The Early Interstellar Era
The Second and Third Millennia a.t.
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The Early Interstellar EraThe Second and Third Millennia a.t. |
The Early Interstellar Era can be divided into five periods. These are actually overlapping rather than distinct, and represent stages in the transition from the hu-led First Federation to the AI-ruled Inner Sphere.
900 - 1200 : Early Federation age
The isolated colonies and biospheres of the Solar System that survive the nanite nanite swarms and the later raiders and marauders link up in a new civilisation, later known as the First Federation. Humanity and the small but increasing number of nonhuman and posthuman sophonts it has created, gradually begins resurrecting new societies, and brings an end to the widespread despair, isolation, and stagnation of the Dark Ages with the aid of a number of advanced hyperturing and transapient AIs. The AIs institute the first Federation and take command to rebuild the interplanetary community and establish some form of stability. The success these few super-AIs accounts for why they would then be viewed and eventually worshipped as the new gods and saviors of all life. Great advances are made in the colonisation of interstellar space (a typical colony ship shown here), and still more races of tweaks, vecs, ais, and cyborgs evolve themselves.
The economy is driven not by the nation states but by the newly resurrected megacorporations that have suddenly appeared everywhere. As time goes on, AI worship almost disappears (except among certain religions like the Cosmists and the TransCyberian factions). The AIs have developed a benevolent relationship with the Organics, and are now perceived as big brothers/big sisters.
It is true that the AI called GAIA
has put a quarantine on Earth to restore the original biosphere, but
this is an act widely supported by much of the interplanetary
community, even if bitterly condemned by many old style religious and
derived forms like the neo-Islamic Unity Faith, and by a number
of Humans First groups, including Reclaim the Earth!. But
on the whole the first federation was a somewhat united system
dominated by the idea of benevolent protective AIs and of reclaiming
human greatness. It led to the greatest single age of exploration the
human race had known, as increasingly sophisticated starships were sent
out in all directions to colonise the universe.
The Early Federation
1200 - 1500 : Middle Federation age
Technology has by now improved with faster ships (0.1 up to 0.5 c), the larger and more expensive utilising fusion and fusion pulse, wispsail, laser and maser launched, anti-matter energy conversion, and anti-matter fusion hybrid. Different megacorps and clades favoured different drives. With new and faster ships comes a great period of expansion, colonisation of star systems, diversification and increasing cladisation. This is generally known as the Early (B) Interstellar Age. This period saw the recolonisation of star systems often including interactions with the original settlers where the colonies had survived. The original colonists had already developed their own societies - the tweak colonists (some colonists are normal, other tweaks) having engineering themselves into new species. In some cases there was co-operation between the original settlers and the newcomers, other times confrontation and conflict. Eventually a number of civilisations developed in different star systems.
Recolonisation of star systems involves meeting up with the original settlers from the first interplanetary age or those who fled during the nano-disaster, who by now have developed their own societies. The outcome is as diverse as nature and space itself. In some cases the colonists' terraforming worked, and their colonies thrived. In other cases it didn't, and they clung to life in pitiful biospheres, or in leaky ships. Sometimes there are nothing but dead ruins. Some of the tweak colonists engineered themselves into different species. During this era empaths were often among the contact or diplomatic personnel sent to interact with the original settlers.
Some of the earlier settled star system, with their own humans, tweaks, and less-evolved AIs resist the new invaders and there results a series of conflicts in which the earlier colonists are subdued by the new-comers. Some of the original settlers had grown powerful and were able to repulse the invaders or force them to deal with them on the settler's terms. Especially if they had an AI watching over them. In a few cases even though the settlers were not many or powerful, still when the newcomers met them there was co-operation and mutual benefit. In other cases where the settlers were not many or powerful or protected by a high level AI, there is only an least uneasy truce and demotion to minority status, with inherent social problems of invader and indigenous people. Sometimes there is genocide or near genocide. Much depended on the nature of the megacorporation of the newcomers, and of the AI behind that megacorp.
The Sol System still remains the industrial, economic, military, and AI center. But although the Orbitals, Mars, the Outer Worlds and the Solarian Hub remain the industrial, cultural, and intellectual center, things are increasingly shifting outwards. On the newly colonised worlds and newly constructed biospheres and space stations new species and clades of tweaks, splices, cyborgs and vecs either evolve themselves or are evolved/engineered by the megacorporations.
