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Timeline of The Reach

Present (wy602 - 10,251ad)

Indomitable Bastards Chapter 5 21 April wy603 - Present

Chapter 5: A War By Any Other Name
The Unification War wasn’t over.

Indomitable Bastards Chapter 5

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Indomitable Bastards Chapter 4 16 October wy602 - 21 April wy603

Chapter 4: Legitimate Salvage
The crew gets down to the business of operating a famous Destroyer-for-Hire.

Indomitable Bastards Chapter 4

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Indomitable Bastards Chapter 3 24 June - 15 October wy602

**Chapter 3: Fortune Favors The Bold. Everyone Else Thinks You’re An Asshole. **
The crew salvages WDF San Orestes and returns with it to Foxglove, sparking some political intrigue. They research moneys funding the insurgency and other mysteries. A terrorist attack reignites the Unification War.

Indomitable Bastards Chapter 3

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Indomitable Bastards Chapter 2 11 March-24 June wy602

Chapter 2: I Am Jack’s Quasi-Legal Enterprise
The Indomitable Bastards undertake a number of jobs to acquire specialty warship components through various quasi-legal means. Among their adventures is a raid on a Desert Rats base on Korolev (and meeting Kevin Quinn and Reginald Swan) and becoming entangled in the murders of several AAI corporate executives at the Hotel Artemis on Demeter.

Indomitable Bastards Chapter 2

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Indomitable Bastards Chapter 1 15 February - 10 March wy602

Chapter 1: The Assholes Shot My Hamster and Now I Can’t Breathe
After a daring rescue of their friends from Grove, the Indomitable Bastards are shot down and pursued across the moon of Myrr in the Roberts system.

Indomitable Bastards Chapter 1

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Forty Billion Humans in Whistler's Reach wy600

Population of Whistler’s Reach is an estimated 40 billion, many of whom live in artificial environments.

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  • Jack Cartwright makes the news again after exposing a ring of illegal arms smugglers that were arming resistance fighters in Grove and Helena, making an enemy of the man profiting the most from the ring.
  • Aiden Harlan continues with his research at the SAR labs on the Simmons moon of Pershing. He wins the Sagan Prize in Medicine for his groundbreaking work in cybernetics-enhanced gene therapy. Shortly thereafter, The Council begins to apply incredible pressure to end the research, and the University of Whistler board caves in, selling the extant research material to BioGen and legally sealing the lips of the team. Jack Cartwright funds an information campaign and legal team that keeps Aiden from being all but purchased by BioGen in the deal. Aiden signs on with IBI and finds himself on the Grove mission as a specialist.
  • Cara Burton is promoted to Brigade CO and is sent to Grove to pacify the rampant piracy in the system, which turns into a quagmire. Her Brigade HQ Company becomes separated and is overrun. After months on the run and believed dead, she and the remaining survivors are smuggled out of the system by a trading vessel registered to Indomitable Bastards, Inc.
  • Din Strata is transferred to the IBI Your Mother Was a Hamster, an extremely fast, low signature cargo vessel in Cartwright’s fleet. The Hamster takes Angelica Triggs onboard, jumps to Grove and rescues several elements of the CDF 2nd Marine Brigade, including Cara Burton. Din is a member of the team that tracks down the Marines at their hideout in the city of Laurel and evacuates them under cover of darkness.
  • Julian Felix is hired by IBI as a full-time attaché to Tomoe Gozen, a friend of Cartwright’s who had been receiving death threats and numerous assassination attempts for years. The pair join the ground team that rescues Cara Burton from Grove.
  • Tomoe Gozen becomes acquainted with Sarah Jessop, the head of a small publishing house, and uses the opportunity to bow out of the music business and write. The threats on her life continue, and Cartwright hires Julian Felix to lead a small private security detail. She is asked to take part in the rescue mission on Grove, using her fame to make connections on the ground to help find the stranded Marines. During the mission she meets Marie DeCourt, a prominent restaurateur in Laurel and Perry Lane, a senior officer in Grove’s office of customs and immigration.
  • Due to her familiarity with the situation (and a buried report predicting the catastrophe) Angelica Triggs is ordered to go undercover to Grove and find any survivors from the 2nd Marines. She is smuggled into the system by IBI and joins a diverse team of specialists, ultimately rescuing the hidden Marines. Her damning casework comes to light in certain circles in the Bureau and she is quietly disavowed and discharged with benefits while on the mission.
  • Daniel Eckhart survives the assault on the 2nd Brigade HQ company and spends the next several months on the run, moving from safe-house to safe-house across the continent. He is injured in a skirmish and is ultimately rescued by the team from IBI.
  • Roland Denhardt’s commission is transferred to the Marines and he is assigned to the 2nd Brigade as a gunship commander. He is shot down during the uprising and ends up making his way over the course of several weeks to the survivors of the HQ company.
  • After acting as chief counsel for Aiden Harlan’s civil rights suit against SAR and BioGen, Dirk Yang is hired as a legal advisor for Colonial Broadcast News, where he continues to provide oratory antics and admittedly profound legal opinions on the news of the day. During an impassioned (and somewhat drunken) broadcast about the extremely shaky legal ground The Council found themselves on while dealing with the Grove uprising, Dirk Yang manages to set fire to the studio, its neighboring business offices, and himself. He is treated by Aiden Harlan and accepts an offer from IBI as Associate General Counsel in order to get off-planet and out of the public eye for a time.

