In 2022, the accidental explosion of an experimental gate device that allows for hyperspace travel seriously damages the Moon, causing a drift of a swarm of meteorites and asteroids to bombard the surface of the planet Earth, wiping out much of the population. The survivors then abandoned the now inhospitable planet to colonize new habitable systems: Mars, Venus, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter's satellites. By 2071, the technology of the Astral Gates had stabilized and developed thriving civilizations on many of these planets, most notably Mars, the new hub of human civilization.
