The Lost Federation

After the development of the Alcubierre warp drive, there was a period of consolidation where colonies already established at wormhole junctions sought to create a network of support and resource colonies in local star systems, this resulted in tension as they came into conflict with each other.  When wormhole travel was the only viable means if interstellar travel, these worlds had little need for military fleets, as it was extremely difficult to project power through a wormhole.  Now, with the new means of travel, colonies found that they were attempting to exploit the same locations and an arms race began. 

Soon, every world that was able was building war fleets to grab as much territory as possible, those that were unable had a choice between tying themselves voluntarily to a great power, or waiting to be conquered by one.  This period was one of constant border skirmishing punctuated with major interstellar wars. 

The pattern of human history could have continue this way, escalating until planetary genocide became a legitimate war aim.  However, an extraordinary thing happened, the leaders of one great power, after the successful conclusion of one of these conflicts, voluntarily relinquished their territorial gains and sent an open invitation to all worlds to come together and negotiate a general peace.

If the invitation had been to come to their homeworld, it very likely would have been rejected out of hand, but instead it asked all delegations to come to Earth.  Earth had long since ceased to be a political factor, between the collapse of its industrial capacity due to mass emigration, and the depletion of its easily obtained natural resources, Earth had become a quite backwater slowly regenerating its environment after millenia of abuse from humans.

Thousands of delegates from almost every human world descended on the ancient city of Geneva and remained there for almost two years.  The original stated goal was to attempt to halt the spread of aggressive war, by the end they, with the full acclaim of their respective governments and people, had formed a new unified human nation; the Terran Federation.

New Geneva, the Capital City of the Federation,
seen here at the height of the expansion period.

From this seminal moment in history, a new age of exploration and scientific discovery began.  Human traders and emissaries were sent out to make contact with every alien civilization yet discovered.  Where peace was possible, bonds of friendship and commerce were forged with an eye towards mutual benefit, where it was not possible, the combined might of all the thousand worlds of mankind defied even the eldest races to stand against them.

This golden age lasted almost seven hundred years, in that time, mankind stretched his hand across fully a tenth of the Orion arm of the galaxy and enormous advances in science and technology had been made.  The citizens of the Federation were happy and prosperous, they did not realize how much their success rankled some of the other species of the galaxy, and they could not know what trials lay ahead for them.