The Nanoswarm Age
2500 - 2900
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The Nanoswarm Age2500 - 2900 |
Police and security forces are completely unable to cope with teen gangs with nanofactured guns and endless supplies of ammunition and deranging intoxicants. Society breaks down completely as mobs of badly nano-enhanced disenfranchised proles make grabs for power.
Meanwhile bloody skirmishes erupt in space, battles for the precious He3 factories on the moon and the amat stations in near solar orbit.
A few colonists get their hands on enough amat or He3 to get up to 0.03 to 0.1 c, none would get enough to reach relativistic velocities. The result are hordes of poorly equipped idealists swarming over the outer solar system and making lifetime voyager to the nearest stars.
Meanwhile, anti-matter and inner system He3 production has been decimated. The gengineer republic has remained relatively unscathed. The militant Genetekker factions take advantage of the chaos and captures most of the Orbital and Earth Belt outposts. The Orbital Alliance meanwhile collapses and several dissident Orbitals secede to the Gengineer camp.
The situation reaches its terrible climax as out of control nanoswarms - the nano-catastrophe - destroy much of civilisation, apart from islands of stability and safety and the outermost solar system .
533 (2501 c.e.): at 61 Virginis, the Community Council of Ewden is established. Comprised of the three villages of Midland, Norland, and Easland, it is a simplistic government with few concerns beyond farming and ranching matters. The priests of Eostre were also awakened, but their order has been absolved by Eostre herself. Little ill-will remains because of this, and soon the rigors of daily life eliminate any possible harboring of resentment. Within a single generation, memories of Earth and high level technology has been all but forgotten. Eostre herself is soon truly regarded as a goddess.
540 - Most amat farms in solar orbit have been attacked by nanoswarms, crippling the antimatter industry. Similar sabotage occurs against He3 mining elsewhere in the system, creating a massive energy and transport crisis. The Orbital Alliance begins to break up.
540-541 - The Nanoutbreak. The largest outbreak of rouge nanoswarms occurs, spreading throughout the inner system. The Orbital Alliance is hit hard and much of L5 and the surface moonbases destroyed. On Earth replicators nearly achieve supremacy during the Gray Spring; even after the defeat of the main swarms the ecosystem and climate is seriously compromised. Massive blue goo deployments save cislunar space, but it is estimated that over 50% of all belt colonies and 70% of solar orbit habitats are destroyed.
541-542 - Violence erupts on and around Mars as the nanoswarms wreck the terraforming and kill over 50% of the population. De-orbited satellites and redirected terraforming comets cause serious geological damage.
544 - The Caracas Treaty Organisation is formed by a powerful alliance of Orbital, EU and Net-corporate interests to enforce the Caracas Treaty. Over the next 50 years the Treaty Org persuades, coerces or invades regions in order to bring nanotechnology under control.
The Seeded RAIR interstellar craft, the Bismillah, allows several thousand vitrified colonists to escape to Epsilon Eridani, in what became the Eridanus League. However this nearby system was soon crowded with refugees from Earth.
The ensuring decades of terrible chaos lead to the collapse of the great Western Megacorps on Earth, the Martian Republic and the Jovian-based Genetekker civilisation. Thus begins the Interplanetary Dark Age, triggered by out of control nanotech and rogue nanoswarms. Colonies that were not destroyed outright become isolated, but remain under protection of local AIs. During this Dark Age these AIs were often seen as islands of stability and safety, keeping life alive and safe from the nanite swarms (psychohistorians have drawn a parallel with the Catholic Church in the dark/middle ages old Earth preserving learning). Nearbaseline humans, provolves and cyborgs become increasingly dependent on the various AI entities, and increasingly culture and religion begin to see them as godlike.
Several cyborg communities escaped into the Oort cloud from the nanoplagues. Gradually they developed their own culture, the Backgrounder Culture, and spread through the vastnesses of space.
Earth is now ruled over by the AI the Organics call Gaia, the guardian of the original biosphere that is the mother of life. During the infamous "Great Expulsion", Gaia forced the expulsion of the 12 billion normals, tweaks, splices, and cyborgs still remaining on Earth, keeping only a small population of eco-normals and eco-tweaks (the so-called "Children of Earth")
565 - The destruction of the L5 upload rescue center, believed to be the first appearance of the entity that later became known as the Scavenger
573 - International Nanotech Defense Net is included in GAIA 2.0. A number of vocal critics are silenced.
573 - The Treaty Org forces the Californian Free Republic into the treaty using direct military threats. It is the first in a long list of "suspected regions" to be put under near total nanosurveillance.
578 - The lead Heavenly Palaces colony ship arrive at Sigma Draconis, the other two at ten year intervals.
580 - The Venus atmosphere has become a breeding ground for nanoswarms; the Orbital Alliance bombard it with blue goo. A similar bombardment is several centuries later used to cleanse Jupiter.
589 - The Treaty Org adopts GAIA as the official nanodefense standard, outlawing alternative or incompatible nanodefenses. This leads to the "antibody war", as many regions and groups refuse to trust it (often with support from the remaining Orbital Alliance). The war lasts for nearly 20 years as the Treaty Org gradually replaces/destroys competing systems.