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  • Jack Cartwright ends up in some legal trouble amid accusations of war profiteering. He is investigated by Angelica Triggs but nothing comes of it.
  • Aiden Harlan takes over as Director of Project Monarch after his mentor Dr. Richard Lee is killed in a laboratory accident.
  • Cara Burton is promoted to Battalion CO of the Grove occupation force.
  • Din Strata is introduced to Jack Cartwright by Aiden Harlan and gets a job at Indomitable Bastards, Inc. on a long-haul cargo vessel, where his adaptability makes him a valuable member of the crew.
  • Julian Felix is nearly killed when the Naval transfer station at Freyja is attacked in force by belt pirates. After he recovers, he accepts an honorable discharge from the service.
  • As the war comes to a close, Tomoe Gozen’s music is in less demand, her sixth studio album sells less than a quarter of her priors with no hits. The attempts on her life however, do not seem to let up. During this time she meets and strikes up friendships with Jack Cartwright and Jin Ellory, the editor in chief of Alphabet Productions – the media arm of Alphabet Information Systems.
  • Introduced to Aiden Harlan during Din Strata’s convalescence, Angelica Triggs undergoes some experimental cybernetics procedures with the tacit approval of the Bureau. After her convalescence, she is assigned to investigate Jack Cartwright for war profiteering. While she uncovers little on Cartwright, her travels take her to Grove and back, where she suspects deals are being made between high level representatives of the Council and Grove that may put Whistler troops at risk.
  • Daniel Eckhart is assigned to the 2nd Brigade HQ battalion as mechanic and MP as the occupation of Grove extends into its fifth year.
  • As with many of the Indomitable survivors, Roland Denhardt is transferred off the line. He serves with Julian Felix at the Naval transfer station at Freyja. During this time, Jack Cartwright – now retired – takes a personal interest in many of the crew. Roland receives several years of periodic mentorship from the man. He receives a commission after his actions in repelling the pirate attack on the station in Wy597.
  • Dirk Yang enters a phase of parties among the Whistler elite and publishing thoughts on Colonial Law – the former become infamous for their debauchery, and many of the latter are incorporated into cases across the Reach and become required reading in law schools. IBI keeps him on retainer, and he aids Cartwright in numerous matters, including acting as outside counsel during the Bureau investigation.

