A Brief History Of Humanity

The year is so far in the future we’ve adopted a different calendar- namely the Metric Calendar -yet humanity has changed very little. Promises made by the colossal Nova Vida Organization (aka the Org) failed to live up to their P.R. campaigns. Worlds were built, century-long experiments carried out, new species created, yet Terran culture still found more questions than answers. What had been championed as humanity’s greatest venture soon fell prey to beureaucratic opportunists who stripped the Org of its parts like drug addicts on an abandoned car.

Even the United Terran Federation itself could not contain the economic and social effects of the Org’s collapse. Like a dying star, the Org gave plenty of warning before it imploded, yet overnight the UTF changed from mostly symbolic heads-of-state to panicked representatives facing a real crisis. The paradigm of Earth and all its subsidiary planets had shifted under their feet and left them sprawling.

Fortunately, Terrans are a notoriously hardy collection of species. Life got a little dirtier and the horizon a bit cloudy. Where the Org had given UTF citizens a singular goal, its demise doled out equal shares of tragedy and opportunity throughout the Federation. Rather than mourn the loss of the Org, ambitious spacefarers headed outward to find new answers and new questions.

They found new species and new civilizations as well, with all the usual problems such encounters entail.

Captain Matthew Ebel

Not much is known about the Captain’s early history. Records show that he was born on Earth in Colville, Washington, USA. Shortly thereafter the Nova Vida Organization fell apart, throwing the economy of the entire UTF into reverse. His family moved off-world to take advantage of the land rush on planets formerly controlled by the Org and Ebel would not be heard from again until his first run-in with the law.

As any sensible government must do, the UTF over-regulated anything it could after the Org’s collapse. While some claimed the stringent control was necessary to prevent an interplanetary depression, most citizens saw it as a renaissance of oppressive bureaucracy. Once the UTF began to literally dictate what citizens ate for breakfast on certain planets, nearly everyone became an outlaw.

Sometime in his early twenties, Ebel was cited for delivering pizzas to planet LaGuardia during the Dominos Embargo of 1601 MC. Though his rap sheet gained only a few minor violations such as those, sources claim to have seen Ebel routinely passing by at high velocity with blue lights close behind.

In January 1606 MC, Ebel “legitimately” purchased a decomissioned UTF freighter known as the Narcissus. With ample space for cargo and passengers, plenty of defensive weaponry, and a built-in crew of dedicated service droids, the Narcissus seemed perfect in every way but the name. Not long after Ebel’s blood dried on the sale contract, the vessel was renamed the UTF Revolution. That’s right, in 1606 MC even used-spaceship contracts are signed in blood.

With many, many hours to kill between stops, Ebel began hosting his own New Music show and broadcast it out across public frequencies. He occasionally stops over at various planets to play some music of his own, leaving the usual trail of destruction and confusion in the aftermath.