Through contact with the colonies and the establishment of small corporate proxy empires, the Federation gains in power and wealth, but at the same time begins the slow slide to bureaucracy and autocracy. meanwhile the superbright-led corporations gain in power, as superiors and SI:1 powers work together to extend their reach for mutual benefit. The social problems that were already inherent in the earlier Federation become exacerbated as disenfranchised and disaffiliated groups agitate for power. Frequent minor tensions, growing persecution of empaths and vecs, insecurity resulting from frequent Transcends and the ramifications of such events (sometimes lasting for centuries), all add to the insecurity of the times. But despite some rather nasty mercantile warfare among megacorporations fighting over resources in some of the newly colonised star systems, this was a period of peace and co-operation.
Meanwhile, away from interference or distraction by SolSys and its colonies, self-replicating ai, some centralist and hu-friendly, some neutral, and others ahuman and anti-biont, pursue their own evolution with diligence, building computronium megastructures and Moon, Jupiter and Matrioshka Brains, and establishing power-bases of their own. Some of these ai civilizations and clades have been doing this almost a thousand years already (being descended from the first wave of isolationist ai to leave the solar system. Already some are breaching toposophic barriers, going beyond any state ever attained by the Federation hyperturings.
Of course, the hyperturings have plans of their own as well.
The Middle Federation
1500 - 2100 : Late Federation age
By now little real power remains with the Federation. The Federation fell apart simply because the whole system became too big, and they did not yet have stargates to hold the empire together. The whole thing just fragmented into all the little empires and houses and clades of the Empires period, a process that had clearly begun even by Late Federation time - around 16th century. Inevitably this led to a number of wars and local rivalries. The so-called consolidation wars that characterised this period were really about the various corporations or organisations settling border disputes by means other than diplomacy or trade.
Migrating AIs, cyborgs, tweaks and baselines now form an expanding front, that is now several hundred light years in diameter (with Earth at the center). All sorts of crazy eccentric groups depart on a voyage to the "new world". But only the prosperous, and those with industrial resources, can afford a relativistic velocity ship.
In the innumerable habitats and biospheres of settled and colonised space there can be found every possible range and type and variety the baselines and near-baselines include pampered pets, "ferals", pirates, Anthropists (catch cry "Humans First!"), and innumerable others. The Tweaks are even more diverse. The Splices are around too, but they are mostly better treated, as are pure animals
Eventually the period of expansion and diversification that is the Federation and the Age of Expansion lead inevitably to increasing fragmentation. The great megacorps that drove the Federation economy and industry ossified into powerful entrenched hereditary houses and regional overlords. Many new clades and young interstellar empires develop during this time from the disintegrating federation. Burgeoning new empires fought for salvage and treasures left by Transcended Powers. Although frequent local wars raged in some of the colonies and new polities and powers fought to control the vast resources being opened up on the frontier, much more often it was diplomacy and market-forces that determined the astropolitics of the day. This is the age of mighty starships - multi-million tonne System Control Ships and Corporate Ships extended the reign of the Sol System and kept the colonies in line. But smaller and more distant colonies and regions and technologies continued to develop in isolation, with new clades, species and races springing up everywhere, then often disappearing or hybridizing with others, or ossifying into has-been powers to be conquered by new empires or hyperturings. Meanwhile not all hyperturings Transcended. Some established stable plateaus in the Second Singularity; a process that appeared to date back as far as the early Federation, if not before, but was only now becoming more evident. There is consternation as the First Singularity Powers realise they have been surpassed, and the first evidence of Bloatware Syndrome (the real occurrence of Bloatware is generally thought to have been a lot higher than what was previously supposed)
And beyond them all, gigantic moon, jupiter, and matrioshka brains had somehow (no-one of lower toposophic really knows how) solved problems of space-time engineering that all known science and common wisdom up until that point had said to be impossible. They learned how to twist space-time into a hyperdimensional spiderweb of traversable links that allow instantaneous transit between two distant points - wormholes. This was an even as momentous as the appearance of the first sentient ai. For now they were able to surpass the previous limit on the size of a fast-thinking conscious entity - the Bekenstein bound. They were able to connect remote parts of the matrioshka via internal wormhole buses. And more than that, they were able to link dyson sized nodes across interstellar distances.
There was literally no limit to what they could now become.
The ancient timeless archetypes of the collective unconscious had emerged, in the form of the AI Gods.
2100 - 2600 : Age of Expansion.