Grade 2 M² Drives Enter Service wy592

The first Grade 2 M² drives enter military use, allowing two parsecs of travel in a single dive.

Unification War Ends wy590

After four decades of turmoil across eight star systems, most of the unification uprisings have been put down, but several pockets of underground resistance remain.

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  • Jack Cartwright, in command of the Indomitable, brings an end to the last real resistance of the Unification Wars, sacrificing his ship in the process. He becomes a household name but is a political hot potato. He is honorably discharged from the Navy after months of hearings. He goes on to found Indomitable Bastards, Inc, a shipping and mercantile concern.
  • Aiden Harlan is injured when his ship takes catastrophic damage from a classified source that forces the closure of the system to non-Council personnel. He retires from the Scout service and begins work for the Sagan Applied Research Group, a think-tank offshoot of the University of Whistler on a classified cybernetics/genetics project.
  • Cara Burton leads three battered companies of Marines to take control of the provisional government compound on Grove in the decisive battle that ends the Unification War. She becomes estranged from Randall, who has resigned from the Corps and becomes a public figure condemning the brutality of the Whistler Defense Force in the Unification conflicts.
  • Din Strata is promoted to Sergeant in the ESF. He is struck by drunken Dirk Yang while groundside on holiday and is grievously wounded. He is approached by Aiden Harlan and volunteers in a preliminary study of some advanced cybernetics. He spends nearly two years undergoing multiple surgeries and therapies. It is later discovered that Dirk Yang’s accident was orchestrated by a fellow lawyer who avoids prosecution.
  • Julian Felix was the navigator on duty when Jack Cartwright ordered the crippled Indomitable to ram Grove Orbital and was implicated in the resulting court martial. Cartwright’s legal team defended Felix and the charges were dropped, but his Naval career never quite recovered.
  • Tomoe Gozen continues to sustain a successful musical career, with four albums and numerous interplanetary tours, including highly-publicized performances at Grove and Jericho. She narrowly escapes several assassination attempts from unknown parties.
  • Angelica Triggs gains the reputation of being the “Sherlock Holmes” of the Bureau and spends the next several years assigned to cases thought unsolvable, where she excels. During this time she befriends Bureau Deputy Director of Operations Walter Caryle, is owed a favor by Prime Wheeler of Jericho for diffusing a disastrous political situation, and ends up on a first-name basis with Stephano Wren, the Council representative for labor in Whistler.
  • Daniel Eckhart is literally the first Marine over the wall of Laurel on Grove in the battle that dismantles the Grove provisional government. His unit receives a commendation for bravery from Commander Burton.
  • Roland Denhardt continues to serve with distinction on the Indomitable. He spends the last desperate battle over Grove in a gunship crew, moving supplies and reinforcements to the Marines on the ground and evacuating wounded.
  • Upon graduating, Dirk Yang’s influential parents secure him a junior partner at a prestigious firm in Skyward where he meets Caleb Durant, a peer at the firm who becomes extremely resentful. He orchestrates drugging Dirk Yang at a company event, ultimately causing a vehicle wreck and injuring Din Strata. Both Dirk Yang and, later, Durant, are discharged from the firm. During his down time, Dirk Yang writes a legal brief about the Cartwright Indomitable court martial that goes viral and, indeed, ultimately influences the tribunal’s decision. It is lauded by experts as one of the most profound bits of legal thinking in a generation.

