second Battle of Alpha Centauri ends in victory for the Kzinti. They overwhelm the fledgling Centaurean self-defense forces and occupy Alpha Centauri VII. The survivors flee to the hills or to deep ocean bases where the Kzinti will not follow. The Kzinti will control the Alpha Centaurean system for the next three years. • Zefram Cochrane is among a number of Centaurean dignitaries and scientists inside the Terran starliner Enterprise in orbit. It manages to successfully run the Kzinti blockade of Alpha Centauri VII and escape to deep space. The ship will spend the next four years on the run until it is found and rescued by UESF forces. The fact that it has upgraded engines and improved weaponry, added during its stay at Alpha Centauri, has a lot to do with this. The presence of Cochrane and his technological genius is another factor. • The attempted Kzinti attack on Terra brings about the end of the Post Atomic Horror within the decade. Mankind once again unites under the banner of the New United Nations against the Kzinti menace. • Terran scientists working to reverse-engineer Kzinti technology from captured and damaged ships discover that their foes already have a crude form of warp drive. It is only capable of warp “bursts” over “short” distances and works off of stored energy from a spaceship’s fusion power plant. It is quickly dubbed the “jump drive” by the Terrans. General Dietrich makes building a working Terran copy of the Kzinti “jump drive” one of the UESF’s top project priorities.

2055 • “Spinner” drives are revived by the UESF as part of the research into CDP generator technology. • The DY-550 class transport enters service. • The UESP warp prototype ship WD-1 propels Rosy the chip at a speed of Warp 1.5 across the length of the S ol System. It is retrieved by the UES Fisher near the Pluto Test Range. It employs CDP generator technology as modified by reverseengineering Kzinti “jump drive,” plus refinements from Zefram Cochrane’s latest warp drive research. Work commences immediately on CDP generator that can be back-fitted onto ships with ion impulse and spiked antimatter drives. • A Vulcan survey s hip monitors this successful warp drive test. They transmit the information back to their homeworld for further analysis. • humanity is at last The Vulcan Council rules that beginning to fulfill the promise it has shown. First contact will be withheld pending the final defeat of the Kzinti. Best estimates place the collapse of the Kzinti Empire as taking place with favorable odds of 2.635 to 1 within 10.827 years.

056 2 • The Keller class space ambulance enters service. e Thes have been developed in light of the massive casualties from the First and Second Battles of the Solar System. They are some of the fastest sub-light ships of their time, designed to quickly travel to and from battle zones in the war with the Kzinti. • 0 series The UESF retires the last of its DY-50 transports. One is converted into a memorial at the UESF Titan Base in honor of the fallen from the First Battle of the Solar System. Many will continue to fly on under civilian ownership for years (and even centuries) to come. • their The Kzinti halt attacks on humanity for a time. Instead, they consolidate their position on Alpha Centauri and set up a forward base of operations on one of the pla nets of nearby Proxima Centuri. The cessation of Kzinti attacks in this year is generally regarded as the end of the Second EarthKzin War. • The Mahan class heavy cruiser enters service. It is the first of the UESF’s war-era starships. It is also the first to incorporate many hard-learned lessons in space battles against the Kzinti into its design.

2057 • A 100 Years In Space Poll conducted by the United News Services lists the top three achievements of the past century as the first man on Luna, the Venus Terraforming Project, and Zefram Cochrane’s invention of warp drive. It also lists the ongoing Earth-Kzin Wars as being more of a threat to the future of mankind than had been the Third World War. • obability The now-infamous UESPA Xenobiological Pr Study, overseen by Dr. Maurice Bertrand of the L-4 colony New Paris, “concludes beyond any shadow of doubt that the possibility of non-human life in the Universe is practically non-existent.” When criticism is leveled against him with regards to the Kzinti, the good doctor points out, “They are but feline humanoids and in no way contradict this study.”

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• The legendary DY-X series assault cruiser enters he brunt of the service with the UESF. It will bear t burden during the Third and Fourth Earth-Kzin wars and become a legend in its own time.

2058-20 60 • The Third Earth-Kzin War

2058 The Third Battle of the Solar System ends in a decisive • defeat for Kzinti forces. The new ships, weaponry, and “jump drive” technology of the UESF is the telling factor in the fight. • The Liberty class cruiser enters service. • f orbital weapons platforms finish A new generation o Luna, Mars, placement by the UESF around Terra, Asterpolis, and other key Sol System sites. • For the first time since the beginning of the Earth-Kzin the Kzinti Wars humanity goes on the offensive, driving from their advance bases around the periphery of the Sol System. General Dietrich’s first major goal is the liberation of Alpha Centauri. His second is to take the war to the Kzin themselves. • Working under the banner of the Combined Forces, the ntaurean military forces UESF along with surviving Ce use jump drive technology to travel to Alpha Centauri in less than a year. Their goal is to retake the system from the Kzinti. • The Enterprise is located by the Combined Forces. Cochrane and the Centauri delgates They whisk Zefram to safety back on Terra as soon as possible. • The Third Battle of Alpha Centauri begins.

