Explain the Hibourverse why not?
Okay
Website -> https://hibourverse.com/
Truncated Synopsis:
The alternate history diverges around the time humanity was painting on cave walls. In the binary Spica system, about 260 light years away in Virgo, Spica A went supernova. After the cataclysm, the Spica system consisted of a rapidly spinning neutron star and what remained of Spica B. Descriptions of the nebula in Virgo date back to the very start of record keeping.
1960-2180 was a period of chaotic space expansion. Motivations varied, but soon humanity saw independent nation states in cislunar, Mars sphere, Jupiter, Saturn and everywhere in between. Fusion and fission power permitted humanity to thrive in the void, which was fortunate because...
In 2181 a relativistic impactor struck the North Atlantic. Originating from Virgo, the catastrophe eventually cost 2/3 of humanity both on and off planet. Many space nations barely survived the brief dark age that followed. Humanity scrambled to find footing in the solar system.
Luna and the gas giants emerged as concentrated spheres of humanity, with Luna retaining most surviving seats of Earth governments and the only military force. Industrialization resumed and reconstituted mega-corporations positioned themselves to profit off the impending growth.
Commercial empires, rivaling the power of many nation states, quickly developed the base of industry to build massive cities, constellations of ships and material infrastructure to push humanity beyond the biological baseline at the consumer level.
Brand specific babies found popularity as companies perfected genetic traits over multiple generations. Human divergence became a concern in the traditionalist systems of Luna, Jupiter and the Solar Empire. The outer solar system, facing rapid growth, began to isolate itself.
Political upheaval beyond Neptune required intervention, but Luna could never respond at such great distances, especially as the remote, fractured states of the high orbits began unifying. They called it the Kuiper Alliance, and transhumanism was a founding ideal.
The Alliance offered terms. Independence for the worlds at Neptune and beyond, the right to defense, the right to sustain those genomes who already existed... at the expense of a freeze on all further post-human development and a mutual defense policy... a check on Jupiter.
Denouncing perceived betrayal by Luna and the inner worlds, the Galilean Federation (Jupiter and all politically associated spheres) began rapid militarization and unification. The Federation made territorial claims owed from the early expansion era, prior to the loss of Earth.
Turbulent is the situation. The Kuiper Alliance, although massive, is fractured in it's response to Jupiter. Likewise the nations of Luna struggle to unify a response from the inner solar system as old allies cede to neutrality under the threat of a devastating war.
In the high orbits, the worlds of the Alliance are content to pursue their own diversified prosperity, expanding ever higher into the dark, abyssal Oort. It's from within these transhumanist cultures that stories of strange and consistent visions have permeated.
Originally thought to be the ravings of fringe society lunatics, these stories were lent credibility when it was discovered that clandestine, government and commercial organizations were contacting and tracking those affected, often at great expense.
Now, the public is on the lookout for sleeping or waking dreams with consistent themes. Images of neutron stars, an overwhelming presence and most unnerving of all... images of the North Atlantic impact of 2181. "The gods are among us" some people now say.
So here we are, somewhere between war, gods and an ever diluted destiny. The historic seat of humanity wanes. The cultures of Sol grow diverse and unsympathetic towards baseline. Jupiter fights for relevance and power.
And the eye of Virgo watches...
//There's about 400 years of alternate history (or ~20,000, depending on how you measure) crammed into one post!