Calendar dates used;
BCE - Before Council Era
CE - Council Era
Nth Century - Human Calendar.
Unknown date;
The Reapers are created by the Leviathans in an attempt to prevent evolving sapient life from destroying itself with artificial intelligence, and in the process destroy much of themselves with their own artificial intelligence. The Reapers begin the harvesting and resetting of the galaxy every 50,000 years.
Approx. 37,000,000 BCE;
An unknown race resists the Reapers, and manage to kill one of them with an unknown mass accelerator weapon, leaving a corpse and creating the Great Rift Valley on the planet Klendagon.
Approx. 68,000 BCE;
The Protheans achieve spaceflight and begin their colonization and advancement through the galaxy, including the discovery and usage of the Citadel.
Approx. 48,000 BCE;
The Protheans are almost entirely destroyed by the Reapers, aided by their trap of the Citadel. The Protheans survive for a few hundred years however, delaying the next Cycle, and during their survival they make good progress on the creation of The Crucible. They are destroyed before they can complete it however, but they manage to leave a large quantity of relics and knowledge behind, although most of their data will degrade before it can be used.
Approx. 540 BCE;
The last of the current cycles sentient races evolve, and begin their growth. Within this time, humanity begins growing as a species, the Krogan break apart and begin warring among themselves, the Asari discover Mass Effect based FTL from Prothean ruins, and are shortly joined by the Salarians. The races of the Andromeda galaxy emerge.
Approx. 500 BCE;
The Council is formed by the Asari and Salarians, with the Citadel as their capital.
Approx. 300 BCE;
The Volus join the Council and form the Unified Banking Act, creating a universal monetary system. They, to their chagrin, are given an embassy but not a Council seat.
Approx. 300 BCE to 1 CE;
First contact has been made with the Batarians, Quarians, Hanar, and Elcor, all of whom are given embassies.
1 CE;
A dormant Mass Relay is opened, releasing the Rachni on the galaxy, who are being directed and aggravated remotely by the Reapers. Approximately 80 years into the war with the Rachni, the Krogan are discovered, rapidly uplifted, and used to begin fighting against the Rachni.
300 CE;
The Rachni are almost completely wiped out by the Krogan, and the war with them ends. A Reaper untouched Queen remains dormant in an egg however, although it will be millenia before it is discovered.
693 CE;
The first Spectre is created by the Salarian Beelo Gurji, to counter growing Krogan aggression.
Approx. 700 CE;
The Krogan Rebellions begin after Spectres preemptively strike a lone Krogan clan annexing Asari territory on the colony world of Lusia. Overwhelmed by the Krogan response, the Council makes first contact with the Turians, who are enlisted to fight the Krogans, causing the Turian worlds and colonies to be targeted in devastating attacks. Seeing no hope as current events stand, a group of Salarians begin creating the Genophage to counter the Krogans rapid birth rate.
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710 CE;
The Genophage is completed and used to cripple the Krogan rate of birth. This, combined with further Turian aid, leads to the end of the Krogan Rebellions in 800 CE.
900 CE;
The Turians, to the chagrin of multiple other races, are given a seat on the Council for their actions in the Krogan Rebellions, where they take up the role of military and peacekeeping.
Approx. 1600 CE;
A sighting of an unknown race, later known as the Collectors, is reported. It is dismissed as hearsay and rumor.
Approx. 1900-2000 CE;
The Quarians robotic worker creation, the Geth, gain a hive-mind sentience. The Quarians, partly out of fear of the Council, and also the Geth, panic, and try to destroy and disassemble the Geth. The Geth revolt in response, after peaceful attempts to continue coexistence fail, and take the Quarian worlds, including their homeworld of Rannoch. They never expand further. In response to the actions of the Geth, the Council banish the Quarians, removing their embassy and membership, and forcing them to live in a massive migrant fleet. The Quarians already weak immune system almost entirely dies, forcing them to be incredibly careful about health and sanitization.
Approx. 1900 CE/1961, 20th century;
Yuri Gagarin becomes the first space-faring human, followed eight years later by the Apollo 11 mission landing the first humans on their moon, Luna.
