6700 to 7200 AT: The Age of Crisis

BY LETTER

History > 5200 to 7800 AT: Post-ComEmp Era > 6700 to 7200 AT: The Age of Crisis

Image from Bernd Helfert

Scrollable Timeline

Orion's Arm Tranquility Calendar Conversion Tool

This chaotic period starts with the declaration of the Second Vec War, a civil war between factions within the Metasoft Version Tree that continues to smoulder for hundreds of years within that large and widely distributed volume.

Not even agents of the Archailects can fool economics. The resulting structure when the old empires expanded was hollow and unstable: unless the lower orders could produce enough economic complexity the whole edifice would implode into a great recession, far beyond anything experienced before. So, for a long period the old empires, especially those that are more centrally organized, become preoccupied by internal politics, trying to guide and tease the sophont level cultures to grow and expand. This leads to very mixed results. Some regions and cultures become even more dependent on Archailects and lesser transapients, while others begin to see themselves as necessary for the AIs and not the other way. Some cultures flower into magnificent local renaissances, or even transcendence events like the Newton Mass Transcendence, while others dissolve into unified "imperial" organizations.

In the end, the crisis is averted: the "new" portions of the old empires hold together, or at least the middle regions and inner sphere flourish and everything seems stable. Cygexba. is even more weakened relative to everybody else, while Keter and NoCoZo exploit the situation for all it was worth. At the same time signs suggest that the reorganisation may have been too small, that there might be a need for even more change to adapt to the situation. Some transapient rulers begin to worry that they might have to re-do all this continuously.

While the Inner Sphere empires reach a new equilibrium and sense of power and stability, problems abound. The development of the provinces, and the need for ever more matter to be converted into exotic matter for further archailect wormhole-linked interconnection and stargates necessitates exploitation of more and more newly claimed star-systems that are further and further away from the Centre, and relativistic engineering units are increasingly vulnerable to pirate and barbarian attacks, necessitating further military development and a further resource drain. A major economic crisis then results from the Uservere Transcension Affair.

The situation is not helped by continuing rivalries among old empires and houses, even if the transingularity powers sometimes step in to stop things from getting out of hand. The addition of new transapient powers to address these complexities means more ascensions and transcensions, and so even the Inner Sphere is wracked by the after-effects. Frequently the Archailects themselves seem unwilling, or unable, to respond to local difficulties.

Previous Page
The Age of Separate Empires

6700 AT
6700's - Peitho Buddhism developed by the Peitho school of Povenmire habitat, Rosselia (Sophic League)

6703 - Start of Second Vec War between the Teleological Tendency and Metasoft Version Tree Standardists.

6710 - Second Vec War; wormholes are closed by both Standardists and the Teleological Tendency.

6721 - the Deep University opened the doors to a new department catering for Superiors

6723 - At the pinnacle of the Alchemist culture, a mysterious figure - possibly above Sl:2 and known only as Paracelsus - come s forward as the supreme leader of the Alchemists

6736 - Metal Monkey clade developed in the Negentropy Alliance

6929 - An Avatar of the S3 entity Gracious Host attempts to gain control of Pluto before being defeated by GAIA.

6948 - The first overt act of Alchemist mass assimilation takes place when the entire Ouverture habitat (a small centripetal vivarium in the Straylight system, Triangulum Australe sector) is taken over by Alchemists

6736 - Construction of Himmelsschmiede begins when the relativistic linelayer Matthew Fountaine Maury arrives with a nanogauge wormhole to the New Magnitogorsk hub.

6751- Second Vec War; The Standardist Retreival fleet arrives in Tendency space.

6754 - Clarketech Null Box antigravity device discovered on Zeta Corianis IV

6756 - A small (10 meter) wormhole is set up in the Apogee Maximal system and visitors from the rest of the Known Worlds begin to arrive.

6758 - The Beacon Project commenced, an attempt to contact extragalactic civilisations

6766 - The Sunna Urbex's interpretation of the Second Axiom of Negentropism leads it to embark on a massive surveillance/import/scanning program, allying with the Cyberian Network. This scheme is frowned upon by the rest of the Negentropic Alliance, but otherwise no official action is taken.

