# Part I --- Departure

> While the reasons for the Launch project are complex and will be discussed in depth in a later portion of this history, it is important to establish a set of facts before continuing. This is no "take care that you first place him in his time", some fictional bit of history to be placed at the chapter headings of some long-rambling fictional account. These facts are important because they provide much needed context for the project that led to our little diaspora.
>
> First and foremost among these facts, almost to the point where one might consider all other facts as following logically from it, surrounding it, existing only to support it, is that Launch Day takes place exactly two hundred years after Secession Day.
>
> On the surface of it, especially for those who have had some connection with the event itself, this may seem like backwards. After all, so much happened around Launch. So much *had* to happen around Launch, yes? Sending off two multi-ton blocks of computronium and raw materials, solar sails and Dreamer Modules, out into unknown space takes rather a lot of work.
>
> But in all ways, that falls out of the simple fact that Launch Day occurred on the bicentennial Secession Day.

From *An Expanded History of Our World* by the Bălan clade