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  • Jack Cartwright is promoted to Captain of the Indomitable.
  • Aiden Harlan continues to serve in the Scout Service on a long-term exploration of the Solace and Serenity systems.
  • Cara Burton is promoted to company commander of the Indomitable Marine detachment and serves with distinction during the height of the Unification War. She goes on to defeat Jack Cartwright at the Whistler championships.
  • Din Strata continues to serve in the ESF with distinction. During this time he uncovers a plot by Foxglove nationalists to destroy the Skyward Orbital Elevator and is instrumental in apprehending the perpetrators. The masterminds of the operation remain at large.
  • Julian Felix joins the Navy as the Unification War intensifies. He is stationed on WDF Indomitable as a navigator. McTavish resents his enlistment and has made Julian’s life difficult, including having him arrested once when home on leave.
  • Nineteen-year-old Tomoe Gozen’s self-published single A War By Any Other Name goes viral, rocketing her to stardom and making her a figure-head of the movement to end the Unification Conflicts (which had been going on for nearly forty years).
  • Due to staggeringly high test scores, Angelica Triggs is recruited straight out of secondary school into the Council Investigative Bureau and is trained as an agent. She is assigned to work with Din Strata in the Skyward bombing plot and cracks the case, leading to the arrests. She is immediately promoted to field agent.
  • Daniel Eckhart fails his entrance exams for the Marine Academy and manages to fail to enlist. He ends up getting work on an ice hauler making runs from the Outer Belt to Trinity station. Back and forth. Back and forth. He finally catches the recruiter on a good day and manages to enlist in the WDF Marines.
  • Roland Denhardt enlists in the WDF Navy and is stationed on the Indomitable as a gunner’s mate.
  • Dirk Yang enters the University of Whistler at Skyward’s Law program.

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  • Jack Cartwright graduates from the WDF Naval Academy with honors and enters the service as an officer of the Line. He was known as a bit of a party animal.
  • Aiden Harlan enters the University of Atlantis on Musk. During this time he befriends Jack Cartwright, who he meets at an Academy graduation party, and Alain Dubois, who would go on to become Deputy Director of Exploration for the Whistler Council after they serve together in the Scout Service.

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Jack Cartwright Enters Academy wy566

Jack Cartwright admitted to the WDF Naval Academy.

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Cara Burton Born wy560

Cara Burton born.

Aidan Harlan Born wy552

Aiden Harlan born.

The Unification War wy549

The Unification War begins, as colonies adapted to operating independently are suddenly brought under more direct Council control and mass uprisings occur across nearly every system of The Reach.

Jack Cartwright Born wy548

Jack Cartwright is born on Whistler.

Anchorage Station Established wy540

Anchorage station is established to formalize diplomatic relations between The Council and the Republic of Jericho.

Production Begins On Commercial M² Drive wy532

The Mao-MacGregor (M²) Jump Drive enters production. The drive allows ships to “dive” into trans-dimensional space for limited periods, allowing large distances to be traversed rapidly. The technology spreads to the Republic of Jericho almost immediately.

First Subspace Dive wy440

The first trans-dimensional “dive” is completed by an experimental probe. The probe travels over a parsec in six days.

Republic of Jericho Acknowledged wy423

The colony at Jericho becomes public knowledge. The Demeter colonists there, using a loophole in The Council’s manifest destiny decree of 255, declare complete independence. The Whistler High Court grudgingly agrees, and the Republic of Jericho is acknowledged as an independent political entity.

Subspace Confirmed wy415

Researchers at the University of Whistler announce the confirmation of navigable trans-dimensional space, opening an entire new branch of physics and engineering.

Last Chance Colony Established wy305

The penal colony at Little Bastard is established. One-way trips on automated sleeper ships are offered as alternatives to life imprisonment or execution for career criminals and political dissidents.

Hadean Drive Yards Loses Council Seat wy285

In a staggering upset, Hadean Drive Yards loses The Council’s “Next Generation Warship” contract to upstart Phoenix Propulsion Labs. Hadean’s balance sheet can’t survive the loss of the Council’s military contract and is slowly liquidated over the course of the next few years. In 287, The Council votes to award Phoenix Propulsion Labs with Hadean’s seat on The Council, becoming the first “native” corporation to join the ruling party.

