Lore
How humanity left a dying Sun, and what it found ten and a half light-years away.
Astronomers investigating disturbances in Neptune's orbit discover the horrifying truth.
A black hole eight times the mass of the Sun is hurtling toward the Solar System.
It will reach the planetary system in roughly 110 years.
When it arrives, planetary orbits will destabilize and the asteroid and Kuiper belts will be scattered across the system.
Nothing in Sol will remain reliably habitable.
Humanity has one option.
Escape.
Only one known world offers a realistic destination.
Epsilon Terra orbits Epsilon Eridani, 10.5 light-years away. It appears to have liquid water, a breathable atmosphere and gravity close to Earth's.
Nobody knows whether it is truly safe.
It is simply the only chance humanity has.
Governments and major corporations combine their fusion and aerospace programs into Daedalus Interstellar.
Its mission is to make interstellar evacuation possible.
Over the following century, Daedalus becomes the dominant force in fusion propulsion, orbital construction and deep-space industry.
The company created to save humanity eventually becomes powerful enough to rival the governments that created it.
Humanity begins transforming the Solar System into a vast shipyard.
Lunar mines expand. Asteroids are dismantled. Orbital factories multiply.
Early interstellar drives are enormous, inefficient and slow.
But they work.
And that is enough.
The first colony ships begin leaving decades before the black hole arrives.
They are primitive by later standards.
Some expect crossings of 100 years or more.
The people aboard know that many of the adults who leave Earth will never reach Epsilon.
Later ships become steadily faster.
Thousands of ships depart over roughly eighty years.
Their technology varies enormously.
An early ship might require 100–110 years to reach Epsilon.
A ship built decades later might make the crossing in 70 years.
Later vessels manage 50 years.
The most advanced ships eventually approach 30–40 years.
This creates the great convergence.
Ships launched generations apart begin arriving at Epsilon within only a few years of one another.
A century-old generation ship may arrive beside a vessel whose passengers still personally remember Earth.
Daedalus waits.
For nearly a century it improves its technology while building engines for everyone else.
Then it keeps the best one for itself.
Its expedition carries the company's senior leadership, top scientists, engineers, specialists, security forces and their families.
It also carries the industrial equipment necessary to rebuild Daedalus around another star.
Its crossing takes only 30 years.
The fastest known journey of the Exodus.
Earth's remaining governments realize Daedalus intends to reach Epsilon first and establish control.
They create the Epsilon Charter — CHRT.
The Charter carries administrators, scientists, military personnel and marines aboard one of the fastest government vessels ever constructed.
It cannot beat Daedalus.
But it intends to arrive close behind.
The century of preparation ends.
The black hole enters the planetary system.
Planetary orbits begin to collapse.
Asteroids and comets are thrown inward.
Earth, Mars, the moons and humanity's remaining settlements are subjected to catastrophic bombardment.
The final desperate ships launch.
Then Sol begins to die.
The surviving Exodus ships continue receiving transmissions for several years.
The final confirmed signal from Sol is recorded in 2177.
After that, there is nothing.
Thirty years after leaving Earth, Daedalus Interstellar reaches Epsilon Eridani.
Epsilon Terra is real.
Daedalus immediately begins establishing industry and claiming territory.
CHRT arrives and rejects Daedalus's claim to Epsilon Terra.
A short war follows.
The Charter forces Daedalus from much of the planet, but neither side can destroy the other without risking catastrophic losses.
Epsilon Terra becomes contested territory.
A cold war begins.
Then everyone else begins arriving.
Some ships left Earth more than a century ago.
Others departed only decades earlier.
Some populations have lived aboard ships for generations.
Others contain people who still remember Earth.
Governments, corporations, refugees, cults, militaries, religious colonies, traders and societies transformed by generations in isolation all arrive within the same period.
Some ships carry thousands.
Some carry hundreds.
Some arrive empty.
DAED and CHRT remain locked in a cold war over Epsilon Terra.
New factions establish themselves throughout the system.
More ships continue to arrive.
And unidentified craft have begun appearing near human settlements.
They do not communicate.
They do not attack.
They simply watch.
And each time they return, they come closer.