Pre-Game History

By the year 2060, human civilization on planet Earth had been ravaged by war, famine, pollution and poverty. In a final effort to give humanity a fresh start, the U.N. launched the Starship Unity. Ten thousand crew and colonists, under the leadership of Captain Garland and bearing nothing to signify their country of origin, were placed in cryogenic sleep. They departed on a decades long journey to colonize the planet Chiron in the Alpha Centauri system. No contact was ever received again from Earth after the launch. 

Forty years passed without incident to ship or crew. With the Unity only days away from planetfall, a core malfunction awakened the crew prematurely. As they attempted repairs, an unknown assailant killed the ship's captain. Panic and confusion followed in the wake of this incident. Seven leaders were able to restore order but it came at the cost of the original mission; the colonists reorganized themselves into seven groups, each following one of the leaders.

Aligned now not by nationality but by ideology, each faction took control of a colony pod. The Unity, its operations neglected, broke apart in high orbit around Chiron. Colony pods, resources and supplies were scattered on the surface and humanity began constructing civilization anew in isolated communities, each one out of contact with any other colony groups which may have survived planetfall.