For as long as there has been human civilisation, there has been competition, cooperation, rivalry and wars. For all the great heights our ancestors carried us to, they could fall greatly as well. Their legacies, whatever works and scraps their successors manage to gather, will lead to the next great heights, and so the great and eternal cycle shall continue.

From the cradle in Sumeria to the poleis of Ancient Greece, the great empires of the classical period, the feudal mediaeval kingdoms, the competing early modern proto-states, the great imperial powers of the 19th century, and the ideologically charged nation-states of the later eras. Throughout it all, there has been one truth: man can never unify with himself unless the situation would become truly dire.

And so it was; with the coming of interstellar travel would come an era of unity and prosperity. The next two and a half millennia would be a time of great bliss for all of humanity, one where man would come into contact with the alien life that had so greatly captured man's imagination. There would be friendships, there would be wars, and above it all else, there was adventure and advancement. The federation would proudly uphold and exalt its democratic values and would help to share these values with whoever wished to listen.

But all good things must come to an end. And a great malaise would come over this once-great republic. Economic downturns, rampant piracy and a variety of technological setbacks would lead to several successful but costly wars with the alien species, costing man both his neighbours and whatever few friends he had left.

Man was once more alone, something he had better not have been. What followed was half a millennium of coups, secessions, and civil wars. There would be no recovery, not this time. A galactic dark age would descend upon all of humanity, as attempts to recapture something of the past came and went.

By the time you were born, semblances of states had been in place for a while.

The Pan-Solar Empire of Humanity now rules over the largest rump state in the vicinity; it formally claims dominion over all of humanity, though these pretences are often forgotten, even by their own emperors.

You were fortunate enough to be born into a prosperous position among the lower nobility. Your father was, in his time, an able and diligent gentleman who made his career in the civil service, a career he finished with a large estate covering a continent and the title of baron.

He was also a shrewd investor too and kept many connections with the imperial government over the years. Perhaps that is why you were eventually selected for the post on that fateful day.

Your youth was one of idle leisure and gifted study; no matter what happened, as your father's eldest son, you could always fall back upon the idle life of a country gentleman.