Prologue

Approximately 5,000 years after humanity headed out into the far reaches of space, on the stage called the Perseus Arm – a place thousands of light-years away from Earth – begins the legendary exploits of then-Officer Cadet Clifford Cuthbert Collingwood; the man who would be later called “Cliff Edge”.

Albion Kingdom Officer Cadet Clifford Cuthbert Collingwood was assigned to Bluebell 34; a sloop that primarily served in patrol operations.

While struggling with a life that was quite different from the one he led in the kingdom’s military academy, he strove to become a proper officer. The Bluebell was then assigned a mission to search for a merchant ship that went missing in the Tribune system.

There in the Tribune system loomed the shadow of the Albion kingdom’s age-old nemesis, the Zonfa Republic.

The Bluebell crew then found themselves forced to conduct an infiltration operation on an enemy base despite not being part of the kingdom army who were the ones specialized for ground operations. It was here that young Clifford experienced his first taste of combat that marked the beginning of his meteoric rise through the ranks.

***

Characters:

Clifford Cuthbert Collingwood: Cadet, 19 years old

Elmer Myers: Captain of Bluebell 34, Major, 28 years old

Anabella Gresham: Deputy Captain, Lieutenant, 26 years old

Brandon Denzel: Navigator, Lieutenant, 27 years old

Olga Lawton: Tactical Officer, Lieutenant, 28 years old

Filana Quin: Information Officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade, 24 years old

Derrick Thompson: Chief Engineer, Lieutenant, 39 years old

Bernard Hopkins: Military Surgeon, Lieutenant, 35 years old

Nadia Nicole: First Mate, Lieutenant Junior Grade, 23 years old

Samuel Langford: Corporal, 20 years old

Amelia Anvil: Helmsman, Chief Petty Officer, 35 years old

Ted Palmer: Gunnery Officer, Petty Officer Second Class, 31 years old

Hazel Jenkins: Gunnery Officer, Petty Officer Third Class, 26 years old

Wang Li: Captain of the Zonfa Republic’s armed merchant ship P-331

Guan Feng: P-331’s Chief Navigator

Kao Lulin: Brigadier General of the Zonfa Republic Armed Forces, commander of the Kowloon privateer base

***

Starting from the year 2000 AD, humanity was faced with various problems such as unchecked population growth, environmental issues, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor in various regions of Earth with ever-increasing intensity.

In the advent of year 2100 AD, the long-awaited full-scale advance into space was finally achieved, and humanity conducted major expeditions to the moon, Mars, and a number of Jupiter’s satellites in rapid succession.

Humans procured a staggering amount of raw materials and goods from those celestial bodies, and the space colonies established around Earth used them to enjoy a booming period of prosperity. It seemed that many of the problems that had plagued Earth for centuries have finally been resolved.

In AD 2200, many colonial cities were built on the satellites of various outer planets such as Jupiter and Saturn. They centered their development on the provision of goods related to energy supply, such as raw materials and fuel. However, due to this, their power and influence steadily grew as well.

In AD 2235, conflict finally broke out between the Outer Planets Coalition that was led by Jupiter’s satellite colonies and the Earth-Mars Alliance.

At first, the militarily inferior Outer Planets Coalition attempted to conduct economic warfare with the goal of forcing their opponents to the negotiating table, but the Earth-Mars Alliance opted for a more direct and forceful approach. In other words, they chose to employ their full military might. As a result, in just three years after the opening of hostilities, the first civil war conducted in space in humanity’s history concluded with the Outer Planets Coalition’s defeat.

However, this brutal civil war had another aspect to it. And that is the rapid development of technology.

Humanity was able to obtain a working faster-than-light navigation theory and annihilation system in just 50 years. Then, due to the need to meet various demands for the process of reconstruction after the long and gruelling civil war, humanity finally started looking beyond the Solar system.

The means to travel at speeds faster than light was called the FTL Drive system (FTLD), and was sometimes simply called the jump drive.

The FTLD was capable of using a Jump Point (JP) within one star system in order to move to adjacent systems at faster-than-light speeds. It was a truly revolutionary and epoch-making invention that enabled humanity to cover a maximum travel distance of 10 parsecs (about 32.6 light-years) in just a short ten days.

Since JPs were usually located at the outer edges of each star system, it still required quite a few days of sub-light navigation to reach them, but that wasn’t much cause for concern for the human race that was – at that point – still confined to their native Solar system.

In the early 2300s, humanity finally began its advance to the Alpha Centauri system.

After successfully carving out a new frontier outside the Solar System, people flocked to various systems located within Orion Arm such as the Sirius system in a frenzy that far outstripped that of the American Gold Rush.

In AD 2500, humanity had already advanced to fifty star systems, and subsequently founded the Galactic Federation (USG), with the Solar system as its capital and main seat of power. The Anno Domini (AD) era was succeeded by the Space Era (SE), marking a brand new start for humankind.

Afterward, the number of participating star systems steadily increased every time a system colony met the required standards, and come SE 300, there were already more than 100 member systems, with the total population exceeding 100 billion.

Around SE 700, an independence movement that opposed the Solar System Coalition – the main ruling body of the USG – broke out in the Astarte system.

