The Crider Chronicles

The history of the First Confederation in fact goes back almost a hundred years prior to the formal beginning of the Confederate government. In 2130, a young French-English scientist named Hiram Eugene was working at the Institut National de Physique Nucl ' aire et de Physique des Particules in France. The Institut was doing pioneering work in anti-matter and string/counterstring physics, but it took the imagination and creative urge of young Gellar to take the work to the next level.

Gellar inhabited an Earth in transition, not long after the Third World War. The United States remained the planet ' s primary power, having retained an almost two-century primacy in economic and military might. Sub-Saharan Africa had been devastated by brush wars and plague, China ' s population was recovering from the Chinese Civil War and Russia was once again emerging as an economic power following huge oil and power metal finds in Siberia.

Europe was still recovering from the Third World War, but France -- now a state in the European community -- was becoming a center of physics research, mostly aimed at exploring alternative energy sources for a world rapidly running short of resources.

Gellar ' s invention would very quickly change everything.

Morris/Handel, "A History of the First Galactic Confederacy," University Publications, 2804CE


Following are selected excerpts from Morris/Handel, "A History of the First Galactic Confederacy," University Publications, 2804CE and selected news media from the Pre-Galactic era.

Morris/Handel: 2041-2044, the Third World War

While the international tensions that led up to the Third World War are generally accepted to have begun with the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, the base causes of the conflict began long before. Decades of instability in the oil-rich Persian Gulf nations along with a persistent religious fanaticism rooted in the area had given rise to a number of extremist/terror groups dedicated to spreading chaos through the region and early in the twenty-first century, around the world.

Following the September 11th attack, the United States -- by then Earth ' s only major military power -- reacted swiftly, invading and crushing the southwest Asian nation of Afghanistan. Afghanistan ' s ruling Taliban government had provided resources and refuge to the group behind the September 11th attacks. The overthrow of the Taliban, followed two years later by the demise of Iraq ' s dictator, Saddam Hussein, started a democratization trend in the Middle East that spread to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the next twenty years. Democratization did not, however, spread past those four nations until after the Third World War.

July 14th, 2041 saw another major terrorist attack, this time in Paris. The Bastille Day bombing attacks killed over 4,800 Parisians and destroyed the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph, along with several newer buildings and landmarks. The European Union, then a reluctant partner in the west ' s attempts to democratize the Middle East, promptly voted to authorize sending EU forces to Iran, the nation that sponsored the Bastille Day attacks. August 14th, 2041, when elements of the US 1st Marine division, 82nd Airborne division and the EU ' s1st Parachute division landed in Iran, is generally accepted as the first day of the Third World War.