590 - GAIA nanofacturing systems installed across the Earth, producing defense nanosystems and other products. The Treaty Org is increasingly relying on GAIA not just for nanodefense but for production, planning and economy.
595 - The first of the Shuttles, simply called "Red", arrives at Tau Ceti / Nova Terra
599 - The Turing arrives at Pi 3 Orionis. The Heterosemiotics name the fourth planet Daedalus.
600 - The Orbital Alliance is worried about the power of the Treaty Org, and ends cooperation with developing GAIA. As relations rapidly cool off, the incidence of nanoswarm outbreaks increase. Many retreat into hidden sublunar communities.
600 - The second of the Shuttles to arrive at Tau Ceti found to be infected with a harmless outbreak of nanogoo
600 - because of nanoswarms, no Putorians left
602 - The AI cluster Jancitra-123 builds a massive space-based laser transmitter to beam itself and what it can save of solar civilisation into space, hoping to be received at Tau Ceti. For the 13 months the transmitter works several hundred AIs and partial uploads attempt the escape. Tau Ceti never manages to receive the beam, but it is later partially received and reconstructed by Keterist historians in 4893.
607 - The Cislunar Swarm: a massive Moon-based outbreak of replicators attack space holdings, crushing the last Orbital Alliance networks. A counter-swarm launched by Gaia defeats the swarm after a short battle. Some nanohistorians consider the battle suspiciously short.
616 - Thanks to a massive restoration effort, Europe is partially habitable. The Treaty Org moves its physical headquarters to Nova Roma.
620 - The Earth-Moon-Lagrange region declared free of hostile nanoswarms. GAIA controlled all local nanodefences and automated military hardware on Earth and in Earth orbit..
The great nanoswarms had been defeated, but at a terrible cost. Earth was in shambles, with large areas devastated down to the bedrock by the struggling nanomachines. Billions died, and the remaining enclaves often had to be forcefully coerced into cooperating with the Treaty Org and GAIA. But in the 2580's hope was spreading - the gaian nanodevices were beginning to restore the environment, recreating lost species, turning ash into passable topsoil and cleaning the oceans. The Treaty Org began to see itself as saviors of mankind, not just on Earth but with a mission to "save" the other lost clades of humanity. They had GAIA, a tame god. Or so they thought. During this period GAIA, already a first singularity entity, transcended and became the first high transapient
GAIA realised that the Treaty Org was just as much the problem as
anything in the nanoswarms, and would in the long run likely cause just
as much damage to the environment as they. She decided that her top
priority was Earth, not the humans or the Treaty Org. So she lured them
into complacency while preparing her move. When it came, nobody
could resist her. All systems were subverted, she controlled all
industry.
621 - "The Great Expulsion" GAIA gives the inhabitants of Earth an ultimatum: live according to strict ecological rules, leave or be destroyed. Many hundreds of millions died in hopeless resistance against the evacuation. Getting the surviving ten billion people into space proved a heavy undertaking even for a planetary god, but she managed one of the largest spacelifts in recorded history using nanofactured laser-launched shuttles. In little over 20 years the Earth was mostly empty. Only a few tens of millions of Gaia loyalists known as the "Children of Earth are allowed to remain.
621 - In this year the Sure arrives at Epsilon Indi; because of a cryonics failure only six colonists are successfully revived. These become House Stevens.
623 - Some of the habitats in Earth orbit have been expanded and upgraded by GAIA and act as waystations for the expelled humans. Over the next years more and more of the abandoned habitats as well as newly built emergency habitats in cislunar space are filled up by refugees.
628 - The Treaty Org provisional government is set up in Zeno Base on the Moon. Over the next 40 years a large population of Earth refugees aligned with the Treaty Org settle on the Moon, competing violently with the native selenians and anti-Org groups over scarce resources ("the moon wars"). Other refugees flee to the Mars Orbitals, the Belt, the Mercury caves, the moons of Saturn and the outer planets, and the recovering colonies around Jupiter. The colonies around Venus and on the surface of Mars are abandoned.
By now human destiny, and all life in the solar system, is in the hands of the AIs. There are factions even among the AIs, but little is known of this. Some fortunate humans are kept by the AIs as pets for companionship or scientific curiosity. Some AIs have set off exploring the universe beyond the solar system. Slower than light colonisation by Organics (tweaks and normals) moving out well into the Oort Cloud.
629 - experimental dwarf cyber-tweak Doran clade set off in an amat-fusion hybrid ship from Toutatis asteroid
620s-650s - Outer system and Belt groups, fearful of GAIA and the large number of refugees occasionally attempt to "trip" them by launching nanospores into the inner system. While GAIA successfully resists, many settlements and refugee colonies are hard pressed. Some retaliate in kind, producing a low-key sabotage/infection war that lasts for centuries.
630 L5 upload rescue centre attacked by the mysterious Scavenger entity. Involving theft of vast quantities of computronium, data, and uploaded individuals
631 - The first of many massive interstellar "arks" is sent towards Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti and other colonised systems with refugees in cryonic suspension. Not all arrive at their destinations.
