2047

After Earth's global temperature rises a calamitous 10 degrees Fahrenheit in fifteen years, governments around the world focus the bulk of their research into finding ways to colonize other planets. Earth is widely viewed as unsalvageable.

December 20, 2049

Kazuya Itokawa of Japan perfects the world's first network of Bussard micro-ramjets, making interstellar travel a realistic possibility. Two weeks later, Japan begins construction on the Chrysanthemum, the world's first colony ship.

 March 22, 2050

A massive Chinese naval force appears off the coast of Kaga, Japan. In less than one week, the Chinese army has taken over most of the country. The U.S. struggles to redeploy the bulk of its military to the Pacific.

April, 2050

American and Chinese forces clash all throughout Japan as World War III begins.

July 4, 2050

North Korea successfully launches a nuclear strike at Los Angeles, California.

July 5, 2050

The U.S and India launch simultaneous retaliatory strikes at North Korea. Most of the major population centers of North Korea are annihilated.

July 11, 2050

Pakistan successfully launches a nuclear strike at New Delhi, India.

July 13, 2050

Near-simultaneous nuclear blasts erupt in Denver, Memphis, and Detroit. Responsibility for these attacks is never claimed, but it is universally assumed that they are Pakistani in origin.

July 14, 2050

The rest of the world unites against the South-East Asian Force (China, North Korea, and Pakistan)

February 11, 2051

The People's Republic of China signs the Irkutsk Armistice, ending World War III. Control of the PRC is ceded to Taiwan, which rechristens the country the New Republic of China (NRC). Pakistan is absorbed into India. South Korea begins the reconstruction of North Korea, as the new Republic of Korea.

May 2, 2051

After salvaging what remains of the Chrysanthemum's skeleton, construction resumes on an offshore platform in the Pacific.

June 17, 2053

The International Space Colonization Initiative completes its first exploration vessel: the ISCS Chrysanthemum launches from geosynchonous orbit above Hokkaido. Its destination is the Canes Venatici constellation.

March 22, 2056

Thanks to advances in alternative energy sources and offshoot research from the ISCI, the data on global warming for 2054-2055 shows a 0.8 degree drop in worldwide temperature.  

March 29, 2056

After a week of deliberation, the ISCI continues its projects, with the new intention of colonizing other worlds instead of fleeing the Earth.

2056-2194

Over the next 138 years, eighteen other colony ships launch from around the globe. Attempts to find habitable planets along the way are wholly unsuccessful, but the ships are converted to space stations upon arrival at their destinations.

October 9, 2196

The ISCS Rebecca Lee locates a habitable planet in the Beta Canum Venaticorum system and changes course to investigate.

January 11, 2199

The Lee lands on XL-45, also known as β CVn II.

January 17, 2199

After all eight deepscans of the planet come back green, the colonists disembark onto the world they have rechristened "Eden".

February 8, 2199

The Hunters arrive on Eden and kill all 48,116 colonists on the planet. Shortly before the last human is wiped out, the Hunters intercept a distress call from the Lee to all other human settlements. Using astrometry that is clearly superior to humans', the Hunters move toward the closest human settlement, the ISCS von Neumann.

2199-2201

The Hunters systematically destroy 16 of the 18 remaining human settlements in the galaxy. The ISCS Tachibana survives by rewiring the ship's computers to project a multispectrum volumetric torrent, which tricks the Hunters into believing the ship has suffered an internal disaster. However, disabling their ISCI network effectively cuts them off from the rest of the galaxy.

May 3, 2202

The Hunters enter the Earth's solar system and easily cut through the defenses at Titan protecting the ISCS Francis Drake, the last operational colony ship in the galaxy. The ship is destroyed, along with two other moons of Saturn.

May 5, 2202

The ISCI ratifies the Earth Exodus Initiative. The five pre-launch colony ships begin the rapid conversion process to evacuation vessels.

June 10, 2202

The Balboa, the Soyinka, the Gagarin, the Armstrong, and the Singh launch from orbit above central Europe, central Africa, central Asia, North America, and South Asia, respectively. The Hunters launch a fusion bomb that detonates the Earth's core. The ensuing shockwave incinerates everything in its path except the Armstrong, which survives only by diverting all of its functions to execute a 200% burn for ten minutes on its main engines.