[(E)]

A17 The ark was a vast vessel, essentially a huge skeleton occupied by a vast number of habitat cylinders. 31416 habitats to be exact each a little over a mile long. Containing maybe 120 million living sentient beings and many more in less active states of being. As it approached the Solar system it began to broadcast a friendly message that included a gift of several technologies to help advance spacefaring including the gravitaic drive. These technologies caused great economic disruption and some human groups began to believe that the Arc was here for unfriendly reasons. The forthcoming polar shift on earth had been predicted for some time and almost every nation and large group had moved resources into orbit. Several megacorporate entities had already begun large scale manufacturing in space as a result of climate change legislation. With the help of the Arc's technology (known as Exotec) three space elevators had been constructed.

The Arc at this stage was still several decades away from Jupiter and negotiations where beginning to do with the exchange of the Arc's Exotec and services for access to genetic material and colony space on Venus.*

It was at this stage that the Arc alerted humanity to a surge in solar activity that would coincide with the pole. Some human groups took this as a threat. Either way Earth wasgoing to be a hostile environment for several years. The UN security council took the unexpected turn of (inter)nationalizing the orbital manufacturing facilities and began to mass produce habitats for humanity. Many other groups choose to impliment digital uploads to shielded facilities on earth and in orbit.

Humanity was leaving earth in droves when the Arc passed through the orbit of Jupiter. No one knows exactly what happened at this point but a large nuclear type explosion was detected in the rear section of the Arc. The habitats acting as life boats separated from the Arc and moved to primarily Jovian positions.

Unfortunately for Earth the Arc was on a complicated breaking trajectory that would have taken it into earth's orbit. While large chunks of the Arc fell into Jupiter a barrage of pieces headed towards earth. With 2 years warning the exodus was accelerated but earth suffered from multiple impacts and the introduction of many xenospecies. The dust is finally settling.

Q18
Does space combat follow a pure capital ship model, does it involve fighters and carriers or something else?

Meta Q1 Opening up a second stream of questions relating to how the setting might be used.
Can you provide a quick summary for your players about the type of game you want to run in the setting?

Also if Duolos05 wants to add to the pole shift idea, I am happy to drop most of this