A Brief Introduction to Coriolis: The Third Horizon
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE THIRD HORIZON
A thousand cycles ago the first generation ships were launched from Al-Ardha towards the distant stars. Among these ships two, the Zenith and the Nadir, were launched towards the star Dabaran. At slower-than-light speeds, the great arks were to travel hundreds of cycles through the emptiness of space before reaching their destination.
Soon, however, a number of portals were discovered in the vicinity of Al-Ardha. These portals led to a network of interconnected star systems, collectively called the Horizons. This gave rise to the exploration and colonization of the First and Second Horizons. Little factual knowledge of that era remains, but it's a fact that at one point in time a bloody war began between the imperialistic First Horizon and the independance-seeking Second Horizon.
About five hundred cycles ago fortune seekers, religious dissidents and rebels were the first ones to arrive at the newly discovered Third Horizon. None of them had any love for the empire-builders of the First Horizon, or any means of competing for resources in the rapidly overcrowding Second Horizon. These Firstcome laid the foundation for the Third Horizon of today, colonizing the larger systems, building magnificent cities and creating a free and tolerant new order. It was the Firstcome who introduced the Third Horizon to the Icons and the Dark between the Stars, the largest religion of the region today. It was a civilized era. There was peace and commerce between the peoples, cultures flourished and evolved. But like all good things, the peace couldn't last forever.
How and why the Portal Wars began, no one really knows anymore, but the enmity between the first two Horizons spilled over into the Third Horizon. After a long and bloody campaign, the peoples of the Third Horizon managed to push their enemies into the Odacon system, where whole fleets and eventually the entire system were destroyed. The Third Horizon emerged victorious, but the portals back to the older Horizons collapsed, cutting the Third Horizon off forever. The portals connecting the systems of the Third Horizon still worked, but trade diminished rapidly. Many cultures became planet-bound. Thus began the Long Night, an era of darkness, isolation and decay.
It was in this period of time that the Zenith, launched from Al-Ardha a millenium ago, finally reached the Dabaran system, while its twin ship, the Nadir, was lost in the darkness of space forever. The crew of the Zenith were astounded to find that mankind had already colonized the system more than five hundred cycles earlier. Moreover, thirty-six linked star systems were home to a myriad of scattered outposts and colonies. The crew eventually put their ship in orbit above Kua, debating the future of the failed colonization effort while the colonists were kept in stasis. The captain family, the Quassars, proposed to carry out the mission despite the new situation, while others, led by the Yriedes family, argued that everyone should be free to decide for themselves – the directives were redundant and thus, the contract void. A third faction within the crew lost patience as the discussions dragged on, and woke the colonists from stasis on their own.
Complete disorder seemed imminent, and the captain of the Zenith responded to the threat of mutiny by offering all crew and colonists the choice to go wherever they pleased and to bring with them the resources they needed for survival. The Quassar family themselves descended to the planet below and founded a colony there. The remains of the Zenith, meanwhile, became the basis for the construction of Coriolis, a giant space station dominated from the very beginning by the Yriedes clan and their faction, the Consortium.
The Consortium began opening the trade routes again, with Coriolis station becoming a place where the Firstcome groups, long isolated from each other, could meet and interact with the newcomers, the Zenithians. From their remote headquarters, possessing strange knowledge and mythical technology to back up their ideological strength, many factions sent representatives to Coriolis. With few exceptions, they all bought seats on the station's political council to try and influence the fragile, reborn Horizon to their factions' benefit. This became the foundation of the Council of Factions.