The Settlement

The Settlement referred to a period that began during the end of the Dark Ages and lasted until the end of the Second Century AU. It involved a mass expansion of human colonists from Earth into the inner and outer Solar System, and marked the start of permanent habitation of the Solar System outside of Earth by large numbers of people for long periods of time. The Settlement gave way to the Sleeper Age, which began in 151 AU with the arrival of the first interstellar spacecraft at Proxima Centauri.