Verse After Miranda: The Verse in 2527

The 'Verse of 2527 is a politically fragmented, economically chaotic place compared to the previous decade. Unification Day was in June 2511. The Miranda Event (the end of Serenity) happened on November 2518. Both dates' anniversary has become synonymous with terrorist incidents, especially in light of the Miranda Broadcast. The White Sun Civil War of 2520-2522 brought havoc and destruction to the Verse, leaving chaos and disunity in its place. The campaign will start in January 2527, approximately two years after the end of the last campaign.

• Arc of the Verse - A handy PDF Summary of the TViN2.1 White Paper, which is huge. 

• Summary Spreadsheet of My Setting: Major Worlds of the Verse 2525

• Verse Travel Time Calculator - Assume a base of 10 hr/AU and a speed factor dependent on the ship class, from 1-10. Serenity has a 4, as I recall.  

The White Sun Civil War: The uniform control of the Alliance was shattered in 2520, first by the destruction of the Parliament on Londinium and then by the assassination of Admiral Sutton, which brought his forces into the simmering conflict between Ariel and Sihnon. The White Sun Civil War (2520-2522) raged for almost two years, destroying major government and military facilities throughout White Sun, with collateral damage to the economy and civilian infrastructure. Major fleet battles led to the self-destruction of the once enormous Alliance military and the end of Alliance rule. The White Sun Civil War ended when most factional leaders and their fleets had been killed or disrupted to the extent that naval actions became impossible. In early 2522 the three primary combatant worlds (Sihnon, Ariel, and Jiangyin) signed the Athens Treaty, formally ending hostilities with subtle encouragement from the "New Cardiff Consortium", a temporary alliance of most of the megacorporations. 

While not as physically destructive as the Unification War (2505-2511), some 680,000,000 people, roughly 7% of the population of the 'Verse died in the fighting and chaos which followed.  This was followed by massive dislocations as the economy of the 'Verse went into freefall. Large numbers of people simply gave up their lives in the Core and migrated outward to the frontier worlds, especially to Blue Sun. This, in turn, led to an extensive reshuffling of power on countless little moons as thousands of strangers arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs, attempting subsistence farming and largely failing at it. Likewise, most of the terraforming efforts underway in 2520 were interrupted or deliberately disrupted, resulting in several failed efforts. These "black rocks" are officially uninhabited, save for wildcat mining operations, salvage efforts, and the ubiquitous pirates. 

The Cortex: The infrastructure of the Cortex network was a primary target for nearly all warring factions during the White Sun Civil War and the chaos that followed. It was quickly attacked and destroyed by the major combatants and not yet fully restored by 2527. As a result, data transfer and communications are severely limited. For most users, reliable transmissions are only available in-system, and even then, only near major worlds. Interstellar communication is extremely expensive and largely limited to the mega-corporations that maintain their own networks. There is no single unified communications network anymore. 

Economics: Similarly, no single currency exists within the 'Verse. Each interplanetary body has created its own currency for internal use, and most independent worlds will accept currency at constantly changing exchange rates. Still, for interplanetary use, these currencies are difficult and occasionally useless. Gold and platinum retain their value as a universal currency mode, and barter has never gone out of use on the frontier. 

For electronic transfers of wealth, however, a new form of currency was developed by the true economic titans of the postwar period, the corps. Immediately after the cessation of hostilities in 2522, the Rance-Feeney Corporation hosted a series of conferences in the city of New Cardiff/Londinium, wherein the major megacorps of the 'Verse, including Blue Sun, Weyland-Yutani, and Magnus, among others, agreed to a single corporate currency to be used among these enormous commercial powers. 

The new currency unit is officially called the "Consortium Exchange Unit" (CEU), but they are almost always called "Londy Bucks", "CeeYou's", or "Credits". One CEU is usually worth roughly a hundred standard platinum coins, which are useful for large purchases. Unfortunately, the CEU is new, and in limited circulation, so most of the worlds on the Border and Rim still have almost no access to CEUs in useful amounts.