3800 to 4450 AT: The Second Federation

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History > 3200 to 5200 AT: Inner Sphere Era > 3800 to 4450 AT: The Second Federation

The rise of the Second Federation Ontology

Image from Steve Bowers

Bourgatov, informal capital of the Second Federation

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The Civilized Galaxy at this stage shows a staggering array of clades, from baseline humans through tweaks, provolves, splices, and cyborgs, the great vec and biont houses, interstellar vessels, cities, and habs, not to mention the innumerable varieties of subsingularity ai and virtual entities who make up the population of the Terragen Sphere. Most exotic of all are the xenosphonts such as the To'ul'h, aliens with cultures more ancient than any known on Old Earth before the Interstellar Age.

From cultures and polities to individuals, the modosophonts of the Terragen Sphere have a myriad relationships to the lower transapients and the Archailects: pampered pet, to loyal servant, parasite, rugged individualist, "feral", rebel, and other less easily defined roles. To manage this nearly overwhelming complexity, the Second Federation Ontology is instituted.

The Second Federation Ontology is not so much a political structure as a universally recognized protocol of inter-entity interactions, encompassing a number of standard languages, translation protocols for languages and cultures, great library databases containing unified cultural knowledge, and a large hierarchy of formal interactions that enables highly divergent sentients to communicate and negotiate, and even to understand and empathize. The result is a golden age, the longest period of stability and Inner Sphere harmony Terragen civilization has seen. Wars and other conflicts decline in number and severity. Oppression is relieved, and even formerly subjugated groups such as human baselines or certain clades of 'slaved' vec, ai, or splice have more rights and greater freedom than animals once did under humanity.

This golden age lasts nine hundred years, or longer if one includes the lower Perseus-Carina middle volumes, where Second Federation ontology remains standard well into the ninth millennium. Eventually, though, internal tensions prove too great, as different factions push for different variations of the Ontology. These tensions culminate in the Version War, initially a rivalry between the Solar Dominion and NoCoZo-Metasoft but one that grows to and engulf other powers both major and minor.

Image from Bernd Helfert

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The Age of Interstellar Empires

3800 AT
3800's - The Proclag Oamnoran, a dictatorial government, come to power in the nation of Oamnoran, an independent country stretching across the eastern side of the central megaplateau of the planet Sinyavskaya.

3800 - Walking Mountain xenoprovolve developed

3804 - Meerlinda is attacked by "gremlins" which systematically eliminate all technology and kill the local ruling AIs.

3804 - Laucen Greatguy, author of Manaran the Pure King, dies in the Meerlinda Disaster.

3805 - The Second Federation Ontology was instituted. The Metasoft empire strongly backs the Second Federation Ontology, this puts a damper on the Solar Dominion's desire to impose their standard on the galaxy (moreover the Metasoft-backed ontology is cheaper and less ideological). The Solar Dominion's own ideologically-based protocol was unacceptable to all the other major powers. Although the Dominion and Metasoft remained on friendly terms for some centuries more, it was the beginning of the end of the Metasoft-Dominion alliance. more 3806 - One Copy of each of the The Seven Neogenist Lifegivers merge with Harbinger dyson, transcending to become the Harbinger Archailect.

3830 - The Shipwright's Commune receives a contract to build a fleet of fifteen colony ships for a NoCoZo polity-corporation.

3831 - The first unequivocally intelligent alien race, the To'ul'hs are discovered by an exploration nanotech at in the outskirts of NGC6633. No contact is made until observations are completed.

3839 - Battle of Erson, on Brin (Conver Wars)

3842 - the Geminga shipyards orbiting Ogygia destroyed by a series of combined strikeforce consisting of Metasoft relativistic combat carriers and khaki goo engineered by the Conver Limis. (Conver Wars)

3861 - Dimimimon4 alters the medical nano settings of a large number of eir baselines without authorisation to enhance their capacities

3880's - The augmented Niuearth baselines modified by Dimimimon4 are relocated at Rimmar, a nearby Metasoft majority-biont system, where with a few rare exceptions they are utterly inept at coping with the complexities of the Civilized Galaxy.

3887 - Rolf's Donut, a microgravity circumstellar torus completed at HIP 84521.