Approx. 1900-2000 CE/20th to 21st century;
Humanity spreads across the Sol system, utilizing cryo-stasis techniques and automated programs to colonize Luna, set up a base on Mars, and harvest materials from the asteroid belt.
Approx. 2100 CE/2143, 22nd century;
Gagarin Station is created beyond the orbit of Pluto, where the first FTL tests are performed. The base science for Warp technology is discovered, and Element is invented as a compact, cheap, energy dense fuel for fusion reactors. This also allows the continued compacting of fusion reactors, until they eventually reach, with large costs of course, microchip sizes.
Approx. 2200 CE/2152, 22nd century;
Element becomes commonplace on Earth, and it fuels dozens of new technological discoveries. Much of Earth unites under the United Earth Federation.
Approx. 2217, 23rd century;
Element advancements are made, increasing its stability and energy density. In addition, the very first instance of Element expiring is recorded, creating what is labeled as “Corrupted” Element.
Approx. 2256, 23rd century;
Testing with Corrupted Element is done, to figure out if it can be recycled or otherwise renewed. It is discovered that Corrupt Element will, strangely, corrupt normal Element it comes in contact with.
March 7th, 2257, 23rd century;
A large power plant accidentally feeds Corrupted Element into its reactor, causing a chain reaction of Element corruption, alongside critical overloads resulting in a large scale explosion. This catapults hundreds to thousands of Corrupt Element shards into low orbit, where they will fall scattered across the entire world over the next decade.
Approx. 2270, 23rd century;
Element corruption begins spreading across the entire world, damaging and corrupting machinery, and mutating wildlife into stronger and incredibly aggressive forms.
Approx. 2275, 23rd century;
One of the dozens of growing Corruption zones reaches a Sanctuary, quickly infecting and subverting all of the revived species of dinosaur and other such previously extinct animals, and leading to an explosive amount of spread, due to the much stronger animals now controlled.
Approx. June, 2301, 24th century;
Earth begins to fall to Element corruption, and the ARK program is initiated. An unknown extra organization begins the creation of the separate Lifeboat initiative.
Approx. October, 2324, 24th century;
The ARK program successfully activates, raising large chunks of many different biomes, artificially maintained and populated with life, into low orbit of Earth. The Lifeboat initiative nears completion, but is being delayed more and more by the Element corruption consuming Earth.
Approx. January, 2329, 24th century;
The Lifeboat initiative completes, at this point only due to automated programs, as all human personnel are either in cryo or dead by now. The Lifeboat launches, picking up human Survivors from multiple large ARKs, including The Island, Scorched Earth, and the damaged Aberration. The Lifeboat then leaves the Sol system and begins automatically warping to different systems, attempting to locate a new home for humanity.
Unknown date, between 2340 and 2400;
The Element corrupted Doctor Rockwell, after an unknown amount of time subverting and growing among the Lifeboat systems, is defeated. This is mainly done after the original support crew is all slain, and the backup crew awoken from among ARK Survivors, who all manage to subdue the primary control nodes of Rockwell, where they maintain a permanent team that keeps Rockwell subdued, while the rest of the team goes and creates an unknown but massive amount of various neurotoxins, tranquilizers, and other harmful substances. After the hundreds to thousands of gallons are transported to different areas of Rockwell’s body, the various substances are all rapidly injected into Rockwell, killing him after a few days. Subsequent years were spent awakening more support crew, cleaning up the corpse and repairing system and hull damage, and stabilizing the Lifeboat.
Approx. 2411, 25th century;
The Lifeboat is fully cleaned and repaired, with the Lifeboat support ring that Rockwell modified being stabilized, researched, and eventually modified until it is no longer actively hostile to humans. A common decision among the crew was that much of the life on the modified ring was, while admittedly terrifying and incredibly dangerous, still generally unaffected by Element corruption, and as such most of the unique lifeforms that Rockwell artificially created were left alive and intact, with the modified ring being left for them, with safety modifications.
April 10th, 2419, 25th century;
The Lifeboat warps into a so far unnamed system, and discovers a high quality planet, perfect for colonization. The Lifeboat finally ends its automated journey, and the entire crew is finally awoken for colonization. The planet is named Shanxi.