The Exodus of the Star Traders[ | ]
At the end of the Guild War, the Star Traders stood victorious. The nine Factions, as they would come to be known, had been liberated and the power of the Guild had been shattered. The Narvidians had been driven back, their fleets broken and scattered while their great Forge lay in ruins. But the Galactic Core lay in ruins. Habitable worlds, once bright gems of life in a dark sky, had been darkened by war and many had been broken beyond repair. The Core was no longer a place where the Star Traders could live their lives. Thus, the decision to embark on the Exodus was laid down by the Prophet Shalun.
In the time of the First Founding, while the Faction Accords created the modern Clans and Syndicates as we know them, the project to begin the Exodus was also underway. The last of their resources were poured into making the Worldships and Colony Hives, the great fleet that would carry their people to the fertile worlds of the Farfallen Rim and beyond. Billions embarked on these great vessels, with billions more scattered across smaller transports and repurposed refugee ships. The Templar Fleet escorted the colony ships in their journey.
In the final moments before the Exodus, the Prophet Shalun sent his elite Templar bodyguard on an unknown mission to a distant star, in the Quadrant that would later become known as the Alzean Core. The rest of the Colony Hives and Worldships prepared to make the gravity jump that would propel them to their new homes. Alas, fate decreed that it would not go well. Our history is lost and distorted, but it is believed that the Narvidians made another, furious attack on the Star Traders. Many ships were lost in the battle, but our people survived.
The Templar Fleet escorted the remaining vessels, but as the two-century journey wore on, the great convoy of Colony Hives began to run ragged. Many ships and their Templar protectors became separated, low on precious Water-Fuel, and were forced to establish roots in less friendly sections of space. Some of these ragged survivors managed to locate newly established colonies and Quadrants, working together to build anew. Others were lost to tides of ravening Xeno, or fell prey to the machinations of the The Cult of Shelgeroth and their Narvidian masters.
In the end, only six billion of the Star Traders reached the Farfallen Rim, out of the initial 30 billion that boarded the Colony Hives and Worldships. These survivors settled the Farfallen Rim, while they believed their brethren dead in the dark reaches of the galaxy, as the Exodus Era drew to a close. The other survivors rebuilt, their Quadrants separated by distance and time in the time before the discovery of the Hyperwarp and the Reunification.