3900 AT
3900's - The first Fifth toposophic entities emerge as a consequence of the God Web linking together numerous intelligent megastructures such as Jupiter brains and Dyson brains.

3900 - League of Legitimate Businessbeings expands into the Free zones of the NoCoZo after the Linnent worlds affiliated with Merrion.

3900's - The (Conver War) becomes a desperate five-way contest between the Conver Limis, Geminga Orthodoxy, Metasoft, Solar Dominion and local independent worlds.

3900's - Brief retro-chic fad brought back a couple of the supposedly 'most efficient' non-polystate processing operating systems, and revived interest in the Freedom of Computing Issue.

3901 - Unsuccessful peace conference at GL 667.

3909 - Da'at fifth singularity transcension experiment begins

3910 - Sy colonised.

3920 - Da'at transcension experiment starts to go wrong

3931 - The diamondoid civilizations on the inner worlds of Beta Virginis spontaneously transcend. The Great Whale ISO generates a swarm of nanobots, the Gesture of Sheltering the Ocean, to prevent a wash of nanoreplicators from affecting Pacifica and the outer colonies.

3932 - The Second Empires War ends with the Ian Treaty, where the Conver Limis, Geminga Orthodoxy, Metasoft and Solar Dominion settled on a ceasefire. New Beneficence helps broker the cease-fire.

3932 - House Conver Limis dissolved

3941 - Dissolution of the Yoson Confederacy.

3943 - In the peace accords that ended the Second Empires War the Conver Ambi, is divided into three parts. The core part is annexed by the Solar Dominion, the Periphery by Metasoft, and the Geminga Orthodoxy isolates itself and is eventually dissolved, leaving only the Ambi Limis.

3945 - Da'at fifth singularity transcension experiment fails

3955 - The carbon world Solaris colonised

3965 - The Lagrange Defenders, a research/exploration megacorp-institute discover a still-functioning wormhole of alien origin in the region of Neb 34786, later to become known as Tunh.

3967 - First successful fifth singularity transcension.

3966 - Freedom of Computing retro fad turns out to be a memetic assault on the several polity's software efficiencies leading up to a large scale series of corporate takeovers.

3970 - The Ylkalo Revival on Corona.

3970 - Cronosians reappear from interstellar space

3975 - The Resona instrument became popular on Corona during the Ylkalo Revival

3980 - Pioneer 10 Autonomous Heritage Museum established by the Solar Organisation, using Negentropic-provided datasystems and a catapult-launched conversion drive vec ship.

4000 AT
41st Century - The Kringslerite religion based near Tunh is at its height.

41st Century - Construction of the first Alexandrian dyson is commenced by an unidentified Neumann at a star located near the border of NoCoZo/Negentropy spheres of influence.

41st Century - A small trinary system is reached by colonists from both the Zoeific Biopolity and the Metasoft Version Tree. Instead of dividing the system or fighting each other off, they decide to share the system with both the Biopolity and Metasoft establishing small wormhole links. [see Synthetics]

41st Century - the Mirrored Owl swarm Advection of Pure Drylines produces many Neotaoist works of note

4000 - The Shipwright's Commune now own almost 25 stations, two of them a third of moon size.

4000- Effective management of Complex Psychological Disorders now commonplace

4010 - The Ylkalo Revival on Corona ends.

4011 - Terragen probes make first contact with several of the To'ul'h cultures. Any interested To'ul'h are invited to join the Terragen civilisations, and many prove highly receptive to Terragen technology and ideas. To'ul'h ideas sparks a renaissance era in many Terragen cultures.

4012 - The mysterious entity known as the Merged Humanoid entered the Keterist system Ascension.

4026 - Lucas Jordan is one of the very few ex-Niuearth baselines to became a well-adapted pre-Superior.

4044 - The First Vec War breaks out in the Rigel Vector between Metasoft and the Silicon Generation clade Emotive Cognation, apparently due to a territorial dispute.

4044 - New Beneficence protests against the destruction of backups by Metasoft forces in the First Vec War.

4077 - The Revolt of the Ancestors on Huanghua.

4094 - The Tunnler wormhole is discovered to house a powerful xenotech AI, which was still active, though largely dormant.

