Arayna History[]
Early Years and the Exodus[]
The Arayna history as a distinct state began in the early 21st century when, after a series of devastating wars in their cultural homelands of the Middle East, a number of new nations arose - including a Persian-Afghan unified state known as the United Persoafghan State - and the mineral wealth in the region shifted, placing great value on deposits in the region formerly known as Afghanistan. This wealth was placed into infrastructure and development in the UPS, turning the once impoverished region into a moderately successful supply economy after the deposits were largely mined out in the 2090's.
When contact was first established with Nova Terra in 2118, the UPS - and all of Islam, save for some small splinter groups such as the dying Wahhabist movement - was eager to determine the fate of the Islamic population of the new world. Finding no evidence in the radio signals of a Great Jihad but signs that certain states on Nova Terra were compatible with the UPS and its allies in ideological and ethnic terms, an offer was formally extended despite the long delay in radio signals and the lack of certainly that Nova Terra had an equivalent to SETI waiting to receive the call.
This offer was to join a great new endeavour - Freedom from the Two Earths for all Muslims, and certain Peoples of the Book. The great race towards true spaceflight had been pre-empted by two years by the IPS, who had begun to expand their wealth and infrastructure towards space in order to escape what appeared to be a dying planet and settle throughout the solar system, but they were now able to piggy-back on the interest of larger and more industrially capable nations to develop their slower-than-light generation ships. By 2130, the first generation ship had been built and was waiting in the Lunar Drydocks owned by the IPS's State Mineral Corporation, which had taken a keen interest in exploiting the solar system's resources. The first Sampling began in 2131 - all Muslims worldwide were invited to donate sperm and ovum despite the difficult religious implications of such procedures, and resulted in significant collection of genetic material as well as several
In 2139, all sixteen generation ships had been completed, and in 2140, the Long Journey began at fractional C. It would be a constant burn towards a plotted star cluster of significant wealth, with one stop in 2160 to meet with the two Nova Terran generation ships after several light years. They only learnt of the arrival of the Straylight when radio signals reached them after they had already begun their journey, and the revelation of the Heim Drive was entirely missed thanks to distance garbling of the signals. The UPS - renamed on the First Day to the Araynan Republic thanks to an overpowering Afghan majority in government - proceeded on through the void at fractional C speeds, unaware that they would almost certainly be overtaken.