
[2162-2212  High Road to Peace]

Despite all the progress made toward a unified social structure,
tensions began again to sweep the seeds of discord. Disputes over
territorial rights, population control, reparation for past
injustices, patent infringements, and a whole host of other
issues divided the varying and often fluid factions as though by
an iron wedge. It is thus significant that the United Nations
took the lead in renewing cooperative ties between the world's
many states, inciting perhaps the most unifying gesture of the
first quarter of the millennium. In 2162, the U.N. approved its
first fifty-year plan for space exploration and colonization.
Though this action may seem today more an attempt to divert the
world's attention from the real issues, the joint venture did a
great deal to quell nationalistic aggression and instill a
feeling of world community among divergent peoples. By 2178
both Martian and Lunar colonies had been established, and by
2210, numerous colonies existed in the Jovian and Saturn systems
and in the asteroid belt.

