Subject to revision.
Prehistory
- ~4 Billion years ago: The Wormhole Builders place a wormhole end in orbit around Mars.
Remote Antiquity
- 14,000 BC: Civilization emerges in Bira.
- 10,000 BC: Roots of agriculture and civilization on Earth.
Antiquity
- Late January, 1972 AD: Photos from the probe Mariner 9 show that the third moon of Mars, Adrastea, is a huge artificial object.
- 1970s AD forward: A tremendous boom in space exploration occurs, driven by practical and scientific interest in this discovery.
- 1981 AD: Radio transmissions from the wormhole structure discovered by probes are successfully reverse-engineered to the extent that the opening command can be transmitted.
- 1980s AD: Soviet Union and United States are embroiled in a race of wormhole exploration, probes from both entering the wormhole and exploring the stellar system beyond.
- 1992 AD: Soviet Union collapses under the economic burden of building a manned transwormhole mission. The unfinished spaceship in orbit is later re-purposed as an international station.
- 1994 AD: NASA/ESA expedition visits Epsilon Indi system, discovering the wormhole around Mars to be part of what may be an entire network.
- 1990s-2000s AD: Exploration of Epsilon Indi system continues by various nations.
- 2009 AD: Construction on a space fountain begins, as an international infrastructure megaproject.
- 2024 AD: Completion of the space fountain.
- 2030s AD: Economic boom due to the exploitation of space resources.
- Ca. 2045: Artificial hibernation developed.
- 21st Century: Colonization of space begins in earnest.
- Early 22nd Century: Earth becoming unpleasant due to the mounting effects of environmental damage.
- Late 22nd Century onward: Colonization of the galaxy along wormhole network increases exponentially.
Late Antiquity
- 24th Century AD: Biran Supercompact encountered mostly peacefully. Human-Biran colonization symbiosis pursued.
- Late 24th Century AD: Mu Araen encountered.
- 2418 AD: Great Empire of Sol, Bira and Mu Arae proclaimed, with decentralized administration.
- 25th Century onward: Pax Imperii. An era of economic prosperity but relative technological and social stagnation.
- 8 September 2611 AD: Empress Ewie III proclaims the start of the Imperial Era and renames the Great Empire of Sol, Bira and Muarae as just "the Empire."
Fall of the Empire
- 1488 IE: Schism in the Temple of the Builders leads to a civil war.
1490 IE: A religious faction who believes wormhole traversal is blasphemous and must be ended reveals it possesses bulk antimatter by destroying wormhole stations.
- 1490s IE -- ???: The Antimatter Wars. Connected space is fragmented. Galactic civilization collapses.
Twelve Worlds History
- Late 1600s IE - 1700s: Some of the Twelve Worlds recover sufficiently to resume interstellar travel within their isolated part of connected space.
- 1765-1810: Unification wars end with the formation of the Allied Worlds.
- 2477: Automated probe emerging from the Cohen 138 wormhole, long blockaded by the Dirac, sparks confusion and civil war.
- 2500: Allied intervention brings the Dirac civil war to a conclusion and ends the wormhole blockade.
- 2505: The Interplanetary Assembly approves a grand expedition through on the 27th centennial of the foundation of the Empire.
2508 IE (5118 AD): The present day. Survey ships Zheng He and Marco Polo head for the Cohen 138 wormhole and parts unknown.