Late in the year 2068, in what was to become the last mission for the United States program called NASA, the U.S.S. Mongol remote space probes were launched from the Space Station Gateway to conduct an extremely detailed gravitational survey of the solar system. The NASA researchers were beginning an intensive study of the Sol star system, in hopes of refining the technology of interstellar travel. Due to an upcoming planetary and gravitational alignment of the planets in the Sol system, and an increase in X class solar flares, this allowed for the detection of lanes or channels of never before detected particles radiating out from the sun. A scant four months of research revealed these lanes revealed them to be composed of Tachyons. Scientists had been unable to prove their existence up until then.
In 2070 Dr. Emille Keflen made the breakthrough. He had found the lanes of tachyons radiating out from the sun acted like focused channels. If an energy infused frame were introduced into one of the lanes it was accelerated to near light speed. This breakthrough open up the solar system to commercial exploitation, and soon after that, extra-solar exploration.
The United States ended their government space program in 2073. The Euro-Asian compact formed in 2069, reorganized itself and renamed itself the Terran Combine Nation states, or The Terran Combine for short. The Combine would pick up exploration where The United States had left off. In 2075 it christened the TCS Mobius, it's first exploration survey ship capable of interstellar travel using the newly developed Keflen tachyon drive.
Rampant overpopulation and advancements in medical life extension technologies fueled the next 150 years of colonization. Now, 393 years after Dr. Keflen's breakthrough, the Combine has colonized nearly 40 star systems. It now takes a mere eight days to reach the farthest settled system from Sol. Trade between star systems is commonplace, lucrative, and quite frequently a dangerous enterprise.
Edit: Apparently, no one was interested. Whatev.
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