Actually Thargoids had already been noted to have been visiting humans prior to the official date in lave.
Also if you imagine Frame Shift being the only way to travel without hyperspace conduits.
This takes humanity months and years to travel to places.
Jump engines making Hyperspace conduits are “new” and became standard before the game launched.
Except a small time when GalCorp had reversed engineered Thargoids tech after the first encounter giving human the ability to jump to other sections of the ga
here is the timeline
Thanks to the lore hunters, compiling the tourist information and from various books into the various wiki's
2151 Human Hyperspace travel (invented by Li Qin Jao) started with hyperspace probes finding various habitable planets, Taylors Colony in Tau Ceti being the first.
2190 Delta Pavonis and the Altair colonies were founded.
2230 Beta Hydra Colony founded
2242 Federation Accord, making the colonies (by force if necessary) a part of the Federation of Star Systems (Taylors Colony being one of the first signatories)
2280 Martian Relic discovered (presumable a fossil of the early stages of failed life on mars, or presumable something more sinister? The Feds took it an kept it a secret)
2288 Eutienses (but landfall occurs after terraforming had completed in 2312)
2191 Second Terraforming attempt on Mars successfully completed
2292 The Republic of Achenar is founded by Pacifist and all-round doo-Gooder Marlin Duval who didn't like the ways of the Federation, herself and other political idealists flew out to the known edge of human space to escape the Federation.
2296 Marlin Duval is assassinated, probably by her Evil brother, who took over, wiped out the indigenous species of Achenar 6d and formed the Empire of today.
2296 Raxxla is first mentioned by an Engineer in Tau-Ceti.
To put this into perspective from
2339 Sirrus System was colonized by the Sirius corporation with it's near-monopoly on hyperspace drive fuel and engine tech. (I believe, Tantalum is the fuel and was mined from Salome's planet in the Prism system ?)
2412 to
2422 the "Old World" Colonies of Diso, Lave, Leesti, Oerve, Reorte, Riedquat, Tionisla, uszaa, Zoance were founded.
2696 The Galactic Corporation (Galcorp) was founded upon those "old world colonies" which was a precursor to the Alliance. Galcorp could stand toe-to-toe and became economically independent from both the Federation and Imperials. In fact, Galcorp went as far as to try and isolate and become a self-contained entity.
2849 First (unofficial) Thargoid encounters
3100 Pilots Federation is formed, as well as their ranking systems like "Elite", Commander Jameson being the first.
3125 First Official Thargoid Encounter in Lave, Reversed engineers Thargoid hyperdrive were derived, and were Quirium based.
3174 Collapse of galcorp and the loss of Thargoid based hyperdrive.
3251 Sirius crop launches and loses the Anteres who's experimental hyperdrive failure was similar to Federation Starship One's failure.
3252 Failed mission to find Thargoid tech, based on experimental hyperdrive, presumed to be sabotaged by INRA.
3253 Successful mission to find Thargoid tech with the return of a Thargoid ship.
3278 New hyperdrive on sale from Siruis Corporation, can make days of journey into seconds.
3297 New Hyperspace engines are derived off Thargoid tech, and installed in all space-ships ushering in a new era of space travel,
3300 new pilots as a part of a beta backing process of a 21rst century game called Elite Dangerous appear and start aggrevating the systems with their nomadic ways.
3301 new pilots as a part of the launch of a 21rst century game called Elite Dangerous appear start aggrevating the systems with their nomadic ways.
So the extent of human space by the mention of Raxxla was roughly 150ly away and that took place roughly 150 years after hyperspace travel so that's 1 light year per year max speed
That being said. The political idealists (who formed the empire), dashed out as far as they could to get as far away from the feds as possible AND THEN set up colonies and expanded after that.
The Feds, if we take Lave to be a good marker of colony establishing, were moving MUCH slower, about 0.5 ly per year, so by the time Raxxla is mentioned the fed had colonized a 75 ly bubble, and it was pointed out on the Raxxla thread, it would be a spiky bubble.
But is interstellar comms faster than light, or was lightspeed still the top(?) So we could be talking bubble of 75 lys out and 75 lys back.
