1786 - People begin settling in British South Georgia and Sandwich Isles. These pioneers are mostly Scandanavian and British.
1872 - After reading 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth', eccentric Chilean inventor and aristocrat Pedro Manuel Egenau is inspired to begin work on the steam-powered drilling machine.
1879 - With his prototype completed, Egenau and contraption set sail to South Georgia, where he plans to hire a troup of whalingmen as guides into the Antarctic mainland. His plan is to test his drill first in the Antarctic Ice before attempting to drill through solid rock. The whalers take his offer but insist in waiting untill the following summer.
1880 - Egenau makes his historic first drill and reaches the Antarctic surface through thirty feet of ice. The team make another six drills while on the continent, the deepest 48ft deep.
1881 - Egenau returns to Chile and attempts to drill through the solid land of his estate. Unfortunately he dies when his first terrestrial pit collapses on top of him.
1910 - A team of British explorers discover the remains of Egenau's pits. Intrigued they ask the South Georgians if they knew anything about them. An old Norwegian whaler tells him of the Chilean inventor, intrigued, the explorers head off to Chile that winter to find Egenau. Upon finding that he has died they arrange to buy the inventors notes and blueprints from his widow.
1911 - Upon return to London the explorers begin circulating Egenau's work. The technicalities themselves are woefully out of date, the British Empire has left the steam age, but the idea of tunnelling under the Antarctic Ice strikes a chord, both in terms of colonialist adventure, and the real material wealth the continent could hold. Work begins developing a new generation of oil-powered Antarctic tunnellers.
1913 - Britain sends a fleet of four tunnellers and a team of 40 experts to Antarctica to begin a five year mission to found a subterranean research station. Among the experts are architects whose job it is to supervise the construction of the tunnels in such a way that cave-ins do not occur.
1914 - France begins an Antarctic program, but the program is interrupted by the Great War.
1918 - The Great War ends and nations are free to continue or begin their Antarctic programs. France, America, Australia, South Africa, Chile and Argentina all send crews to found Antarctic colonies.
1920 - The British Colony makes its first significant discovery of coal. Industrial scale mining begins. Later in the year America makes a similar discovery.
1933 - In light of the Depression, Antarctica is decided by its colonial administrators to be made an example of the power of industrialisation. Work programs begin to drastically increase the scope of the tunnels and the various colonies are connected by a new railway system, many low-skilled workers are hired from the mother countries. Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union both send their first drilling teams. The population by the end of the year is nearly 10,000.
1939-45 - World War Two. Hitler makes tacit claims to Antarctica. Behind the scenes it is agreed between the Third Reich, Chile and Argentina that in the outcome of an Axis victory Antarctica would be shared between the three of them. Of course, the Allies win and Germany is kept away from Antarctica. Over the War the Antarctic Colonies had been important industrial settings, many colonies had repaid their initial developement costs and were now beginning to make a profit. The Soviet Union annex the Japanese colony.
1950 - A loosely worded Antarctic Treaty is signed that sets out the legitimacy of national claims to the continent.
1951 - The largest conurbation beneath the ice is incorporated as the City of Ergenau. Ergenau is linked by rail to all major colonial centres except those of the Soviet Union. India arrives to form a buffer colony between the Soviet Union and the Western Colonies, the Indian colony is supported by both the Comintern and the Commonwealth.
1955 - China establishes an Antarctic colony. The first mayoral elections are held in Ergenau, many other colonial 'cities' follow suit.
1964 - The Antarctic population is now over one million.
1969-74 - Greenpeace is founded and becomes the first NGO to settle in Antarctica. The Greenpeace Colony becomes the most rapidly growing of them all as it forms the base of a series of anti-whaling operations. Later in the year, due to Greenpeace intervention and an act of British legislation in 1974 whaling is no longer performed within the Antarctic Circle.
1972 - The USA puts a man on the moon.
1975 - The Greenpeace Colony, long out of any real jurisdiction, declares its independence as the Starlis Republic. It takes the form of a highly democratic, morally liberal, environmentalist state. The example inspires other colonists to petition for greater democratic say.
1976 - Argentinian forces put down pro-democracy riots in their colony. The remaining Western colonies close the rail lines to Argentine Antarctica. By the middle of the year a democratic coup occurs in the colony and the railways are reopened. The colonial governors, in defiance of their motherlands, agree to protect the liberties of their fellow colonists by all means neccessary in the historic Ergenau Declaration.
1977 - The Soviet Colony, supported by Antarctic Radicals, declares its independence. The Soviet Navy is sent down to crush the rebellion, but are engaged by the fledgling Antarctic Navy (a volunteer fleet), who, being clearly disadvantaged resort to suicide tactics. The Battle of Sabrina, as it becomes to be know, sinks seventeen Antarctic ships and three Soviet vessels. The remainder of the Soviet fleet lands in Antarctica to the disgust of the world but is simply unable to restore order, no accurate maps are available of the tunnels and so the Soviet marines are lead off in to dead ends and picked off one by one by the hidden rebels.
1978 - The Soviet Union hobbles away from Antarctica with 25,000 of its most elite troops dead and not a dent made in the colony's resolve to remain independent. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev is removed from office and replaced by Yuri Andropov. Andropov prgamatically accepted the Sabrina Colony's independence and concentrated instead on cleaning up the USSR from within. Many within the Soviet Union saw him as weak and within his reign independence movements sprang up throughout the disentegrating USSR...
1980 - The combined leadership of the colonies, emboldened by their victory over the Soviet Union issue a statement to their respective motherlands that they, having decided democratically, wish to declare their independence. With the exception of China (who, in the light of the 77-79 war, realise they have no chance of keeping their colony, chose instead to simply ignore the declaration), all of the colonising nations consent.
1981 - The Antarctic Federation is recognised as an independent nation.
later the remaining French territory is made an independent country.