The Unity Project was the peak of human civilisation on Earth, with the colony on Alpha Centauri being the last, best hope of humanity. War, disaster and pollution left Earth a hollow shell of its former self. For those going on the Unity shuttle, everyday life would have been extravagant, with longevity treatments and high-tech facilities... along with incredible inequality, slums and poverty for those whose air doesn't get the pollution filtered out.

Players have been in cryosleep for 40 years, arriving at Alpha Centauri in 2100 but without ageing at all. They may have been born any time between 1990 and 2030, living through many of the events listed below in their backstory. You may only know one or two of these events as the study of history was not popular amongst the crew - their focus was on the future.

Technology had progressed to an incredible height, with the candle burning so brightly that it was bound to go out. Many things have been lost, with incomplete datalinks from the destroyed ship helping piece together the missing parts. Since the colony arrived there have been no radio signals, no supply missions and no sign that anyone is left on Earth at all. If humanity has survived on Earth, they have regressed to a pre-civilisation state.

As the nineties progressed it became clear that the projections had been accurate - fossil fuels were going to run out. First oil, then gas ran out entirely. Nuclear power remained unsafe and expensive and the industrialising nations started burning coal at an unprecedented rate. The skies darkened, the rain became acidified and the wildlife of the land and air started to die off at incredible rates.

As agricultural methods struggled to keep up, led by the efforts of Deidre Skye, mass famines started to strike across the globe. At the time of the Unity's launch, the kelp farms which over 60% of the world were dependent on had started to fail due to the failures in the ocean ecosystem.

The Middle East was dominated over the period 2010-2043 by a series of minor wars, escalating at times to full-blown genocidal invasions. By the time of the Twelve Minute War, most of the religious factions involved were economically exhausted and the entire region had fallen into poverty when the oil ran out. After the Twelve Minute War the remaining inhabitants lived in refugee camps.

The ethnoreligious conflict between India and Pakistan remained a proxy war for many years, with both sides funding terrorist and insurgent activity at times, encouraging trade at others. This changed when the leadership of India, spurred into action by the threat of an internal coup, launched a set of nuclear strikes into the territory of Pakistan with no prior warning. With only twelve minutes to respond and without understanding the cause, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was launched haphazardly at various targets of current and historical vendetta before it was wiped out.

India survived the strikes with minimal damage but many surrounding countries were devastated by nuclear strikes. Much of the Middle East remained uninhabitable up until the launch of the Unity and the dust launched into the sky choked off any hope of Earth transitioning to solar power in the future.

After the collapse of Soviet Union, a series of increasingly nationalist and imperial dictators took control of Russia and gradually expanded its borders, taking provinces and countries which were perceived as important to Russia's strength. This led to a series of border wars with China, the EU and the USA which at times expanded Russian territory to cover most of Asia. An investor in the Unity project, Russia was a driving ideological force behind the imperative to colonise space and discover new planets.

The decline of the American Empire was slow, compared to the chaos of splintering states in South America. Federal government lost authority as travel became more difficult and city-states became islands, separated by vast stretches of highways where cars used to be common. As law and order broke down, the western United States fell into a state of anarchy in which the Spartan Federation, a network of survivalists who had been preparing for the collapse of civilisation, wielded great political power. The officials that remained required their assistance to maintain any control over cities where riots had become brutal and sudden.

The eastern states, being more concentrated, maintained a stronger federal government but did not survive the years unchanged. As the Earth failed, apocalyptic cults began to gain mainstream power over officials. Mass hysteria, panic and rising church attendance eventually coalesced into the Evangelical Fire - a movement which took the Unity project as the only chance for humanity to escape the Earth, dying from its sins, and to spread the Word out to the galaxy.

The outside pressures on China and vast losses of territory to the resurgent Russian Republic led to the apparent collapse of the People's Republic. New armies arose from the people, demanding a restoration of the ancient order of China. This Golden Revolution was managed by many of the old regime who sought to maintain power and their control over the country.

Regrettably for them they had unleashed forces of nationalism which went far beyond their control. In the Crimson Succession the old order was assassinated and one in five people were killed in the purges that ensued. The new China, ruled by an absolute emperor, became a hermit kingdom, sealing off trade with the outside world and feared for its unpredictable conquests of neighbours.

The Sahara Burst Wars were a series of conflicts in Africa over control of the booming economy. With little damage to infrastructure, the new stable political order which emerged created many of the dominant corporate entities of the 2050s, including Morgan Industries.

The decline of Britain at the start of the 21st Century was faster than many had anticipated due to a failure to adjust to the new, less global trading networks. The political elite of the country, preoccupied with international politics, failed to realise what was happening at home until it was too late. In 2029, a coup from within the armed forces and unions exiled the government of the day and the monarchy, establishing the British Protectorate. Temporary Citizens Assemblies were convened by the rebel forces to control the economy and, despite occasional talk of elections, the Protectorate remained in control uninterrupted up until the launch of the Unity.