A Commonwealth Timeline

The Long Night: The Fall of the Commonwealth and aftermath

CY 9784 After years of planning, a coalition of Nietzschean-led forces launch a sneak attack on the High Guard, their intent to overthrow the Systems Commonwealth and replace it with a Nietzschean-dominated empire. High Guard and Home Guard facilities on over 500 worlds are simultaneously attacked, resulting in the destruction in homeport of nearly half the Argosy fleet. Empress Sucharitkul XII is assassinated when her royal barge is ambushed by a Nietzschean strike force, Earth is bombarded from orbit, and an attempt to seize San-Ska-Re is repulsed by Than-led Home Guard units, with heavy casualties on both sides.

CY 9785 The Commonwealth's civil war continues, with the Nietzscheans foiling a High Guard counteroffensive at the Acheron Delta. And in a devastating blow to Commonwealth morale, Tarn-Vedra is abruptly cut off from the Slipstream, by methods unknown. Most of the inhabited worlds in the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies fall to the Nietzscheans, leaving San-Ska-Re as the Commonwealth's provisional capital.

CY 9786 The last battle of the Commonwealth Civil War is fought at the Witchhead Nebula when High Guard ships are ambushed by a larger Nietzschean fleet. The two fleets destroy each other almost completely.
Shortly afterward, the Magog cross the Quarantine Zone in strength and numbers never imagined. Swarm fleets roam all of known space, indiscriminately attacking Nietzschean and former Commonwealth worlds alike. With no central political authority remaining and reliable interstellar communications only a memory, individual worlds are left to fend for themselves.

CY 9787 Weakened by the war to overthrow the Commonwealth, the ruling Nietzschean Drago-Kazov Pride is betrayed and attacked by Pride Jaguar. The Nietzschean alliance is shattered, and instead of replacing the Commonwealth with a Nietzschean empire, chaos reigns instead. Fountainhead is rendered uninhabitable by orbital bombardment, which historical records attribute either to a Pride Jaguar attack or a final act of vengeance from a remaining High Guard starship. The remains of Nietzschean Progentior Drago Museveni are recovered and entrusted to Kodiak Pride, one of Drago-Kazov Pride's allies.

CY 9795 Hoping to restore interstellar trade and commerce, a group of large corporations found the Free Trade Alliance to defend and advance their interests.

CY 9797 During one of the many Magog raids on Earth, a human holy man is paralyzed and implanted with Magog eggs. Miraculously, the human remains conscious, and he spends the incubation period speaking to his Magog captor about various human religions and philosophies. Inspired by the words of his victim, the Magog renounces violence and founds the People of the Way, with his newborn progeny as the new religion’s first converts. Many humans, Than, Perseids, and others—even a small minority of Magog—flock to this new amalgam of belief systems, and spread its gospel of peace and hope throughout known space.

CY 9856 With the Commonwealth gone, a collection of Than planets resurrects its previous government, the Than Hegemony, which establishes control over most majority-Than worlds. Other species continue to live among the Than, which control the most stable swath of known space, and most adapt remarkably well to Than social structures.

CY 9888 –9909 An epidemic of Triangulum measles sweeps across known space, followed by a host of other infectious and contagious diseases, many of which had been easily treatable in the Commonwealth era. Populations on inhabited worlds are reduced by as much as 90 percent, and many of the few remaining social and economic structures are swept away.

CY 9956 The so-called "Mad Perseid" Hasturi claims to have navigated to Tarn-Vedra and returned safely, but his extravagant claims are dismissed as the addled boasts of a mind distorted by spending too long in the Slipstream. After Hasturi's death, his ship log is lost and presumed destroyed.

CY 10065 The still-powerful Drago-Kazov Pride betrays its Kodiak Pride allies and seizes the remains of the Progenitor from them. Kodiak Pride is exterminated, and the Progenitor's remains are relocated to Enga’s Redoubt, the Drago-Kazov homeworld.

CY 10070 The Castalian people overthrow their Nietzschean rulers and establish a democratic government, led by former resistance leader Chancellor Lee.

CY 10083 Across the Milky Way galaxy, a wave of vicious attacks on starships and drift colonies commences by parties unknown. The attacks continue and intensify to the present day.

CY 10087 A salvage party retrieves the High Guard starship Andromeda Ascendant from the edge of a black hole in the Hephaistos System. The ship's surviving captain Dylan Hunt (frozen in time for over 300 years by the freak interaction of the black hole's gravity well and his ship's AG field) declares his intention to restore the Systems Commonwealth to its former glory.