The Architect of Aeons (63 page)

RANIA DEPARTS FOR M3. Vindication Countdown begins. The Long Wait begins.

Earthquake Wars decimate Japan, California, Italy.

(
A
.
D
. 2500) Humanist Wars shatter the Concordat. Exarchel augments the Cetaceans.

Cryonarch Period—The heirs of Montrose rise to world power. Montrose in disgust disinherits them, and donates their power and resources to the Roman Pontiff.

Ecclesiarch Period—Giants born.

Diamond Star carried off. Moon marked with the hand of Del Azarchel.

Rise of the Ghosts, human brain-patterns kept unalive in electronic limbo. Frankenstein Panic.

(
A
.
D
. 2525) Decivilization. Exarchel reduced.

Simon Institute Founded. Lifespan of women expanded to 350 by nano-cellular xypotechnology.

Alrai is the Pole Star

Era of the Hermetic Millennia

• 4th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 67 V (Countdown to Vindication)

(
A
.
D
. 2525–3100) Giants.

(
A
.
D
. 3050–3150) Cetaceans raise the Cloud.

(
A
.
D
. 3100–3300) Simon Families.

(
A
.
D
. 3300–4000) Under Witch rulership, collapse of Christianity undermines faith in scientific worldview, leads to radical loss of technological civilization on three continents. Decimations of Exarchel copies. Extinction of the Cetaceans.

• 5th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 66 V

Warlocks. Nameless Empire oversees a brief reindustrialization. Nine Centennial Empresses of Canton. Butlerian overthrow and the return of barbarism.

Rise of the Chimera. Chimera Eugenic Republic spreads from Virginia. Proscopalianism.

• 6th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 65 V

Centennials in China overthrown by Chimera. Rediscovery of Atomics. Unification wars. Chimerical World Empire. Third Age of Space Travel. Space Chimera created. Cities in Space founded. Fall of Richmond. Cities in Space abandoned.

Iota Cephei is the Pole Star

• 7th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 64 V

Naturalists. Weather Control initiates seasonless Earth. Decline. Winter returns. Rise of the Leeches.

• 8th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 63 V

Iatrocrats organized into mutually bio-incompatible clades. Third Biotechnological Revolution.

(
A
.
D
. 7500) Locusts. First neuro-infosphere or No
ö
sphere. Fourth Age of Space Travel.

Locust Wars. Genocide.

Triage.

Mars Colony.

First Interplanetary War ends Mars colony.

Linder.

Alderamin is the Pole Star

• 9th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 62 V

Triumph of the No
ö
sphere. Blue Men. No
ö
sphere shatters into the Confraternities. Gray Men.

Ice Ages drive civilization into the sea. Rise of the Melusine (Human-Cetacean pack-minds).

Swan Era

• 10th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 61 V

SECOND HUMANS: SWANS

White Earth. Only a thin equatorial band of open water remains.

Creation of the Second Humans, the Swans, creatures more comely, ethereal, and intellectual than humans, but generally reticent and isolated. They are based on Bonobo (Pan Paniscus) rather than human neural templates, so neither marriage nor incest taboos pertain to them. Their nervous systems are standardized and easily fitted with biotechnical and cybernetic implants, augmentations, and networks.

• 11th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 60 V

Rise of the Final Stipulation. Weather control reestablished. Fifth Age of Space Travel. Judge of Ages and the Master of the World prohibited from further cliometry.

Del Azarchel begins the long process of sophotransmogrification of the core mass of Jupiter into a Power of the same name.

Deneb is the Pole Star

First Sweep—The Decimation of Man

• 12th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 59 V

FIRST SWEEP: The Hyades Armada “Asmodel” arrives. End of the Long Wait.

Lamination of the Swans—Swans defeated with absurd ease. Earth altered from equatorial to polar orbit (but, oddly, keeping the same pole star). Diaspora to First Sweep worlds.

Cenotaph praxes enable a more rapid evolution of Jupiter Brain to self-awareness than otherwise would have been possible.

(
A
.
D
. 11400) Deracination Ship reaches Proxima.

• 13th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 58 V

Rise of the Dark Swans. Tribadism among the Early Swans dies off, as the isolated males become paramount. The peaceful nature of the race is subverted as the custom of dueling adopted among male Swans: Swans form alternating generations of male and female dominance, females growing to the ascendant during diebacks.

(
A
.
D
. 12850) FIRST POWER of SOL: The myriad mental ecologies of the Jupiter Brain combine into federal self-awareness. [Jupiter is roughly 7,000 miles in diameter at this time, 90^4 IQ .]

Jupiter persuades and forces the lesser versions of mankind to enter into a concord with him. Humans taught pantropy and terraforming by Hyades through Jupiter.

• 14th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 57 V

Fourth Biotechnological Revolution. Pantropy allows for the combination of Aurum Vitae and murk to produce a wide range of organisms, some of which drive natural organisms into extinction.

Ghost population exceeds living population.

Deracination Ship reaches Delta Pavonis.

• 15th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 56 V

Jupiter enters a period of odd inactivity lasting until the 19th millennium.

(
A
.
D
. 14300) Silent Years—All save two of fifteen extrasolar colonies perish.
Emancipation
makes two expeditions to these survivors,
Nocturne
of Epsilon Eridani, and
Splendor
of Delta Pavonis. Attempts to maintain radio contact with scattered human worlds fail.

(
A
.
D
. 14600) Endarkening: Dependence on talking machinery and biomachinery spreads mass illiteracy. Factions embracing anti-intellectual doctrines become predominant. Widespread system failures of infosphere leave whole continents without literature or learning for generations. Ghosts decimated.

