Age of Isolation
In 5790 (TN 1454 by the Terranovan calendar), the political climate suddenly turned sour towards the colonies. An “Earth-first” government came to power in the Concordat. Virtually overnight, the massive subsidies that fueled interstellar shipping were cut, denying the colony-sponsoring companies their required transportation system. A series of lawsuits by these same corporate groups failed to reestablish the subsidies; Earth’s population was simply fed up with paying the bills.
Becoming desperate, the colonial consortiums offered to buy a number of Gateships and establish their own transport system. The Concordat bowed to popular anticolonial sentiment and rejected all offers to purchase the Gateships by declaring them to be restricted military technology. While a few desperate companies managed to hijack a small portion of the Concordat Gateship fleet, the majority of the ships were mothballed in orbit around Jupiter.
The colonies were cut off from Earth in nine short and eventful months. The last Gateships to Earth were crammed full of people who wanted to return at all costs. It was an ugly sight, as many used connections, blackmail, bribery and even outright violence to secure for themselves a place on the departing ships. Those left behind either wanted to stay or were forced to. The Terranovan population dipped to two hundred and fifty thousand immediately after the departure of the last vessels.
With the departure of the Earth-based colonial corporations, most of Terra Nova’s population centers suddenly found themselves without any viable form of government. Most of the colony’s leaders had used their connections to board the first departing ships, leaving behind a power vacuum begging to be filled.
Reconstruction
The early cycles of Terranovan isolation (roughly TN 1470 to TN 1520) was a period of chaos and readjustment, known as Reconstruction. The abandoned colonists struggled to make a living for themselves and to redefine their future independent form Earth. Global thinking broke down as communication networks became less reliable and regional movements took the lead in the newly emerging Terranovan culture.
Religious thought took an upswing at this time. Although doomsday cults sprung up in some cities, new and hopeful faiths also saw the light of day. In the mid 1480s in the small Northern community of Sorrento, a young man named Mamoud Khodaverdi had a religious vision. Traveling to the desert community of Massada, he began to preach a doctrine of universal harmony and pacifism. Upon his death in TN 1507, this faith would become known as Revisionism and eventually spread throughout much of the northern hemisphere, the Badlands and a few places in the South.
At almost the same time a young man named Erzach Ibn-Muhammad was wandering the Eastern Plain (in the southern hemisphere) and some of the Badlands, spreading a message of peace. A wandering monk, Ibn-Muhammad was a Suntar Muslim (an Islamic sect born during the Ice Age) and has since been recognized as a Prophet of Jerusalemism. This syncretic faith groups together the many faiths of Earth that trace their heritage to Jerusalem and (ultimately) the Hebraic tradition; that such diverse faiths have been able to cooperate is in large part due to Ibn-Muhammad’s message of tolerance and peace.
Reconstruction also saw the birth of the earliest Terranovan leagues. In the chaos of the period, roving bandits and impromptu warlords ravaged the countryside. Many communities became fortified city-states and in some instances these cities began to group together. In the region of the Eastern Plain and Okavango Swamp, the Gateship HCS Eastern Sun crashed in the final days of colonial rule — deciding to throw its lot in with the abandoned colonists. The officers of the ship became leaders of the surrounding communities thanks to the supplies they brought with them — they would eventually form the Eastern Sun Emirates.
Further West, in the Esperance Basin, the first true league was born in TN 1481 when the cities of Tanalom and Perth formed the Humanist Alliance. Led by a visionary named Yuri Gropius, the Alliance’s utopian model would inspire a variety of other leagues across Terra Nova.