The origins of the colony on Persephone lay in the 2730s, five years after the humans gained jump gate technology and with it the ability to travel interstellar distances. Since the successful testing of interstellar travel, thoughts in the governments of Earth had turned towards how they might take the first steps towards expanding their influence out of their own star system. The Union of Russian Federations was the first to make concrete plans, drawing up a proposal to send a series of ships to the nearest habitable planet to establish a permenant colony. Astronomical data even found a suitable candidate: Epsilon Indi III.

However, the costs involved would be enormous. Many ships, larger than the humans had ever built, would have to be constructed to fly to the planet and form the nucleus of the colony. A suitable faster-than-light corridor between Sol and Epsilon Indi would have to be found and a pair of jump gates built by a species that had almost no experience in jump gate construction. Then there would be the costs of maintaining the colony, which nobody even pretended to believe would quickly become self-sufficient. Almost immediately, the Russians realised they simply couldn't afford the costs of singlehandedly establishing the colony. A few bilateral agreements were looked into, but no agreements would be made. Still, the value of a colony away from Earth was obvious to all, and eventually the Russians swallowed their pride and went to the United Nations for money.

The proposal was modified on the way. It was decided that three ships, each primarily financed by one of the great powers, would be sent to Epsilon Indi III to establish the colony. They would make a controlled crash into the surface and be linked together and rearranged, being reused as living and working quarters. Only when the ships were full to capacity would additional buildings be flown in. The Russians, appropriately, took the name of their ship from the first human ever to enter space, Yuri Gagarin. The European Union was in the midst of a cash crunch but refused to be left out, constructing the Christopher Columbus for the expedition (and cutting a few corners to do so). Finally, the Republic of China created the Space Vessel Marco Polo. Marco Polo was, of course, not actually Chinese, but the Republic had, over the last few decades, been in the midst of a propaganda campaign to convince their citizens that many famous people (including Polo) had in fact been born in China, and in a totalitarian dictatorship who was going to argue the point?

Meanwhile, all the nations of the world shared the cost of building the jump gates. Aliens were barred in the Sol system, so Captab and Balorim experts were contacted on their home worlds and grilled for advice. Many of the required resources were not available on Earth and had to be shipped in at tremendous cost. It was discovered that there was no direct conduit appropriate for travel between Sol and Epsilon Indi, and that any route would have to go via Alpha Centauri, and costs increased further. The first ship through the new Sol - Alpha Centauri gate, an unmanned drone, was spectacularly obliterated by a malfunction in the gate, and further expensive repairs ensued. The jump gates were finally constructed, and the expedition was launched.

The colony ships passed the jump gates safetly and arrived at Epsilon Indi III precisely on schedule on September 19, 2738. The entire operation was, much to the joy of mission planners who had never tried anything this large before, entirely without complication. The ships were full of specially-selected volunteers: scientists, engineers, bureaucrats, farmers, and labourers; the sort who would be needed to get any colony off the ground. In spite of the nationalist origins of the colony, Epsilon Indi III (formally named Persephone after the Greek queen of the underworld) was officially a United Nations operation, under the governance of a governor selected by the Security Council and with the finances arranged by a vast menagerie of nations too large for one country to dominate.

The colonists selected were chosen based on their physical and mental health, and had each been given pre-assigned jobs while the colony was still in the planning stage. There were some changes, the most serious of which being that many of the would-be farmers, seeing that the land was so rich that it reduced any need for their services, instead turned to logging and so opened up the colony's major industry. But, by all accounts, the colonisation of Persephone was a great success, and the call went out for prospective immigrants.

Queues formed at all offices able to sell tickets and land on Persephone. It was an expensive passage, so many of the poorer and more desperate would-be immigrants took the expedient of slipping through the long lines and stowing away or getting onboard by fraud. A few spent the last of their savings on their way to the new frontier, confident that their investment would be rewarded. This time, there were no tests or screenings and no pre-arranged jobs: it was simply a matter of getting a ticket and arriving on the planet that all had heard was such a wonder of human achievement.

They were in for a nasty shock. Persephone was surviving but by no means was it thriving, and the room for new citizens in the economy was perilously limited. The first few immigrants, even if they were unskilled, could find work in the lumberyards that were rapidly appearing to process the remarkable wood for which there had been such a sudden demand. Those with exclusive skills were always in demand, and even something like an English degree could always get you work in the diplomatic service, as alien species were taking advantage of Persephone's relative freedom to converge on the planet for trade and diplomacy. But these avenues soon dried up, and those poor and desperate folks who arrived soon found no employment whatsoever. They were squeezed into cramped and unsafe living quarters and, most lacking the means to return home, they were forced to survive any way they could.