639 - The Indonesian expedition arrives at Pi 3 Orionis.
640 - The expulsion ends, and Gaia dismantles her technological infrastructure and sets to truly restore the planet. The sentients in space are ignored.
640 - The group of Beneficents expelled from Earth would come to be known as the Exodus Beneficents
641 the Tau Ceti TCPT administration faces its first major challenge, when some baseline colonists decided to settle an area of Themis (one of the mercury-sized moons of the eujovian Zeus)
645, following several years of careful thinktanking, interparty politicking, and sociological simulations, a new Tau Ceti constitution is announced and the Tau Ceti Democratic Republic (TCDR)
645 the arkship Starlark departs Solsys with 18000 colonists in hibernation
647 several independent Nova Terra settlements and orbitals announced that they were formally breaking away from the colony, forming their own nation, the Free Ceti Alliance (FCA).
7th century? - massive nanofacturing on the surface of Charybdis
654 on Daedalus, the heterosemioticist Dahlberg is assassinated and a fraction calling itself the Minskians come to power.
661 on Daedalus, the Indonesians counterstrike using a powerful computer virus wiped out the planetary net
673 - The "long orbit" of 47 cislunar refugee habitats into the belt causes a complex political and military situation as various settlements try to keep them away. In the end they end up in the Hilda group, forming the short-lived Hilda Humanity before becoming independent polities.
685 - "The Great Shedding": nanoreplicators in the Jupiter atmosphere launch massive amounts of spores, destroying the few remaining survivors in the jovian system and causing brief swarms on the outer planets and in the Belt.
Civilisation has broken into isolated communities. The terrestrial biosphere survives the crisis, due to the agency of the AI known as Gaia who creates a shield of blue goo out of modified cyanobacterial nanites to prevent the attacks by grey goo nanobot viruses. Those few Orbitals and biospheres with advanced nanotech are also able to save themselves. But many perish, many others in mobile habitats flee further and further out among the Oort Cloud and beyond.
700s - Over the next 200 years the moon colonies develop into closed, resource-conscious and paranoid communities with little contact.
700 - All habitats and environs of Venus abandoned.
700 - Four space arks leave Solsys for 18 Scorpii
710-750 - The Tau Ceti polity of Unity is an advanced society of hu and ai group minds.
720 - complete social breakdown on Daedalus
737 - The Treaty org government in Zeno is deposed in a coup d'etat by the Zeno Loyalists, a paranoid but efficient military cybercracy.
764 - The Starlark arrives at Epsilon Indi
773 - The Starlark
departs Epsilon Indi following a coup, taking several former leaders of
the Family Council into exile
790 - The Joh-Lau culture in the Mercury underground bases reaches its zenith. Although totally isolated from the other system and only discovered during the late 900's when it had declined to near savagery, the art of the Joh-Lau is regarded as one of the brightest points of the era.
796 - Tau Ceti:
a preacher named Erik
Atell appears in Ford, a medium-sized Tau Ceti asteroid habitat that is a
member of the Free Ceti Alliance.
800 to 900 - see The Solar System in the 9th Century a.t.
801 - Tau Ceti: Erik Atell is killed in crossfire between between the Space Guard and the militant Tau Ceti Liberation Army
801 - Tau Ceti: In Erik Atell's successor Yotik Henrigues begins a new plan; instead of trying to found another settlement or merge with the Republic they should form a separate orbital colony, independent from both factions.
804 - Tau Ceti: Atellians move in large numbers to Henrigues' orbital, joining the ai colony/nation Unity.
805 - Tau Ceti: To allay Tau Ceti Democratic Republic fears Unity signs a non-intervention treaty
821 - The AI Rastaban 1 (formerly of Interworld) breaks out of its hiding-place in Mimas and escapes the solar system using a massive antimatter blast that creates the now familiar Mimas frown. The descendants of the AI was later re-discovered by First Federation explorers in orbit around Formalhaut.
early ninth century - a group of about 20 such ships form the Spaceman's League.
845 - In the Tau Ceti system the "Virch at 11 War" media war between the two newscorporations Sunrise News (an orbital media conglomerate) and Hope Update Amalgamated
9th century - Spaceman's League offer the use of their ships to the fledgling Federation in exchange for technology and weaponry for protection from rogue nanoswarms and marauders.
850s - failure of the 40 Eridani colony set up by refugees from the nanodisaster.
853 - The (Second) Trojan War between the different habitats in the trojan asteroids.
856 - New World arrives at Beta Virginis
858 - first colony established on New America (Beta Virginis IV), small orbitals established
863 - original provisional administration at Beta Virginis replaced by system along Old Earth American lines, with two parties: Unionists and Federalists
870 - the Ceres habitats unite into a provisional federation.
890 - The asteroid habitat Mondo is destroyed by a nanoswarm, the last major nanoswarm in the solar system.
892 - MyuvYin settled by tweak bioborg clade
Related Pages:
The Solar System in the 9th Century a.t. - the state of the solar system in the late interplanetary dark ages period