205 9 On 21 August, at the • end of a heavily fought campaign that lasted for 459 days, the Combined Forces retake Alpha Centauri VII. Kzinti commander Zrath-General, former governor of the occupie d planet, elects to die in single s Rangers” commander Major combat with “Hardigan’ Susan Hardigan rather than be captured and held as a prisoner of war. 317,432 members of the Combined Forces campaign are killed and 742,385 wounded. 1,238,455 Kzinti are killed in the battle. Only 14 are successfully taken prisoner at the Kzinti base at Proxima Centauri, which was captured 74 days into the campaign in a far less costly fight. Over 18.6 million Centaurean civilians have been slaughtered by the Kzinti by the time their homeworld is freed by the Combined Forces. • The location of the Kzinti homeworld is gleaned from he captured Kzinti base at Proxima the databanks of t Centauri. • Conception of Operation Rock Drop. Its success will the ability of Zefram Cochrane and other depend on human scientists to make operational an unusual alien device recovered at Sidonia on Mars (Sol IV) back in 1987. • The fleets of the Combined Forces embark on a “planet ” campaign towards Kzinti space. Their hopping offensive eventually grinds to a halt near an unnamed rogue planetoid halfway to the Kzinti Empire’s border. • The Pluto Advanced Research Station opens as an adjunct of UESPA’s Pluto Observation Post. It is the first new civilian space facility since the start of the Earth-Kzin Wars. • The Bathyscaphe class ships are withdrawn from service. • A UESF squadron in pursuit of fleeing Kzinti forces rs a ship of the Vegan Tyranny for the first encounte time. It inflicts heavy damage on them and forces them to withdraw, allowing the Kzinti to escape.

2060 • Operation Rock Drop is executed successfully. A large asteroid is sent to the Kzinti homeworld via a temporary wormhole. It smashes into the planet, killing Kzinti by the millions and laying waste to large areas of the planet. This action effectively ends the Third Earth-Kzin War. • The Industrial Space Ark concept is proposed. • class military transports are The last of the Saratoga withdrawn from service. • The UES Bonaventure first becomes humanity’s true warp drive starship. CDP generator “jump drive” technology becomes obsolete ove rnight. • is to return Zefram The Bonaventure’s first flight ment-in-exile Cochrane and the Centaurean govern home amid a joyous celebration.

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• A UESF intelligence gathering team following up on reports in the captured Kzinti archives rediscovers a “lost” Centaurean space colony on the second planet in the system. • The Long class transport barge enters service.

2061 • ys for A special flight is chartered by Solar Spacewa the viewing of Halley’s Comet as it makes its regular 76-year pass through the Sol System. The comet finally breaks up as it makes its pass around Sol, bringing to an end one of the wonders of the Terran skies for generations. • In light of its increased importance during the EarthKzin Wars the UESF is formally recognized as an s own right. Also, at this independent organization in it time, and in acknowledgement of recent events, its name is changed from United Earth Solar Fleet to United Earth Star Fleet. UESPA remains the Sol System’s chief instrument of space science survey and exploration; however, its importance will wane and gradually fade over time as that of Star Fleet rises. • The Martian Revolution occurs (December).

2062 • l Colonies The Fundamential Declarations of the Martia are issued. This will eventually be considered one of the most important and historic documents in known space history. • After long years of faithful service in the Venus Terraforming Project, the Venus Flyer is finally retired. • scout enters service. This is nothing The Orion class but a scaled down Liberty class with a smaller crew.

206 0 3-2 65 • The Fourth Earth-Kzin War

2063 • A formal Terran-Centaurean Cultural Exchange program begins in January. One of the side benefits of this program is that it helps bring a number of Terran activists to Alpha Centauri VII, who then help the Centaureans rebuild their world from the effects of the Kzinti occupation. • The CDP-refitted Icarus, along with a UESF escort, becomes the first human starship to reach Barnard’s it finds both the remains of its Star (August). There sister ship Adam & Eve and a major Kzinti supply base. The Terran ships are forced to defend themselves, destroying several Kzinti ships before withdrawing from the area. This incident starts the Fourth (and final) Earth-Kzin War. • The Kzinti, infuriated by the death and destruction on their homeworld and this most recent incursion by ence a series of hit-and-run “the softskins,” comm attacks against any human ships, armed or unarmed, that they can find. They are now too weak in strength to both hold onto their empire and mount a major offensive at the same time. This undeclared “shadow war” will last for just under five months before the patience of the UESF finally wears out.

2064 • The Franklin series of probes enters service. The Verne class survey • cruisers enter service. • a Construction begins on new series of survey ver cruisers in the first-e joint Terran-Centaurean starship construction project. The design for the Keldysh class shows the influence of the newly forme d Cochrane Warp ajor human starship class Dyanmics. It is the first m ines. with boom-mounted warp eng • The Combined Forces mount their second major offensive against the Kzinti. This time they warp i Empire and begin directly to the borders of the Kzint systematically destroying every base, ground installation, and fleet they come across. Kzinti forces are no match for these new warp drive ships and they take heavy losses. In the space of seven months the Combined Forces wrest the rimward sectors of the empire from Kzinti control, freeing its long-enslaved systems. General Dietrich’s next planned move will be to work his way toward and eventually conquer the Kzinti home systems. • Swallowing his pride and in order to ensure the continued existence of his people, the Kzinti Patriarch eral Dietrich’s fleet requesting a sends an envoy to Gen parley to negotiate terms of surrender. The Fourth Earth-Kzin War is over.

2065 • of Sirius are imposed on the The terms of the Treaty Kzinti. They are stripped of their empire and confined to a sphere 50 light-years in diameter centered on their homeworld of Kzin. They are forbidden combatcapable spacecraft larger than police cruisers, as well as advanced warp drive and weapons technology. Aside from the occasional “incident,” the treaty will for the most part be honored. Humanity will not have to fight another war with the Kzinti for the next two centuries.

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A squadron of vintage Terran interceptors scramble from the Martian Colonies to do battle with the Kzinti (2049)

UESF orbital particle beam cannon (2052)

UESF DY-X squadron (2059)

UESF Marine surface recon (2063) General Dietrich inspecting the construction of new UESF fighter craft (c.2052 )

Kzinti advance base on Proxima Centauri (c.2055)

UESF Fleet Operations Center, Sidonia Base, Mars (2058)

Operation Rock Drop, Kzinti perspective (2060)

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