6766 - The widely spread Orkady clade is wiped out by what seems to have been a nanowar attack that turned every individual more or less simultaneously into stone (see Fair Folk).

6778 - Development of the New Siberian sector (MPA) more.

6800 AT
6800's - Kalevalists emerge

6800 - Arkab Prior B bishop ring necklace commenced

6800 - Locus declared habitable

6802 - Samaelians contacted

6803 - Second Vec War Proden invaded by Tendency forces

6810 - Merger of a conglomerate of orbital projects, corporations and other organisations in the Skiiws'nnii system, called the Orbital Exploration Bundle (OEB), quickly reaching tremendous influence.

6823 - The software of Bagerit Jhe "implodes" catastrophically. Over 40,000 people are killed instantly as various metastable systems explode, dynamic structures collapse, and life support functions stop. In just 24 hours the death toll increases to six million and in the end tops out at 23 million beings. more. Some conspiracy theorists link this event with the Second Vec War.

6826 - The cyborg "Xarander the Conqueror" establishes a prosperous but highly autocratic system wide hegemony of Hip 99265/Newhope.

6850 - Second Vec War Seven new archai have been created in the Triplet Cluster since the start of the conflict by the Teleological Tendency

6859 - Tabridgen settled by Orion Federation trader and exploration neumanns.

6862 - Supermundane creates the Hands of God megasculpture

6899 - Second Vec War Battle for Dilmun

6900 AT
70th Century - Bilatism - a techno-religious aesthetic style develops and becomes widespread in the MPA - it continues to exert a strong influence for four centuries.

6900 - Ishtar's Necklace colonised

6909 - Yellow giant star Enif erupts in a superflare, largely destroying the local civilisation

6914 - The Hu Earth Liberation Army sends several powerful bombs towards the surface of Old Earth; none reach the surface, although some detonate prematurely in restricted space.

6915 - Conclusion of of Second Vec War within the Wormhole Nexus volume; the conflict continues to smoulder beyond reach of stargate communications.

6916 - A contact fleet launched from Polonius see Refugium Federation reaches a nearby world, and diplomatic contact begins. The aleiens turn out to be Kestnerists. The Kestnerists give the Semperists the news that humankind has survived. The news led to the Schism War, as radicals want to rejoin the larger human community while traditionalists want the Federation to remain isolated.

6939 - ArchSaur is still the youngest godling in the Archaipelago Cluster. She also becomes the first within the cluster to breach the fourth toposophic barrier, sixty-seven years before UrchinStar.

late 6955 - The Alchemist hegemonizing Malignancy fleet musters its entire strength, now numbering some 300 semi-biological ships, for a mass strike through the recently captured wormhole to the Ratatosc system. As the Malignancy fleet takes up attack positions, from out of the corona of the primary, a combat-specialized ISO (speculation suggests it was a Black Angel) emerges and decimates the Alchemists.

6956 - Saint Warwick Rebellion begins, causes a crisis in the Sophic League.

6956 - Every larger Alchemist population centre is struck by mysterious, seemingly unrelated, accidents. While no common denominator can be found to link the various disasters, it is commonly agreed upon that the Alchemists, by their Malignancy crusade, have annoyed some higher toposophic being enough to provoke a response, and are now paying the price

6956 - Transcension of Jilunan.

6903 - Chahipho declared bankrupt in most NoCoZo systems and shareholders moved in to take what little remained of the fortune. Chahipho more or less barricades emself in We Lucky Few, threatening to destroy the collection or vital installations in the system if approached.