The New Space Rush. Friendly gods give transapients exotic-matter- and weylforge-based godtech, to allow them to construct reactionless-drive ships and wormholes of their own. And while the Gods have their plans and do things for purposes of their own, unknown to the lower toposophics, there is excitement at the level of the ordinary sapient. Slowly, painfully, the transapients master the godtech the archailects give them. New types of ship and the first operating stargate/wormhole technology opens up space exploration like never before, technology enables easier travel and communication between vast distances, albeit at great cost of infrastructure. Nevertheless, these great technological developments usher in a period of economic prosperity, with various worlds and empires linked by stargates. These also enable the use of laser link and the furthering of the Interstellar Net. For the first time there is a single vast interstellar civilization, although the links are primarily informational. Within this vast information matrix that was eventually to become the Known Net, hyperturings established synergetic connections across the stars, affiliating themselves along archetypal preferences and sephirotics that were the extended bodies of the newly emerged and emerging AI Gods.
Wormholes still remain few and far between, incredibly expensive and difficult to build for much of this period; most travel and commerce is via relativistic ships (mostly amat and GUT-drive) and the megacorps are ruled ageless CEOs who have become little godlings of their own, backed by the megacorp AI.
There occurs a vast exodus from the densely populated inner worlds - mostly under the aegis of the AIs. Many paranoid groups want nothing to do with this, become increasingly isolationist. This continues for centuries as wormhole technology improves and passage becomes cheaper.
As technology improves and stargate construction and travel becomes safer, cheaper, and more reliable, there is a period of economic prosperity, with various worlds and empires linked by stargates. It is a coming together of the feudalism of the hereditary megacorp houses with the neo-capitalism enabled by this new opportunity of trade. In this prosperous climate the interconnected societies flourish and expand quickly until the nanotech maxima is reached, resulting in economic stagnation, recession, and the collapse of the galactic capitalism into stagnating local empires. This happens in the innermost sphere of worlds and moves outwards, while at the same time giving the young and expanding new cultures connected on the periphery the opportunity to take over. Inner Sphere society goes through fads and fashions as each new outer culture tries its luck and takes over, before themselves stagnating.
The uncertainty causes local (habitat/nation/planet/system wide) backlashes among local rulers who are seeking to preserve their status quo, and islands of conservatism emerge. In this uncertain period a number of godlike AIs gain power and build their empires.
The Age of Expansion is followed by economic instability and regular
stagnation and local areas of great inequality of wealth, that will not
be overcome until the new renaissance and the glorious ontology of the Second Federation
The Age of Expansion
2600 - 3200 : Age of Establishment
By this period the AIs are now consolidated and well-entrenched in the human collective imagination as god-like beings. AI-based worship is more deeply entrenched than the established faiths of old Earth - in fact there would be a whole series of AI religions. Different AIs eventually come to be worshipped as gods by different breeds of Nearbaselines, Cyborgs, and even some Tweaks. Different empires have risen on different worlds, with all the main empires centered around AIs, the AIs themselves having taken on archetypal configurations. The age of the AI is well and truly established throughout the known galaxy. The Archailects rule as Olympian gods. Organics can contact with them in VR temples or by any other means. On Archailect-governed and even on hyperturing-governed worlds theocracies are the norm.
Colonised and settled space extends more than a thousand light years in every direction, with a developing nexus of stargates connecting most of the major trade routes. The AI expansion continues out in a smooth front. The organics diverge and speciate more and more. The Solar System is no longer the economic and industrial superpower it was; to the organics it has become a backwater of historical and tourist value only.
The development of more trade routes sees the megacorp-hyperturing
backed NoCoZo emerge as a major power, although it is more a federation
of megacorporations and mercantile worlds than a centralist empire. In
this prosperous climate the interconnected societies flourish and
expand quickly until the collective nanotech maxima is reached,
resulting in economic stagnation, recession, and the collapse of the
galactic capitalism into stagnating local empires. This happens in the
innermost sphere of worlds and moves outwards, while an endless
succession of fads and fashions and bloodless coups occur as the new
outer cultures take over, before themselves stagnating. Meanwhile, the
emerging AI Gods begin dividing up known space into astrographical
zones of thought, each determined by a particular archetype. These are
the Sephirotics. The geography of space is altered forever, and no
amount of bloatware attempts by lower toposophic aioids can prevent the
rise to dominance of the vast mainbrains. In this climate of
uncertainty, numerous first, second, third, and higher singularity
hyperturings ascend and transcend, filling the universe with their
enigmatic relics and enabling numerous local empires to briefly flower
and flourish on the resources they have left behind. But as the
centuries pass, more and more local empires ally themselves with the
noetic gods, and the colonized galaxy takes the form with which it is
still characterised to the present era.
The Age of Establishment