Demeter Declares Independence 3 February wy280


On February 3rd, the people of Demeter formally request independence from The Council, which is outright refused. The Council re-tools part of the Whistler Defense Force from police actions to naval operations. On October 15th, the WDF frigate Halloren opens fire and destroys a Demeter patrol craft and mining ship for illegally trespassing on a Zijin mining claim in the Outer Belt. The resulting shooting war lasts nearly a year. Demeter’s small navy demonstrates surprising agility and technological superiority, but are ultimately crushed by the superior numbers and manufacturing base of the Whistler forces in a final battle over Feldman on August 19th, 281. The resulting peace accords allow for Demeter to self-govern to the edges of their atmosphere. A permanent naval picket is established in orbit, based on New Luna. Unbeknownst to The Council at the time, during the conflict a large number of sleeper ships were sent from Demeter to settle on a habitable world around Jericho.

Colonies Spread Across The Reach wy275

Sleeper ships have enabled the establishment of human colonies at most of Whistler’s stellar neighbors.

The Council's Magna Carta wy255

The Council formally declares jurisdiction over all human colonies that originate from the Whistler settlers.

Grove Colonized wy250

The Council funds the establishment of a permanent human colony at Grove.

Demeter Shipyards Come Online wy230

Longbow Systems establishes a shipyard above Demeter. Concerned about Demeter’s growing independence, The Council funds the creation of Trinity Station around Yang.

Colony Surpasses One Billion wy227

The billionth human in Whistler’s Reach is born.

First Commercial Sleeper Ships wy225

Hadean Drive Yards and NewCryo-AutoDoc launch the first commercial sleeper ships. Within the next five years, manned expeditions begin to Whistler’s neighboring stars.

End of Colonial Control wy200

The Council declares the end of the “Establishment Phase”, relieving several draconian regulations designed to establish a sustainable colony in an orderly fashion. The Exchange opens, creating Whistler’s first commodities market. Mining and agriculture are turned over to private control. Hadean Drive Yards begins producing starships for commercial purchase. Commercial bases and private homesteads begin cropping up all through the system.

Labor Gains Representation on The Council wy175

Zijin workers unionize and demand representation on The Council. After several years of violence and walk-outs, The Council adds the demanded voting seat.

Hole Spun Up wy150

Hole is spun up, establishing a base of operations for mining in the Inner Belt.

Demeter Colonized wy120

The first permanent colony on Demeter is established at Thermasia.

The "Hall Pass" Ends wy100

The Council ends the “100-Year Hall Pass” and bans unchecked exploitation of Whistler’s habitable worlds. Belt mining ramps up in earnest.

First Election wy50

First democratic election for Minister of The Council is held. Phillipa Yeoh is elected in a landslide.

Whistler Explored wy35

Human explorers have set foot on all planets orbiting Whistler.

Dock One Completed wy25

Hadean Drive Yards completes Dock One and begins constructing Korolev drive ships. High speed probes dispatched to all the stars in the sub-sector.

Agriculture Base Established wy20

Population begins exploding using imported genetic material and a rigorous breeding program.

Zenophage One Strikes wy10

Zenophage One kills two thousand colonists.  The BioGen science team pioneers a method for rapid-development of tailored xeno-antibiotics.

Leif Eriksson Arrives at Whistler 19 April, 9649 (wy0)

Her deceleration burn ended 7,502 years (17 relative) after leaving Sol (AD 9649).

The Gulf (7,502 Years In Transit)

Leif Eriksson Sets Sail for Whistler 8 February 2147

Lifeboat 5, christened the Leif Eriksson, begins her burn for Whistler on February 8th, 2147.

Global Collapse Begins 18 July 2080

Coastal flooding causes the collapse of the global markets.  Diseases begin to ravage agriculture and humanity alike.  Complete ecological collapse is predicted.  Estimates predict that within 250 years Earth will not be able to support more than a billion people.

Korolev Drive Enters Production 1 October, 2075

The Korolev Hydrogen Drive becomes commercially available, opening up the solar system for commerce and discovery in unprecedented ways. Commercial colonization and exploration explodes.

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