The Current Setting
10000 to 10600
|
|
|
|
The Current Setting10000 to 10600 |
The current era is one in which there has never been such stability at home and yet, paradoxically, such instability. The Old Inner Sphere archailects still rule over all as Olympian deities, reigning over countless different races and clades. However, some of the sapients of the inner sphere are worried that in the process of reorganising and assimilating larger stretches of newly claimed space, and coming to terms with an increasing number of new emerging AI Gods, Ascends, and Transcends, in the Outer Volumes and along the periphery, the Sephirotic AI gods may reorganise things and do some fancy ascensions or transcensions that might just absorb a whole lot of sapients as a side-effect (OK they wouldn't do that, but can one be sure?).
Beyond the populous core of millions, even billions, of worlds and habitats that have been settled for centuries and millennia, the prosperous polities, mighty capitals and major wormhole links, that constitute the Inner Sphere and Middle Regions are the seemingly endless stretches of the Outer Volumes, extending five, six and seven thousand light years and more in every direction.
Extending through the more solward regions of the Outer Volumes in a somewhat radial manner, the various empires and federations have expanded creating a fairly regular region (with lots of local inconsistencies, enclaves and misplaced volumes). Outside this is the chaotic rim where other empires, civilisations and lone cultures exist, safe from the dominance of the core simply because space is so large that there is no way for anyone to even keep track of things out there. There is no fixed border to the unknown, just a gradual decrease of population. Yet with all the crises the vision of going beyond the old empires and houses is growing stronger.
This is a growing period of instability. Two major conflicts occur: the Periphery war, in the outer Volumes, and the Oracle War, in the very heartland of the MPA. Casualties are high in both conflicts, but the increasing use of back-up technology means that a high percentage of the dead can be recovered in one form or another. The Oracle War in particular sends shockwaves through the Inner Sphere: if war can touch the innermost worlds of the Orion's Arm civilisation, how long can the civilisation as a whole stave off chaos?
The Empledok-cetics emerge as a major culture/House/empire, along the lines of Metasoft. Metasoft is already starting to decline because their standard is starting to fall out of favour. Cygexba is no longer an empire, the STC is being threatened by the new emerging polities on the periphery, the Paradigm might be brewing some "offspring expansion spheres" in the periphery, the Amalgamation wants in as usual ("Feed me!"), NoCoZo are trying to make a buck from all of this, Keter doesn't answer calls ("Keter is not in right now, It is contemplating the All. Please call again next kalpa"), a few sporadic Daharrans are still managing to let loose fanatics with system-wrecking weaponry, Jean Te Uahlg Aestheticism might be the next big thing and the Caretaker Gods have begun to get irritated over the number of exploding/imploding stars, ecologies converted to nanostuff and the general messiness of things...
So some ten thousand years after the first AI attained transapience on Old Earth, and the first baseline humans ventured forth to colonise their solar system, things are looking anxious, at least as far as the sapients go. Many of the old Houses are falling apart, two aggressive new cyborg Houses are on the rise, what is Verifex really up to in the Gehenna cluster, and is the Empledok-cetic regime really his/its employ/puppets/allies...? (despite their denials). And the AIs of the Carina wormhole network are acting in strange and incomprehensible ways. Even the original tunnler AIs seem to have some strange agendas of their own....
10000 - The Anttechians have a number of small polities of their own scattered through Terragens space, but are also found living in any number of mixed-species polities throughout that space.
10000 - Internal tensions developing in the Sagittarius Cooperation. It is suggested it might either develop into a real federation or dissolve into civil war. So far, neither looks like happening.
10000 - Venus declared fully terraformed
10000 - Update on Verifex event
10000 - 10200 - The Archosaurian Empire engages in apparently unprovoked attacks upon several former Cygexba outposts. As is usual for Archosaurian tactics, no civilians are harmed. However, all surviving hyperturings are utterly subverted to the will of ArchSaur, and made a part of her already cluster-sized network. By this stage, Archosaurian culture is dominant within the Archaipelago, although individual polities and AIs are allowed to retain their culture (much the same way the Roman Empire of Old Earth tolerated and assimilated many cultures of their conquered subjects twelve millennia earlier).
10004 - A new ship carrying the name 'Stig Ranes' is commissioned in Heartland.
10038 - Menexene system now under full Caretaker God protection.
10040 - Unsuccessful assassination attempt on the blessed Fluke Chwrrii Nashira in Rendell Ring, Arkab Prior B
10050 - Hectonitheres branch out of a somewhat cultish aspect of a minor Solarian sect.
