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: 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 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.

Ten Worlds History

• Late 1600s IE - 1700s: Some of the Ten 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.