6954 - The Rudolph system becomes the property of the NoCoZo

6992 - A rogue Museum Ship identifying itself as the Hume neutralises the planetary defenses at Muna Kipasi orbitals (Goldfishnebula Sector, Negentropy Alliance space) and abducts more than five thousand sapient and subsapient bioids. By the time the Negentropist 24th Quick Response Task Force arrived in the system, it was long gone

6996 - Kepleria project begins

7000 AT
71st Century - Economic and religious burst of activity in the Carina Rush.

7000's - The controversial Destinarianism religion that originates in the Tiralfia polity 7002 - The secretive Solipsist Panvirtual cluster ak##~#~ arrives at Kappa Cassiopeiae 7007 - The DNA Dancers upload themselves into the Stellar Energy company AI at Alnitak. (see the Brain Shell)

7009 - The battle of Hubble's Variable Nebula in the Second Vec War

7013 - Sakvaback recolonised

7016 - Reports of the ilness Blue Lung now exceedingly rare

7017 - Cenote colonised by Solar Dominion

7022 - Gripler colonised by Solar Dominion

7040 - Migration of Institute for Primate Preservation headquarters to holdings at Gamma Leporis (later named Ao Lai)

7041 - The Greater Superchimps develop their own S>2 Power, "Pan Demonium", but their invasion of Bolobo is subverted and channelled into other directions by the systems ruling AI "GoodAll".

7045 - Warwickian relativist fleet launched.

7048 - Angelnet Massacres: mass Frankenstein Syndrome

7055 - The Interpolity Association of Immunity Challenge is broken up

7068 - The Uservere Affair (Inner Sphere MPA corp transcension event)causes hypereconomic collapse and meltdown in many Inner Sphere and Middle Regions systems

7087 - Kapella founded.

7100 AT
72nd Century - The Saint Warwick Rebellion attacked and subverted by Sophic missionaries/infowar infiltrators.

72nd Century - Sopazism emerges in the Communion of Worlds through the experimentation of the Phoenix Mantra social simulation school

72nd Century - A number of Sophic systems join the Orion Federation in protest over the handling of the Saint Warwick Rebellion.

7100 - The Puppis Democracy emerges near the red giant Pi Puppis

7105 - "Xarander the Conqueror" rule of Newhope overthrown with help from a passing ex-Version Tree vec clade, the Fastchip Cinderbots Association, and the pre-Xarander condition of isolated and impoverished polities is restored in the system.

7106 - UrchinStar ascends to fourth toposophic, becoming the second true archailect in the region after the Archosaurian Entity. E is over 300 km wide, and still growing.

7111 - The Hypercorruption Expanse blight first encountered by Version Tree linelayers.

7120 - Second cycler network connects Beta Virginis with many nearby red and brown dwarfs and several Utopia and NoCoZo worlds.

7120 - Evolutionary biologists and paleoxenologists associated with the HIE and the Ozymandias Institute announce the hypothesis that the Jovic life forms associated with the Jacks are distant descendants of xenosophont-designed bubblehabs.

7134 - Homicideophiles are allowed to adopt neomorph rianth or animal bodies in the Sadalmelik system, but they reportedly find predation a wildly different experience from murder.

7143 - The Hyperutilization Supremacy conquers the Panvirt Dyson civilization Dream of Many Things, which had previously been considered unassailable.

7150 - The Hyperutilization Supremacy is not only the largest power in its region, but perhaps the most powerful in the entire Terragen bubble.

7159 - Start of Schism War - Refugium Federation.

7164 - Emple-dokcetic modularist vec culture developed.

7165 - The Hyperutilization Supremacy assimilates and converted to computronium the Keterist system of Reidany, with the loss of two hundred and fifty million lives.

Next Page
The Central Alliance

Articles

Ayan-4 Affair - Text by Anders Sandberg
During the early re-colonization of the Serpens region a culture of cyborgs at Ayan-4 was discovered. The cyborg culture had apparently been isolated in the region during the Version War and had developed in total isolation. Anthropologists studied the culture with interest, but within two decades it was largely forgotten. Like most similar cases it was largely absorbed into interstellar culture and the members scattered widely.
Gentodes Incident, The - Text by ThorbÃ¸rn Steen
In which Vater, the AI guardian of three O'Neill cylinders in the system was sabotaged to become humanophobe, leading to a unique culture among the few survivors in the following generations of persecution.
Muna Kipasi Incident - Text by Victor Daniel, from original material by M. Alan Kazlev
The Attack of The Museum Ship Hume.
Second Vec War, The - Text by Steve Bowers
The Metasoft Civil War; an historical account.