The march of civilisation presses ever on. If the first person to refine energy into a fire to heat their food could see the starships we have before you today, their amazement would outweigh even mine…

– From a speech at the launch ceremony of the C.S.S. Curiosity

While the world is now at peace, it wasn’t always so. Early civilisation was a picture of nations at war, monarchs and chieftains leading ever larger and more powerful armies in their quest for domination. New ways to refine the elements were discovered, new strategies for how to use these technologies developed. Empires rose and fell, borders shifted back and forth, and the map was one of a world constantly at war.

For ordinary people though, the quarrels of their leaders were barely relevant. Far more than honour, or glory, the people concerned themselves with the practical matters of life: cultivating land, manipulating elements, gathering wealth and comforts. None of them things war is known for helping.

While the world expanded, so did the scope of trade and industry, and the guilds that had sprung up to regulate them grew in power as it did. As they became more powerful, so too did they become more irate with the constant petty squabbles of the monarchies. Eventually, and with the help of those resistant to monarchical rule for their own reasons, the guilds were able to enforce limits on the power of their rulers.Over time, any nominal power they still had simply faded into the background.

With the new world order led by a variety of interest groups – primarily the mercantile and industrial guilds, but also the churches and universities – society as a whole turned towards gathering wealth and advancing knowledge. What followed was several solid centuries of economic and technological advancement, and the population boom to go with it. Soon, civilisation covered every corner of the globe.

More people meant more mouths to feed, and less land per person to feed them. Larger-scale technology meant greater need for those precious minerals aspected most clearly toward the elements. Humanity managed for a time, but soon found itself running out of resources – and so its gaze turned to the stars.

As some people have always found themselves most drawn to look at the elements through the lens of the body, and others through the physical lens, there have always been those who saw the elements as something more fundamental than that. It was in turning to the stars that these people came into their own, running and navigating ships through the cosmos. At first, humanity stayed within the solar system, but the other planets were inhospitable for anything more than mining operations. Scientists began to look further afield, to alien stars.

They found a planet in a system that looked likely to support human life. Initial testing suggested that this was the case, and so an expedition was prepared, and launched…