All life likes to expand, from the smallest bacteria to the biggest things we've seen. Through the Formation, humanity persevered. From the ground humanity conquered, to the seas, and to the skies. But we wanted more, thus, we did what we do best.
We got more.
Despite all of the conflicts and differences we had in the millions of years in our existence, we eventually excelled into space. We started slowly, establishing colonies on the moon, asteroids and other small bodies we had in our reach. We knew the conditions of space, and we knew the hazards and precautions, yet many workers chose to fly to the new frontier, and thus we sent them.
Space was a gold mine, in opportunities and in the literal sense. Asteroid mining was profitable and a single operation could theoretically yield billions worth of resources, and thus mines from Earth tried moving to space; but with thousands of businesses entering the asteroid extraction business, and the flood of minerals into supply, the price of space-mined minerals crashed and a recession occurred. Despite this, some companies pushed through, as the new jobs in manufacturing and the increased demand due to expensive R&D grew, so did the businesses that got through.
Humanity was growing out of it cradle, as colonies began to be established on Earth's sisters next to her; and whilst we grew, the law established years ago didn't. Whilst we did have law saying what we could do and what we couldn't do in space, nobody put in effort to enforce it, and nobody put in effort to follow it, and crime became rampant. Freighter hijacking became a real threat, and ships slowly became armed with weapons.
Travel was slow, and from Earth to Jupiter it took decades, to the point where by the time that when freighters were arriving at Jovian colonies, they were already being replaced. This seperation between Earth and Jupiter forced the Jovian colonies to fend for themselves, or pursuit other shady opportunities just to feed people; this Jovian way of thinking still lives on even after the bubbles. One of the Jovian technologies first developed were cryogenic sleep chambers allowing someone to live in hibernation for up to years for as long there is food, water and power; spread by colony engineers in the dire case that there should be no solid food on the table.
But we wanted more. Our solar system wasn't enough.
Carmen Eto was a Jovian physicist working for the Earthen Neumonian Corporation, studying abnormal Ionian tectonic activity and surface explosions. During one of her EVA walks, she was in front of one of these abnormal explosions. She was recovered by medical staff at the outpost she was stationed at, before immediately locking herself in her room for eight days. Outpost medical and security raided her housing to search for her, to find her dead in her desk holding her notebook. Her notes were hastily scribbled, however theorized the existence of a space called "interspace" which humanity could break into by bending through weak spots in space.
Many companies dismissed Eto as a maniac, and so did Neumonian Corporation - but the Feijuki Corporation was willing to try out her ridiculous idea. They were the first to engineer the first ever interspace drive, utilizing the weakened interspace spots in the Jovian region to launch their probe through, which succeeded and recorded footage before arriving near Neptune. This footage was slowly broadcasted back to Feijuki, which proved the existence of interspace and it's possibility of use in interstellar travel.
Feijuki then engineered the second iteration, which the core concept is still used in the future. The second iteration of drives utilize a hydrogen bubble, which assists push the vessel into interspace. During the engineering of the second iteration, physicists realized that interspace was a border between space and the great noise, which was described as "atom soup". With this discovery, interspace was discovered to be as unstable as very hot oil - but it could be predicted. Feijuki then launched the first interstellar probe which was supposed to cross interspace and back, which it did. Feijuki Corporation and Neumonian Corporation were head on, racing for the first manned interstellar flight - Feijuki beat Neumonian to it, collecting surface samples on Alpha Centauri. However, half way through the return trip, the cryostasis pods opened prematurely exposing the crew to interspace. This drove the crew insane in the same way that Carmen went insane, all of them committing a group suicide.
Feijuki Corporation was criticized and their reputation plummeted, whilst Neumonian Corporation took advantage and developed the shutdown of cameras on the outside, alongside the shutting of window shutters. With these protections, Neumonian sales skyrocketed as humanity began to jump out of its cradle like gas out of a balloon.
At first, space was much more anarchic, with settlers on planets mainly being forced to fend for themselves instead of having a central organization to fend off against bandits or pirates. The stars had to be charted, and charters there were, looking to explore for new worlds and new planets, and over the course of a few more decades, humanity colonized it's hundredth star. Terraforming at it's peak still took centuries, but many of the planets discovered at the time were relatively hospitable enough, but as more people settled on the edge of humanity, a political division grew. On one side, the Core, who believed that the frontier worlds required peacekeeping and unification under the Core name; and the frontier worlds, who believed the laws and regulations of the Core were too catered for the Core.
This thick cultural division was the cause for many heavy political debates, and many failed peacekeeping operations. Eventually, the frontier worlds united under the Conglomerate, which fought the core worlds head on. The war lasted for eight grueling years, which eventually resulted in the Conglomerate settling for peace, because it was affecting their economy heavily. The terms were simple: all Conglomerate planets were to abide under Core law. But law is only law when it is enforced, and after the treaty was signed, everything went back to how it was - barbaric, anarchic, balkanized, and all the other words that the Core used against the frontier worlds. Eventally, the Core got fed up with this and threatened for another war just as the frontier economy was stabilizing, and at the heat of politics between the Core and the frontier, where billions of people on hundreds of planets began praying to whatever gods they believed in against the idea of a second war, and both sides were already cleaning their arsenal in preparation for a second war, the Core vanished. No more radio communications, no more letters, no more news, no more mail, and no more shipments. They disappeared.
The last crew coming out of the Core was interviewed. They stated that before entering interspace, the starlight towards the core dimmed. This phenomena was called the bubble, and was the first of it's kind - striking fear into the heart of the frontier, and the Conglomerate was brought up for the first time since the war, to figure out what the issue was and what happened. The frontier knew well that humanity's best researchers, scientists, engineers, blueprints, technology and education were centralized entirely within the core, and the loss of it was a catastrophic blow to the gut. It was unanimously agreed that the Core was gone, but as more planets began to disappear, the Conglomerate began to realize that it was expanding. The bubbles were growing, and they had to act fast; so humanity did what humanity does well, immediately start fighting over what was fact.
Just two months after the expansion, the Conglomerate collapsed into several groups. The Tri believed that the bubbles couldn't be fixed, and we had to look forward and colonize other worlds. The Guards on the other hand believed that the bubbles could be fixed, and people left behind on worlds had to be saved. The remnants of the manufacturing wing of the Neumonian and Feijuki Corporation formed the Neujuki Wing uniting under one name, putting both brains together. The Qub believed that the bubbles were the fault of man, and thus our punishment for polluting the stars. Many people theorized and questioned what the bubbles were and what caused them, but the only thing known for sure is that the centralized intelligence for everything was destroyed forever.
The collapse shattered the mirror of humanity into pieces, but we prevailed — slowly gluing ourselves together; but with bubbles slowly undoing the glue that we have laid out, and the mirror still having its cracks from the collapse, we were left with one question — can the mirror ever come united in peace, or at least, the way it used to be?