60c-62c: First Contact

With the establishment of the new, enlightened Reunification republic, humanity again began exploring interstellar space. The early impetus for this was to rediscover worlds lost during the Second Decline, and not necessarily to explore new systems. Still, with the unreliability of the charts and encyclopedic information that was left to them after twelve centuries, the two goals became intertwined.

The entire direction of the growing republic; indeed, its entire foundation, were altered with the discovery of the first intelligent alien species. Despite the largely peaceful nature of the republic, this first meeting, and most of the early ones after it were not friendly. The aliens viewed humanity as an expansionist power invading their space, and the republic’s military viewed the hostility of the aliens as a sign of an inevitable war to follow.

In time, as the communication barrier was brought down, diplomats from both species managed to come to terms with each other. The aliens used a new and radical type of FTL for which there was no theoretical foundation in humanity’s long history in space. For much of humanity the initial fear and xenophobia gave way to a new era of hope, and, somewhat more troubling, of a nearly religious view on the aliens.

The only dark note in this era was that which troubled the leadership and many scientists, that the aliens seemed quite reticient to reveal the nature of their advanced technologies. Most people seemed to believe this was largely because the aliens viewed us as a somewhat inferior, more volatile species, and did not want to give humans technologies that might disturb interstellar peace