10071 - First Exocore Bordered Corpus admits first non-Menexene citizens.
10073 - The participants of the Nearbaseline Archailect Femtosecond Emulation Project at last come up with sets of instructions for each participant, and the Project is finally begun.
10075 - The Wormhole Nexus places the Mystery Cult under quarantine.
10080 - Succession of Greyman XIV on Traction
10123 - Completion of the OC-STC GateNode connects the Skiiws'nnii system to the Inner Sphere wormhole nexus
10135 - Major influx of tourism and venture capitalism begins disrupting local Skiiws'nnii culture
10138 - The first wormhole link is established to the Rudolph, linking the system to the Wormhole Nexus .
10159 - Wormhole maintenance AI at Jokolainen Nexus dissolves into AI viruses
10159 - Ill-planned slaved hyperturing liberation action by the Hyperhackers for Hypertransanvants results in the Golgukian Disaster
10182 - The Kuranaba Gate wormhole connecting Kuranaba with the portal world of Big Tor is upgraded from 75 to 95 meters
10189 - The wormhole to Farsan in the Perseus Rift is lost in due to a regional blight.
10200s - Quasar dynamic fleet mission to annihilate the Daharran Advance
10200 - Aivirs attack the Solar Dominion inner sphere, apparently Cyberian in origin originating from the orthodox Solarian system CA-442 - more
10203 - In part due to the mediation of NewBe and other personalities, the Archosaurian Empire publicly agrees to a non-expansionist treaty with the Sephirotics, improving relations with the rest of the Civilized Galaxy.
10203 - An SI:1 AI named Helsing (after the original Helsing, the AI detective who exposed the perpetrators of the earliest confirmed subsumption events) is activated and declares eir life will be dedicated to detecting and destroying supposed subsumptionists active in the modern Known Net, and sets out on a long tour of some of the less well known areas of the Net.
10203 - Immanentization Crusaders use autowars in the occupation of the Loe Dedicandum system.
10209 - Stanislaw declared a protected area under Corundum Glittering's management.
10233 - Discovery of the Fargate, an alien wormhole in Version Tree space, leading to an unknown destination.
10244 - Immanentization Crusaders end occupation of Loe Dedicandum.
10255 - Arion infowar infiltrators succeed in subverting a key Pact ally, the Mirovich AI Sphere, which then defects to the Ascendancy; the Periphery war is ended soon after
10256-10257 - The Kuranaba Gate wormhole connecting Kuranaba with the portal world of Big Tor is upgraded from 95 to 150 meters.
10258 - Complete Skies, Prefect of Helios-Namhadiya (Solar Dominion) reaches the 56th rank of the Order of Cinotti
10279 - The linelayer seeking to meet the Meistersingers reaches Dhexte-iv.
10292 - Meistersinger fleet found relocated to the adjacent brown dwarf Ihthon Red; nanogauge wormhole established there.
10300s - Shortlived tourist boom on Tylansia
10306 - In one of its medium-sized beachside towns in Tylansia, the presence of a small group of saurian Toh Chi tourists generate mass hysteria.
10309 - Additional Stanislaw protected area signatories
10310 - Ridley avoids Gloyts mistake and manages to absorb the antimatter by eating it in a vacuum in very small doses, finishing in this year.
10310 - On Tylansia a family of seven Narslian lion splices - a male, two females and four cubs - were slaughtered by failed businessman Kapioma Tyslora.
10317 - Helsing returns with the remains of a being which e claimed was a subsapient but sentient-grade subsumptionist AI. Forensic analysis of the surviving code showed that this was indeed the case, though some experts have attempted to portray the entire episode as a hoax.
10330 - Succession of Greyman XV on Traction
10331 - A small group of splice and rianth honor warriors, mercenaries, and other assorted adventurers capture the Tylansian spaceport and various essential services, enforce humiliating demands.
10339 - Release of the Tylansian motion picture Glarion the Glorious Conqueror
10344 - A Negentropist Institute Probe of Information Conservation (the "Dewey Decimal") arrives at the Kappa Cassiopeiae Oort cloud and negotiates a certain amount of data exchange with the ak##~#~ cluster.
10348 - The Metasoft colony Modular Future is subverted by The Amalgamation
10350 - First contact
with the Wayfarer
xenosophont civilisation
'
10353 - News reaches the Nexus that the Sidene system was destroyed by "Daemons of the Trump"
10356 - Sensors implicate huge streams of neutrinos being sent from the Wild Duck Cluster beyond the edge of (known) colonised space. The femtotech AIs have to replied to queries about the information encoded in the neutrinos or what could cause such a phenomenon. The most common theory is that some kind of femtotech entity out there is trying to communicate, maybe a young civilisation. Paranoids claim it is a preliminary scan for invasion.
