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A "Renaissance" is defined in this case as a flowering of artistic creativity, scientific discovery, development in technology and trade, some significant changes in the operation of personal culture, political ferment, a "rediscovery" of some older cultural models and information, sometimes an influx of new foreign ideas, and usually an upsurge in local population. Renaissance events often set the pattern for future cultural development in ages to follow. Some significant Renaissance periods in Old Earth history include Sung dynasty China, Gupta era India, and of course the European Renaissance for which such events have since been named. Since the Nanoswarms all such events are by definition "Renaissance" events, since they inevitably occur in reference to other, older cultures, however novel their own inventions may be.
It is theoretically possible to engineer a Renaissance event among modosophonts given certain preconditions and some careful memetic engineering, but even as late as the Early Empires era the necessary memetic conceptual tools had not been fully developed. (The failed FreedomWorld project at the foundation of Daffy is a case in point). Even today, despite huge advances in memetics, most Renaissance events appear to be natural rather than planned. Transapients' explanations as to why this should be so are not consistent with one another.
The following are a few of the best known post-Nanoswarm Renaissance events.
First Order (influenced the entire Terragen Sphere)
Second Order (strong regional influence; some effect on the rest of the Terragen Sphere)
Third Order (strong planetary or system-wide influence; some regional influence; niche influence on the rest of the Terragen Sphere)
