After the French Revolution, the man known simply as Napoleon rose to power and conquered Western Europe. My family organized coalitions of the most powerful nations of the time to fight France, but coalition after coalition failed to do the job. America even joined the Napoleonic Wars for a short time, but Britain was the most industrialized and richest nation in the entire world. She could afford to lose a war, or even five. France had to win every one.
Byzantium is an amazing place. The planet, not the old city name. She’s ringed by orbiting space stations that do nothing but trade and buy and sell stuff. It’s like a giant outlet center in places. In other places, it’s warehouses as far as the eye can see. Even mine. Anyone who ships goods into the Core Worlds has been there. Me, a lot of times. She’s the mother of all trade worlds, and there’s truly no place like her anywhere.
Independence is the symbol of progress in the Pleiades Sector. The oldest and richest colony, all expeditions to the sector have passed through her space on the way out to their final destinations. Even the Alcyone Expeditions stopped there to resupply. The trade routes flowing from Independence link the Inner and Outer Colonies in an economic web that unites them with bonds far greater than mere common heritage. Common interest.
Not all of the family left France after the Revolution. Some of them lived common enough lives that they escaped the notice of rabid revolutionaries. Some very few others were such integral and positive parts of the local communities that the villagers protected them. They chose to remain, throwing away all vestiges of noble privilege, and they and their descendents survived the dozens of revolutions that have plagued France in the centuries since.
When Constantinople colonized Arcturus, they were looking far into the future. It was the farthest colony from Earth at the time, on the edge of the interstellar dust cloud that slows travel around Earth and the other nearby star systems. Any ship that made it to Arcturus could refuel, resupply, and then move out far faster than they could anywhere else, and it became a port of call and center of trade for long-range starships. They named it Byzantium.
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