Category:Pandora Project



This article is about the colonization program called the Pandora Project. For other uses, see Pandora (disambiguation).

In 2060, the Pandora Act was signed by the newly formed United Earth Legislative Council, launching the Pandora Project, a colonization mission sent to settle the Alpha Centauri A moon of Pandora, which long-range scans and telescope sweeps had confirm to have an Earth-like oxygen atmosphere and apparent water on its surface. The action was met with highly positive opinion among the public at large and the idea of settling Earth's first extra-solar colony captured the minds of almost two generations of Humans.

Ark Construction Begins
High in Lunar orbit, construction began in 2061 on the first interstellar ramscoop Pandora Ark-class meant to led the colonization operation, the UES Pandora. It was followed in quick succession with the construction of the UES Voyager in 2066, the UES Mariner in 2069 and UES Constellation in 2073.

UES Conestoga
During this period the United Earth government had successfully confirmed the workings of Zefram Cochrane's experimental warp drive and modified the UES Conestoga to act as a scout. The vessel and its crew of thirty, entered suspended animation and cruising at a warp factor of .65, began the seventeen year expedition to the system.

Arks Completed
Construction on the UES Pandora was completed by 2067 and vessel launched on its 29-year long journey at a warp factor of .53 towards Alpha Centuria 4.37-light years away. 2072 saw the launch of the UES Voyager with seven thousand, five hundred colonists, soon followed by the UES Mariner in 2075 with nine-thousand and the UES Constellation in 2078 with ten-thousand. With each completed ship, construction times decreased, scale of ships increased and the capable warp factor of each ship improved.

Hellenic Foundation
In 2078, the UES Conestoga arrived at Pandora and quickly determined that the world was not only habitable but also home to a sentient species, the primitive Na'vi.

This fact was however was limited by the fact that Pandora's atmosphere was a mix of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, xenon, ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide, which was unbreathable by Humans. To counter this Humans unexposed on Pandora required filtration masks, however the crew of the Conestoga took this one step further by launching a radical genetic modification program on its crew. The result after 4-years of work was the sucessful modification of Human respiratory system to be survivable in Pandora's atmosphere, at the cost of making an Earth-standard atmosphere now equally unbreathable to the Conestoga crew. This would later become known as the Pandora Modification.

By the time the UES Pandora arrived in 2107, the crew of the Conestoga and even several of their descendants had spent almost three-decades studying, interacting and laying the ground-work for eventual Human-Na'vi cooperation.

With the arrival of the first colonists to Pandora, who readily accepted the Pandoran-genetic modification since returning to Earth was now considered a punishment, the first colony of Hellenic was founded on the great floating unobtanium shards, christened the Hallelujah Mountains, that drifted over planet's surface. With the arrival 2113 of the UES Voyager and Constellation (the ship's warp factor had been increased to allow it to arrive concurrent with its sister ship), the colony soon grew in size and even began to attract Na'vi citizens from surrounding clans.

Unfortunantly nationalist sentiments began to rise, as fears rose that Earth could cause similar environmental damage and over-population trying to continue colonization of Pandora. In 2113 a declaration of independence was voted on by the Pandora Council, however the resolution failed to pass with enough votes.

Pandoran Secession
However by the time of the UES Mariner's arrival in 2121, a new motion to break away from United Earth and gain independence passed overwhelming. Pandora declares itself a republic, broadcasting its declaration of independence back to the Sol-system and electing Thomas Atkinson as its interim president. The new Republic of Pandora government became staunchly eco-friendly, prefering to merge cities with the landscape or floating on the ocean than actually removing flora for settlement. Even in modern times, less that 10% of the Human population lived on land.

By 2123, Pandora held its first regular elections, electing Thomas Atkinson to a six-year term as president of the Republic. This is the first election where the native Na'vi are allowed to participate, though only 20 individuals do so.

It was not until 2126 that word of the Pandoran secession reached Sol. Diplomatic attempts for reconcilation were met with failure. Though more volitile elements in the United Earth government called for military action, four factors protected Pandora's independence, the launching of a military force to Alpha Centuria was at the time impossible for the current government with current resources invested into the Exodus Program, Pandora's secession was technically legal under the United Earth constitution and prefering to show its best example with the Confederacy of Vulcan moving into better relations with United Earth, fourth was the Pandora colony's relaxation of foreign tariffs and taxs on Earth's mining companies of the other lifeless Alpha Centuria moons, mineral trades had already helped to repair the immense funds spend on the Pandora Project. The only restriction was the population immigrantion, which thanks to the colonies being established by the Exodus and Taurus Programs that were more hospitable to Human life without the need for major genetic modification, this problem was a moot point.

The following year the United Earth Parliament voted to end the Exodus Fleets for an indefinite period, shifting funds for expanding infrastructure in Sol, Sirius and Taurus, re-purposing the Armstrong Lunar Shipyard and Utopia Plantia Shipyards for trade ship construction and expansion of the United Earth Starfleet, to act as an exploration and military agency for Earth's expanding empire. Before its completion alone the Exodus Project launched over 250,000,000 colonists to what is now being referred to as a the Outer Solar Colonies, which unlike Pandora, largely remained loyal to Earth.