The problem with humans

 Humanity poses a major problem for most other races in the galaxy. 

Most known species had a period of unification before they achieved sufficient technology and resources to make the jump outward to the stars. As such while there are variations within most sophonts they tend to share a common cultural base from which they derive. not so with humanity.

Herein lies the problem.

Humanity's jump to the star came about mostly due to the efforts of Largo Eximus and his effort to do an end-run around political and economic power blocks dedicated to their hold on mankind to their own benefit. This series of conflicts between the man who would eventually become Emperor is central to many questions historians have posed about his early years and the source ot the leverage he used to drive forth his agenda of taking Man to the stars.

Why, when all evidence points to his being born in the Western United States did he develop his first base of operation in Africa? Why are the ten oldest starports on Earth built outside the borders of the most technologically and economically advanced country on the planet at the time? If asked today the Emperor will most often give a quote along the lines of a prophet not being accepted in his own home and not elaborate.

But this lack of unity throughout most of his early career gave rise to the problem of humanity not having acquired a common cultural heritage that most other races have attained before they made the great jump. this was exacerbated by Largo making efforts to separate the most contentious groups by setting up cultural colonies in an effort to give them room and time to, as he often put it, grow out of a need to slaughter each other.

Now not all such colonies grew out of violence. Some were established to allow a number of cultures from being forced out of existence due to various advances. The best example are the three Amish colonies of New Goshen, New Cannan, and Prosperity. The colonies were funded by the Emperor to preserve what he called an important and significant cultural relic that was in danger of dying out due to an increasing impossibility of resisting change brought on by constant exposure to the outside world.  

In all close to 50 cultural enclaves were given colonization charters in the first century after the Jump. The resulting lack of cultural unity makes humanity confusing and unpredictable to most of the species we share the star lanes with.

As a Side note...

from this point going forward, I will abandon the timeline method of charting the histories in favor of telling the individual stories.

From the Ashes-The New York Megaplex-part two

Yes I know this has been hanging forever but I finally got around to getting it all straight so let's go 

Following the departure of the fleet for the Shaloi homeworld attention shifted to the huge scar on the Eastern Seaboard. 

A number of plans were floated as to the correct approach to moving forward from the destruction of one of our largest cities and much of our cultural history. While this article's focus is the rise of the New York Metroplex since so much of the bombardment has focused there it should be noted that every city and location capable of a spaceship launch was hit and neutralized save the elevator at Mombasa where they concentrated on capturing the upper hub rather than destroying the valuable resource.

The emotional impact of losing so many of the country's most famous historical locations drove much of the restoration but the fact that Long Island and much of the rest of the city had literally been blown away made any meaningful restoration of New York itself impossible. The final solution came from the Odysseus Group, a think tank devoted to engineering colony designs on less than hospitable worlds. Their solution was the world's first arcology. Given the desire to rebuild on the original location of the great city they proposed rebuilding literally from the ground up. After the excavation of the wreckage of the Shaloi ships and debris new foundations were built on a massive scale. Each submerged bunker was the building block for the next and within a decade a new foundation began to rise from the Atlantic and connected with the mainland.

Then the truly serious work began. For years a great deal of industrial might went into building modular units that would make up much of the new city structure. With the foundations set these began to be brought in and in short order the arcology began to take place. Despite the name, the structure would not have the appearance of a single structure but rather would be a multitude of structures connected on many levels to make transport throughout simpler. The new city would forgo skyscrapers and concentrate on unified community units that would be significantly larger at the foundation than anything that had gone before. In the end, a maximum height of 50 stories was agreed on and the new city growth became exponential as the original structures became the homes for those building the city.

While individual living units ranging from ultra-efficiency single units to larger family units were the norm the structures were designed around community designs with large areas given over to parks, malls, and arcades. there were miles of fiber optic lines devoted to piping natural light into the common areas and encouraging as much organic landscaping as possible.

Eventually, the growth slowed as the population of those choosing to live in the new city leveled out. This led to a new problem that would have threatened to destroy this new city if it had not already been foreseen years prior. As the expansion of the Metroplex slowed more and more individuals became unemployed since their skills were no longer required in the city. But as has been said, this was foreseen and plans were already in place.

While the Metroplex was being constructed life continued elsewhere and so did progress on many fronts. During the 50 years it took to construct the structure more and more heavy industry was transferred to orbital facilities and mining of both the moon and the asteroid belt was in full swing. As a result, more and more terrestrial jobs either followed the work off-world or were rendered redundant. It was decided by the Emperor to slowly transition to what he would eventually refer to as the Residenzi system with Earth being his first test case. Within a generation, the primary shift was complete by gradual retiring and subsidizing of those unable or unwilling to retrain to a new occupation. As the new system moved into place necessary adjustments were made to the housing and economic structure within New York to facilitate it.

Within another 30 years, the change spread outward and changed the structure of Earth itself. Much of the heartlands transitioned to rural agrarian trusteeships and the corn belt became more and more green as the huge agribusiness conglomerates slowly fell apart unwilling to change to the new business model. Small town America survived but as factories shifted to become more support for the agrarian communities and energy grids gave way to smaller more localized power sources they became more focused on the community and less on nationwide or global competition to survive. And what started in America crossed borders and took root everywhere.

For more details look Here.

Eventually, the new system was presented to other worlds in the Imperium facing similar growing pains and the Residenzi system became a common fixture of the cosmopolitan worlds.

In the end, the New York Metroplex would span much of the area from the former city of Boston to much of Philadelphia and become home to close to a billion people.

Smaller arcologies on similar models would rise in a number of areas including Delhi, Bombay, and Hong Kong/Macau but none would come close to the size and scope of this original project.