Montrose retreats to the plutino worldlet 28978 Ixion.

Vega is the Pole Star

Myrmidon Era

• 16th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 54 V

THIRD HUMANS: MYRMIDONS

Jupiter under Del Azarchel's direction creates the Third Humans, the Myrmidons, based on extrapolations of Hyades' mental architecture. Originally intended to be the replacement race for mankind, longer-lived and more cooperative, the Myrmidons are hideous creatures, as uniform and inhuman as insects, lacking sex, art, religion, or any finer feelings. The Myrmidons are capable of total No
ö
sphere nerve-machine integration.

Swans remove to Antarctica, Greenland, and Siberia to maintain strict isolation from Third Humans during these centuries.

(
A
.
D
. 15177) The Myrmidons construct and send out
Leucothea,
what will later be called the
Antepenultimate White Ship
, to a second antimatter star found in M17, the Omega Nebula, in the Sagittarius Arm of the Galaxy, 5,000 lightyears hence. Del Azarchel departs.

• 17th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 53 V

Loss of the Earth's magnetic field. Solar wind damages Earth's atmosphere, leading to widespread desertification. Domes of lightweight fabric erected over cities as moisture traps. Widely regarded as an assault by the Myrmidons (who are unaffected by the change).

Nyctaloptic Earth. Unshielded Humans and Swans able to emerge only after sunset.

[This is the predicted end of the human race, had not pantropy and terraforming techniques been decoded to allow the race to resist the ecological disaster.]

• 18th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 52 V

Rise of the Adamites, ascetics who reject human gene-experimentation. (These are the ancestors of the Covenanters.) The Sacerdotal religion, at this point in history, is decidedly ecumenical and universal, rejecting no expression of faith from any culture: Adamism comes to dominate Sacerdotalism, and ancestor worship and ritual purity form the backbone of this system.

Many diseases reappear in the human ecology, and various forms of mental retardation.

• 19th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 51 V

Rise of the Living Empire. This is a single life-form occupying most of the equatorial region, growing the foodstuff and materials of life for a highly dependent core population: perioeci and helots live in the temperate zones, with ruling Myrmidons able to pass freely between climate zones.

Jupiter emerges from his somnolence. [Jupiter is roughly 14,000 miles in diameter at this time, and 70^5 IQ.]

• 20th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 50 V

Ice Age. Swans emerge from the polar regions, and multiply in numbers. Living Empire becomes coniferous. Adamite political system, which prohibited human bio-adaptation even to Eskimo levels of alteration, is overthrown.

Rise of the Hibernal Men, who change fur during seasonal variations.

Myrmidons under Jupiter's guidance begin an active program of colonizing the main asteroid belt. Ice Age ends due to military bombardment.

At about this time, Dominions in Sagittarius become aware of the existence of Tellurian expedition and colonies in the Omega Nebula.

• 21st Millennium
A
.
D
. / 49 V

Swan Renaissance. Humans alter the Living Empire to create jungle canopies to prevent asteroid drop targeting from the Myrmidons, and all surface technology is dispersed into a highly diffuse and mobile form, an insect-based infosphere. Biopeonage exists in the cultivated areas, elsewhere nomads in large tribes live as herdsmen, hunter-gatherers in smaller bands.

Hibernals, Nyctalops, and Troglodytes flourish, and decimate other, older, human races. Earthbound Myrmidons driven into the Andes and Himalayas.

• 22nd Millennium
A
.
D
. / 48 V

Swans form first mathematical descriptions of human thought. Rule by the Swans through the Neural Indication Protocols, a xypotechnology-intensive hierarchy where each person's duties and role in society is determined by his thought-architecture. This is a limited and individualized form of the Sculpture of the 24th Millennium (see below).

Energy-intensive forms of war cease. Earthbound Myrmidons ejected into space, take up residence in the asteroid belt.

[Jupiter is roughly 28,000 miles in diameter at this time, and 50^6 IQ.]

Alpha Draconis is the Pole Star

• 23rd Millennium
A
.
D
. / 47 V

The Time of the Dark Cloud. The approach of Cahetel becomes the epicenter of human history.

A crude form of murk, created by slavish mimicry of the murk electronic arrangements, becomes the primary building material of all artificial minds. This allows a divarication to form in the previously unified Third Humans.

(
A.D.
22196) Divergent Myrmidons prevail upon Montrose to emerge from his self-exile and become supreme military leader of a resistance.

The Re-Armaments. Creation, over centuries, of the Black Fleet. The office of Nobilissimus revived.

• 24th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 46 V

Sculptured Lifeways. Time of the Bred Men. Rise of the Five Families, famed biotechnicians (Eventide, Leafsmith, Phosphor, Orison, and Grimm. The Bloodrose family is usually considered collateral line of Leafsmith, despite their pretensions, not a separate family).

Although later regarded as an anarchist utopia, the Sculpture was a rigid set of social control provisions that operated through the media, schooling, medical networks, marriages, fertility control. The ability of Firstling-tribes to form or ignore systems of force known as governments was largely bypassed as irrelevant to the aims of the Swans.

Scholars returning from deep communion with Jupiter usher in the Nanotechnological Revolution. Matter on Earth is hereafter regarded as a programmable substance.

Tellus enters a Turing Halt-State. (This state will persist until the 40th Millennium).

Gamma Ursae Minoris (Pherkad) is the Pole Star

Second Sweep—The Starfaring

• 25th Millennium
A
.
D
. / 45 V