4100 AT
42nd Century - The high point of galactic civilisation, the Second Federation is an alliance of all the largest empires - united by a single protocol and a dense nexus of stargate links.

4100 - Schisms appear in the Kringslerite hierarchy as a result of leadership struggle, eventually leading to collapse.

4100's - Ambi Limis cultural flowering at its height.

4110 - Tunh Logika formally joined the Institute of Exopaleontology as a department-nation.

4111 - Increasing cladisation between spacegoing and terrestrial To'ul'hs leads to the first To'ul'h World War. After several decades of interference and sporadic warfare the spacegoers establish a technocratic dictatorship.

4115 - Sirius Dynamics clade agrees to relocate. They emigrate to the Keter Dominion.

4120 - Historical school of Deprospectivism founded by the Ghum-Zhia group at Calypso University, Djed.

4120 - Regor (Gamma Velorum) explodes as a supernova, 1100 light years from Sol.

4128 - The Alseid, the first successful sophont plant provolves, are provolved by a Pan-Sophontist group on the world of Karmiti in the Pan-Sophontist League.

4146 - Aroostai provolved by the SI:2 hyperturing Wan-Toh-Si.

4149 - Schisms cause the collapse of Kringslerism.

4182 - A viral infection of unknown origin attacks and destroys the Rajasekarian civilisation.

4166 - The Zoeific Biopolity world of Kdregra, in the Vulpecula region, is terraformed using BGC technology.

4200 AT
42nd Century - The Tunh system becomes not just a major trade nexus but also the local center for xenobiology and long-range research.

4200 - The Rav Anav Tar seize power in the Daveth system

4207 Walloo in the Bellerophon Archapelago colonised by Solar Dominion linelayer.

4210 - The archanarchists of the Western habitable zone of Dante are at loggerheads with the Etodist faithful of the soggy east; over and again the hemispheres fight against each other in the hot dry desert of Sunward and the icy black wastes of Nightward.

4212 - The balance of power in the Pleiades Volume shifts radically when the heterosophist cyborg clade Electra Entity in the outer Merope Oort cloud, achieves posthuman nanocyborg status, and begins feeding subversion templates to any and all other Pleiades haloers who want them.

4213 - Hamilton Institute of Exopaleontology at Delta Upali reconnected to galactic civilisation

4222 - A Nimbus colony was set up on Xi Bootis B I.

4226 - First Banks Orbital completed in Gordelpus system (MPA)

4228 - The To'ul'h homeworlders, with help from sympathetic Terragen factions, stage a bloody revolution and oust the spacers. The spacers' final assault is stymied when in 6245 the Caretaker God known as Smoking Mirror declares To'ul'h its domain.

4251 - Start of Edible music fad on several habitats in the NoCoZo.

4267 - The NoCoZo Edible music fad ends.

4274 - Lucas Jordan and 35 of his clonechildren and clonegrandchildren form the Friends of Dimimimon4.

4280 - Ambi Limis declines into literalism and neo-scholasticism.

4285 - Calyx colonised

4291 - Battle of Hejne, a rare case of a transapient beaten by modosophonts.

4296 - As a result of a political campaign by Lucas Jordan's Friends of Dimimimon4, in which e had become a minor but trendy popular cause in the Solar Dominion, the Metasoft Version Tree agrees to release Dimimimon4 to the Solar Dominion.

4300 AT
44th Century - In the Second Federation the main point of conflict continues to comes from the mighty Solar Dominion, the biggest of all the superpowers, which is opposed by a Metasoft - MPA axis. The Dominion was continuing to feed the discontent among the myriad cultures that considered the Second Federation Ontology wrong, threatening or wanted their own version. At this point however the slowly simmering tensions have not gone further and on the surface things are still civil, and trade and cultural exchange flourish. Many great statesbeings are going to extraordinary lengths to keep war from destroying the galactic civilisation, and thanks to their efforts many Organics and aioids continue to live in peace.

4300's - The Bealmoch affiliation becomes increasingly important as a vec cultural movement across the wormhole nexus

4300's - Dimimimon4 and eir copy/avs spent eir time in lecture tours, exciting shocked Solarians with eir colourful tales of the primitive status of the Metasoft baselines

4300 - A major economic recession strikes the 82 Eridani system and much of the local economy moves elsewhere.

