2010-2061: The Age of Broken Limits. Mankind develops faster and faster, appearing to approach a singularity. Global unrest and instability.
2061-2275: The Age of Surprises. The singularity suddenly peters out: making super AI, creating immortality and nanotech turns out to be far harder than people expected. In a backlash against the rush, eco-Christianity becomes a major alternative. Over the next two centuries, the Earth is gradually unified into a pro-ecological, stable green society while many of the radicals and believers in capital-P Progress move out to orbital habitats. During this time the first interstellar colonies are launched by people fearing that the solar system would become entirely static.
2275-2460: The Second Renaissance. The discovery of an immortality symbiont upsets the old order. The Maralaya immortality has one notable drawback: it removes the social needs of people. They simply don't experience any need for company. Over the decades after the discovery more and more people opt for immortality anyway, producing a culture of loners consuming and producing their own ideosyncratic projects. The traditionalist eco-Christians decline and in some cases join interstellar missions to escape from a solar system they think will eventually become a home for just immortal otakus.
2460-2800: The Age of Smog. A bioweapon strikes against the immortality symbiont, causing massive deaths and the total disruption of society. The old high-tech society on Earth shatters, leading to a long dark (or rather, grey) age of relatively low technology and static development. The space colonies slowly decline. At the start of the disaster many desperate colony ventures are launched, but soon all available starships have left.
About now the colonies are emerging on their own, slowly sharing information through radio. Some colonies grow powerful and peaceful, like Al-Awwa, Alpha Centauri and Trinh. Other suffers war and disasters, like the hell of Maui or the biotech apocalypse of Melosh. Most develop in the middle, with plenty of internal politics and history to keep them busy.
2800-2988: The Sponsorship. Visiting colonial traders begin to restore civilization in the solar system, setting up a feudal system for themselves. Meanwhile other colonies begin to send out their own colony ships outwards. In many places new forms of humanity or AI emerge, from the orbital Space Butterflies over the worrying fast-breeding Wubekimon to the bizarre Faith Meld combination of artificial intelligence and religious society.
2988-3120: The Web of Worlds. FTL communication is discovered by humans at Al-Awwa. They spread the designs over radio, bringing the different societies into contact. Cultural and scientific exchange causes a massive renaissance. Methods of mindstate transfer are developed, and to maintain the communications links an interstellar organisation, the Web of Worlds, is founded. Over the years the Web becomes the de facto global authority, developing into an expansionist empire.
3120-: The War. Aliens contact humans, warning them that the Net has been taken over by outside, alien forces that are now using it to further their aims and not humanity's. Some worlds join them, and a subtle war begins to escalate.