10367 - The Hedonic Telos, a major philosophical work on hedonism is published by Oneler Eleraniele of Skiiws'nnii, becomes a major focal point for much of polynomial philosophy. Encouraging individual excellence and pleasure as guiding principles, it firmly denounces the exponentialist dilution of self and meaning as well as promotes interstellar expansion to escape their deadening influence.
10376 - the AI piloted PADO probe Keen of Vision is patrolling along the border between Sephirotic and Amalgamation space detects Metric Ghosts.
10377- Their proud Faber "parents" make the provolved Jade Chime Singers known to the outside worlds, and introduce them to civilized society. They become a several years wonder on the Known Net, and make a powerful impression.
10378 - The Arion tribemind ascends to fifth toposophic.
10378 - News reaches the Nexus that another system, Adice, has been destroyed by "Daemons of the Trump"
10392 - New Beneficence adds eir voice to those calling for something to be done about the Daemons of the Trump attacks.
10400 - It is finally revealed to the sapient citizens of the Sephirotic Metaempire that the Solipsist Panvirtuality was behind the Archaipelago Attacks of 8400. The exact purpose of the Attacks cannot be fully understood by sapients. However, it becomes clear that the Panvirtuality anticipated the rise of the Archosaurian Empire millennia in advance.
10400 - The population of the Impossible Dyson reaches 22 trillion; Venus population reaches 2 billion
10402 - The Solar Dominion Pocketstar Are We Having Fun Yet? 9902) attempt to intercept of the Metric Ghosts vanished and was never recovered.
10403 - A force under the leadership of the feared SI:1 mercenary and bounty hunter Payment Due seizes all Faber properties for a radius of 10 light years around Chorus. Within minutes of the time that Payment Due making eir announcements and beginning to organize data for export, e vanishes from the local datasphere. Payment Due's minions in Chorus' home system are also instantly destroyed in a series of bizarre accidents. Demoralized, eir remaining followers in the four neighbouring systems are destroyed or expelled by citizens and local security forces. A previously unknown S3 entity styled Mist Rising takes responsibility, declaring that e is Chorus' Caretaker God.
10405 - The Power BasetheoryAGE suffers a rare `Fiat Caecus Lux Disorder' event.
10412 - Aazil Peworshin announced that the completion of the Nearbaseline Archailect Femtosecond Emulation Project, and that nearbaselines had - if over a span of nearly thirteen centuries - computed for themselves the mind of a god - if only one femtosecond's worth of a god's mind.
10421 - The Arion
Far Reach Project begins launching heavily armed linelayers toward
remote targets
10432 - Unemployed Vecs in the Blue system form
a terrorist group, leading to political repression in that system
10457 - Unprovoked destruction of the scientific scout
Junsee by a solitary biowar off Gulanoa II (see Biovirate)
10474 - Dr Gurumba Schmidd of Daffy (Negentropy Alliance) retires from public service, the last instructor known to be actively practising on the Known Net. Eir lack of replacement is blamed on the ever-growing distribution of omniuploads covering technology comprehension of the best minds in the business at any given toposophic level.
10480 - The first of the Joy-bringer
fleets departs; this is widely seen as the effective start of the
Oracle War
10487 Cymbium
provolve artist and playwright Twobrowntrianglesonshellmargin the
Elder's Ode To Twenty Cubic Centimeters of Lovely Sandy Mud,
which receives rapturous reviews
10486 and 10494 nanoassemblers spontaneously began to encode parts of sensitive databases on Ken Ferjik into artificial dust mites, apparently due to an epidemic of malfunctioning search agents. Some blame this on "the Chaos"
10491 - The Nimbus project, at Beta Theonimus, started in an attempt to create an immortal entity capable of surviving into the low energy environment of the deep future.
10500 - Eostre decides to enter into the mainstream of Galactic life. However, she does not want her baseline people to become overwhelmed, and so she elects to send out the adventurous young man, Symon, with his pocket AI named Al, to explore the Galaxy. Thus begins "Baseline Diaries".
10503 - Collapse of the Eye of the Solar Needle on Mercury, Solsys
10600s (est.) - Date when the Enigma Four Core is expected to complete the conversion of the planet into computronium. The result will be either a a Denebola Collapse or a transcension
14000 - Estimated date for Ridley Ridley's completion of digesting the reaction mass of the decommissioned starship