4300 - To'ul'h contact is continuing and certain elements of Terragen Technology are being carefully introduced.

4307 - Pereira colonised

4311 - Arkab Prior A + B colonised; Arkab Prior A is allocated to the Negentropy Alliance, Arkab Prior B to the MPA

4318 - The first humans to be killed by living aliens face-to-face when a riot breaks out on the orbital installation orbiting To'ul'h Home. A rumor spread among the To'ul'hs that a recently arrived team of Miramar tweaks were planning to attempt to eat a dead To'ul'h (a religious practice on the To'ul'h homeworld, but blasphemous when done by outsiders). In the ensuing chaos two humans and three To'ul'hs are killed.

4321 - Foundation of the Deep University.

4325 - The Mycosmid Gestalt ascended to the S3 toposophic. Many of eir oldest surviving nodes ascended to the S2 toposophic around this time as well.

4328 - Terranova bought by Riddersdan Ikki. The hyperturing paid everyone to leave and has since then owned the planet as a private resort, inhabited only by a small minority of traditionalist empaths and specially invited friends, worshippers and lovers of the AI.

4331 - War on Venus between Venus-tweaks and Skydwellers.

4345 - The Solar Dominion, considering the Second Federation Ontology a threat to its empire, begins to feed the discontent among the myriad cultures that wanted their own version. During the next century a number of "version sabotages" occurred as breakaway groups interfered with the main galactic culture, mainly by political manoeuvering or suggesting constant revisions of the Ontology.

4374-4380 - A series of complex legal disputes caught the interest of much of NoCoZo and the Inner Sphere, EMERT, Planom Synerg and the League of Aioid Rights struggled over the question of self-ownership, deliberately limited mental design and body investments. New Beneficence files amicus briefs on behalf of Planom Synerg in the legal disputes over the question of self-ownership, deliberately limited mental design, and body investments. At least one of the Synerg forge clan weylforges, descendants of Planom Synerg, will later become a New Beneficence adherent member.

4384 - Nirio colonised in by an AI consortium setting up a baseline reservation and a local To'ul'h utopia. Becomes part of the Utopia Sphere.

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The Version War Period

Articles

Bourgatov Alliance, The - Text by Anders Sandberg
Imperial Era megacorporate house/empire/polity, based around Borgatov, the so-called 'capital' of the Second Federation.
Dimension of Violence, The - Text by Anders Sandberg
The Dimension of Violence was a virtual environment theme especially popular among young radicals of the Second Federation era. In its rich iconology resided beings such as the creation parodies, the turnip humans and the feared dictator RatHitler.
Meerlinda Disaster, the - Text by M. Alan Kazlev, additional material by Steve Bowers
Catastrophic biosphere failure possibly caused by alien nanotech.
Middle Anglish (Federation Anglish, Fedspek) - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A popular upper class and diplomatic language that then acquired wider use among the other classes as well, in wide use during the Second Federation, and experienced a revival during the nostalgic period of the ComEmp. Rather similar to Edenese (both languages share a number of words and phrases). Since the Second Federation Ontology was Fedspek friendly the Solar Dominion wanted nothing to do with it. The Mutual Progress Alliance and the NoCoZo however supported it. Today pure Fedspek is only found in a few worlds and habitats of the Outer Volumes and the Periphery. However, derivative language like High Anglish, Low Anglish, New Anglish, and Newfed, and their further derivatives, are common.
Neo Whorfianism - Text by Stephen Inniss
A 45th century school of thought originating at Ao Lai that sought to maximize memetic diversity by reviving old languages or inventing new ones. The resulting Great Diversification movement led to the revival of thousands of extinct but unique languages from pre spaceflight Old Earth, Technocalypse era Solsys, the early Interstellar Era colonies, and elsewhere.
Political Federation - Text by M. Alan Kazlev; amended by Stephen Inniss
Government type in which each member polity rules itself but all belong to one governmental body. These polities must follow certain common standards of conduct and by agreement yield some powers to their common government.
Regor Supernova, The - Text by Steve Bowers
A NoCoZo survey mission to this star arrived too late to prevent a supernova.
Second Federation Ontology - Text by Anders Sandberg
Major Ontology, Second Federation period.