Category:Taurus Project

History
What would later become known as the Taurus Sector, was orginally discovered in 2020 by astromers and designated 34Tauri(2020), a tight five star system, with 14 hyper-jovian giants.

With Earth's failing ecosystem due to overpopulation and pollution, United Earth began to look outward by the 2060s for habitable planets. While the Pandora Program was underway, the debate economically sustainable against Human habitability was being discussed. While Pandora was seen as a great economic investiment due to its extremely rare superconducting mineral unobtanium, it was lacking in most more common in higher demand minerals.

It was decided that out of all the stars either surveyed or being explorered, 34Tauri(2020) represented not only the most economically sustainable goal for humanity, but also the far enough from Earth that a "population rush" would not threaten it directly. This was the inception of the Taurus Program.

In 2071, the First Taurus Wave was launched, dozens of robotic terraforming ships are launched, the largest unmanned fleet United Earth had ever fielded. By 2090 construction and loading of Taurus Arks began with cargo, fuel, and stored genetic samples while a Earth-wide selection board began to select candiates.

It was not until 2097 that the first of the Taurus Arks finally began to depart from Europa, after fueling themselves on the hydrogen mined from Jupiter's atmosphere. Priority was given to those ships populated those who will act as the terraforming and construction labor force upon arrival. This of course was not frought with rioting in several of the poorer regions on Earth, among accusations that the Taurus crews were primarily from the wealthier members nations of United Earth, in what would later become known as the Taurus Ark Riots.

It took over a year for all the Arks to depart from Europa but finally in 2098, the Taurus Program transported over

Terraforming Era
Due to the distance to 34Tauri(2020) and even traveling at a Warp Factor of 3.4, the First Taurus Wave did not arrive until 2111, 14-years after its launch.

These new worlds were ready for habitation (despite the odd quirk of nature or miscalculation on a few) and civilization began to rebuild. Even after continued refinement, the process of terraforming the moons or planets of 34Tauri(2020) took decades. Terraforming requires atmospheric processing plants, the regulation of gravity, environmental adaptation and the introduction of creatures great and small brought from Earth - everything from algae and bacteria to insects, birds, and mammals. The power to make such changes is still not without its limits. While most all terraformed worlds are suitable for human life, each has its own quirks.

The work of terraforming had started on the two largest, most central planets in the White Sun or Bai Hu-system, Sihnon and Londinium. Londinium, named after the Roman name for England's capital, represented cultural aspects of the North American Republic. Sihnon ('SEE-non,' a bastardization of Sino, the English word for 'Chinese') represented cultural aspects of the Sino-Federation, primarily Chinese.

Taurus Colonization Era
By the 2140s the terraforming was mostly completed to Londinium and Sihnon for the arrival of the first Taurus Arks.

Taurus Arks
The Taurus Arks were enormous ships, a template for the future Macross Island-class colony ships, able to carry over 600,000 colonists. Once the final Ark departed Europa, over 27.6-million colonists had been moved.

Even with warp-drive capability, the journey to 34Tauri(2020) was long and taxing, taking over 43-years to complete. One full generation was born, lived, and died without ever leaving these space ships. The initial excitement of the voyage quickly faded into the monotony of keeping the ships moving, keeping the life-support systems intact, and perfecting the technologies that would give future generations good lives on new worlds. Although some expected to encounter extraterrestrial life, the only signals on the scanner were the natural static found in space.

With so many different people of all nationalities and races inside the space ships, the old ethnic and political barriers began to blur. People learned the native languages of their fellow ship dwellers. Subsequent generations would come to speak fluently the two dominant languages, English and Mandarin, and phrases from other cultures.

At the time of arrival, the number of colonists had grown to almost 38-million, not counting those 4.2-million who perished on the "Lost Arks", or the 600,000 unaccounted colonists abroad the missing UES Wyalong.

In total, 38 Taurus Arks successfully reached 34Tauri(2020):
 * UES Alofi
 * UES Andorra la Vella
 * UES Apia
 * UES Archimedes
 * UES Argolid
 * UES Auckland
 * UES Birkirkara
 * UES Castries
 * UES Christian Doppler
 * UES Delhi
 * UES Enrico Fermi
 * UES Glasgow
 * UES Guadeloupe
 * UES Hamilton
 * UES Isthmus of Corinth
 * UES Jean le Rond d'Alembert
 * UES Jimmy Carter
 * UES Joseph Lagrange
 * UES Kingston
 * UES Limoges
 * UES Louis Renault
 * UES Mo Yan
 * UES Murray Gell-Mann
 * UES Nazret
 * UES Paul of Tarsus (Flagship)
 * UES Shirin Ebadi
 * UES Shymkent
 * UES Simon Kuznets
 * UES Stanley
 * UES Sumqayit
 * UES Sundsvall
 * UES Tartu
 * UES Toronto
 * UES Tripoli
 * UES Werner Heisenberg
 * UES Wilhelm Röntgen
 * UES Winnipeg
 * UES Wolfgang Pauli

Lost Arks
During the exodus to 34Tauri(2020), six Arks lost life support due to accident or malfunction, another fell victim to sabotage (UES Wellington), and in one case all contact was lost with another (UES Wyalong), each resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. These "Lost Arks" became their coffins, forever drifting in space with over 4.2-million dead colonists (not counting those abroad the missing Wyalong). In total eight Arks perished during the voyage:
 * UES Malden
 * UES Oriximina
 * UES Al Junaynah
 * UES Penzing
 * UES Noyabrsk
 * UES Shizuishan
 * UES Wyalong
 * UES Wellington