Oppressed star systems joined them one after another, and it escalated into a great conflict called the First Galactic Upheaval.

The conflict lasted for about a hundred years, with victory eventually going to the rebels led by the Astarte system.

The Galactic Empire (GE), later called the First Empire, was then founded by Akram Hardy, who was the chief consul of the Astarte system at the time.

After SE 801, the era was changed once again to the Galactic Common era (GC).

However, the turmoil that lasted for over a hundred years left a deep scar on humankind.

The total population which once reached over 100 billion was reduced to 30 billion, and many star systems were left utterly ruined. Also, much of the non-military technology, especially those related to the civilian sector, was lost.

However, at the beginning of the empire’s founding, many policies aimed at recovery after the war were implemented, and considerable effort was focused on the development of space exploration technology and the further development of Orion Arm.

This era of recovery and expansion continued until around GC 500 (SE 1300), and in GC 508 (SE 1308), another revolutionary leap in faster-than-light navigation technology heralded the invention of the Hyper Gate System (HGS). It was then quickly put into practical use.

Previously, the maximum theoretical travel distance was limited to 10 parsecs (32.6 light-years), but the HGS allowed humanity to reach distances more than ten times that of the FTLD while reducing travel duration up to several hundred times. It was yet again another epoch-making invention.

The HGS required gates to be installed at both the original location and the travel destination beforehand, but once that was done, it would allow navigation at a distance of a hundred parsecs or more.

Furthermore, since navigation speed within hyperspace was about ten times faster than conventional FTLD, an extensive HGS network could be built rapidly.

Come GC 1100 (SE 1900), humankind finally advanced to the Perseus Arm, which was about 4000 light-years away from the Orion Arm.

At that point, the total population of humankind had ballooned once more and eventually reached the staggering number of more than 200 billion, eclipsing the heyday of the Galactic Federation.

However, due to the unreasonable conditions imposed upon the populace in order to rapidly construct the HGS network, dark clouds began looming over the First Empire which had stood tall for more than a thousand years. Cracks started creeping upon its once-unwavering foundation, heralding an eventual collapse.

At the start of GC 1200 (SE 2000), a civil war broke out in the Orion Arm.

Emperor Amir VII was assassinated, and what followed was a period of warring states in which each star system formed into several rival groups and waged war against one another. The ensuing 200-year war took a great toll on the HGS network, eventually making it difficult to maintain HGS technology itself.

Around GC 1400 (SE 2200), the Taranis system soldier Richard Dumoulin finally managed to unify the Orion Arm, and the ruling body he established was later called the Second Empire.

Even though it was called the Second Empire, each star system insisted on their status as princely states, and the empire was constantly plagued by insurrections caused by these states. Due to these constant rebellions, the ruling emperor’s authority declined in just a short few decades, and the imperial family spent several centuries trying desperately to hold on to their authority over the Orion Arm.

On the other hand, the Perseus Arm was eventually cut off from the Orion Arm a mere two centuries after they finished beginning to terraform all the suitable planets they’ve discovered at that point.

To make matters worse, the disruption of the HGS network made it also impossible to maintain such a system in the Perseus Arm, making it difficult for those from the Perseus Arm who weren’t involved with the princely states to get in contact with other star systems hundreds of parsecs away.

Many planets were abandoned in the middle of terraforming due to the loss of communication between the star systems. Even planets that already had an immigrant population weren’t spared from the crisis. Many of them were wiped out due to the lack of support in the early stages of their development.

Come SE 2500, the Second Empire, which managed to somehow survive until then, finally collapsed completely. And so, Orion Arm was plunged into an age of constant war once again.

After a long period of wars, at around SE 3000, the ancient Solar System Coalition reinstated themselves once more after more than 2000 years. They dubbed themselves the Second Galactic Federation (USGII). However, the scars wrought by prolonged wars were great, and the total population was now only a tenth of its peak, at a low 20 billion.

*Note: They didn’t intend to call themselves the Second Galactic Federation at first because they viewed themselves as its legitimate successors, but they settled for USGII in the end to avoid confusion.

USGII aimed to revive various scientific fields, including the study of HGS technology. However, by that time, the level of technology other than those related to weapons of war had already declined greatly, and the basic foundations took a particularly significant hit. Therefore, the fragmented HGS network never got to be restored.

The USGII led by the Solar System Coalition sent the remaining people of Earth to Perseus Arm in the name of preservation of the species.

Because the HGS network was fragmented and incomplete, it was extremely difficult to travel from the Orion Arm to the Perseus Arm. But around SE 3300, some immigrants finally managed to reach dozens of star systems there and eventually settled down.

In SE 3500, the USGII, whose ailing HGS network finally stopped functioning, was left incapable of governing a vast territory and lost its ability to function as a unified government body as a consequence. It eventually collapsed in the Orion Arm.

A thousand years after the collapse of the USGII, no other governing body had emerged to unify humanity. And so, the remaining few contact points between the Orion Arm and the Perseus Arm were eventually lost as well.

This story is set in SE 4500, in the outer reaches of the Perseus Arm.