The Architect of Aeons (64 page)

SECOND SWEEP

(
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. 24113) Arrival of Cahetel Cloud—second immediate defeat of Tellurian forces by the Hyades Domination: Myrmidon No
ö
sphere is betrayed into the Cahetel Format. The Myrmidon Black Fleet cannibalized for Diaspora to second sweep worlds: the asteroid belt flies into interstellar space.

The failure of the Black Fleet persuades humanity to cease active resistance to Hyades deracination.

This sweep is considerably more melancholy, as all failed colonies are reseeded, so the ruins and corpses of previous civilizations are visible. Colonial Myrmidons die; Swans survive marginally, but are insufficiently communal or family-oriented to thrive. Humans thrive, especially Sylphs, Witches, Chimera, Hormagaunts, Hibernals, and Nyctalops. The smaller failure rate is perhaps due to stronger Terraforming effort and subtle, more patient Pantropy.

[Jupiter is roughly 40,000 miles in diameter at this time, and 25^7 IQ—achieving plateau maximum.]

• 26th Millennium
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(
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. 25177) Arrival of the
Antepenultimate White Ship
.

Influx of snow ushers in a period of supremacy by pro-Domination Potentates. (No further expeditions to Omega will be mounted until the 29,900, some four thousand eight hundred years hence.) Del Azarchel returns, duels and kills the Myrmidon Nobilissimus, a copy of himself, who suffered divarication during the long absence.

Widespread use of snow (antimatter-powered weapons) makes the Sculptured Lifeways nonviable, as handheld weapons could wipe out a city, or an army.

The wealth of the expedition allows Jupiter to establish the first Collaboration-Strength Launching Lasers, a human-built starbeam.

(
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. 25544) Foundation of the Starfaring Guild. From this date until the 37th Millennium, Jupiter is in direct control of all interstellar trade and traffic.

Polaris is again the Pole Star

• 27th Millennium
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Rust, a system of chaff clouds and superhighspeed nanotools (including small atoms spun at lightspeed, colliding with antimatter to discharge the energy back along the path of attack) is found to be a partial defense against snow—the snow-weapon is still formidable, but no longer unstoppable.

Discovery of Nerve-Mandala and Nerve-Mudra techniques. Warfare now formed by neural symbols. Nations break into smaller psycho-morphically similar sets. Note that only species practicing neural uniformity, Locusts, Melusine and after, are vulnerable.

Alrai is the Pole Star

Hierophant Era

• 28th Millennium
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After centuries of Nerve Wars, the Hierophant Cohesion forms. First and Second Mankind form one psychomorphic set of man-swans called the
Hierophants
. The Swans can use their man-brains to defend against Nerve-Mandala techniques, but employ aesthetic logic and xypotechnology as Swans.

Myrmidons migrate to 82 Eridani, the planet Cyan.

• 29th Millennium
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Under pressure from Cahetel, Hierophants enter this symbiosis with Ghosts, which mitigates their natural love of isolation, and produce a social system based on a flexible series of highly individualized rules, known as the Gracious Acts.

The Graciousness includes the removal of large-scale weapons and the reintroduction of a dueling custom. Women subjugated as several misogynistic philosophies and sects gain predominance. The Graciousness reduces Firstling humans into fawning servility.

Interstellar slave trade begins.

Iota Cephei is the Pole Star

• 30th Millennium
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(
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. 29024) Launch of the
Penultimate White Ship
toward the Omega Nebula, there to establish a permanent colony and a Second Empyrean Polity of Man.

Cahetel departs
. Hierophants left without calculation power which had been loaned to them (at interest) by Cahetel. The Hierophant Cohesion lost forever.

• 31st Millennium
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Hyades signals detected at 82 Eridani, thought to originate from a descendant or revision of Cahetel. (The Cyanese loyalty to the Hyades dates from this early period.)

The Gracious Acts ended in a year widely hailed as the Matriculation of Man. The Servants of the Spirit of Man enforce anarcho-libertarian covenants on Earth, for perhaps six months, before falling apart into factional grief and strife. The Holocaust of Northern Hemisphere.

Spiritualists clash with Sacerdotes. The Sacred Wars reduce the biosphere of Earth to partially uninhabitable. Ghosts, Locusts, and Troglodytes wiped out by mandala techniques.

Alderamin (Alpha Cephei) is the Pole Star

• 32nd Millennium
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The Cherishing. Under Hierophant guidance, Earth recolonized from Mars, Proxima, Cyan, Splendor, Covenant, Nocturne, and Gargoyle. Establishment of the Castellan system: Arcologies at various points, well defended against snow and murk attack forms, dominate local countrysides. Human training techniques nullify mandala and mudra impositions added to posthuman consciousness.

At about this time,
Cerulean
, a second Power after Jupiter, is born in the 82 Eridani system, constructed by the Cyanese.

• 33rd Millennium
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Spread of the Oneness: biotechnological Archangels inhabit the local biosphere, and revive the Living Empire. Battle of the Trees: invulnerable tree-monsters slowly uproot and destroy the arcologies. Hierophants flourish in the environment, surfeited by ambrosia, nectar, and sweet dreams. Technology forgotten by humans.

Splendid engineers convert the outer three asteroid belts of the Delta Pavonis star system into a cognitive matter entity called
Peacock
, a third Power.

• 34th Millennium
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Starfarers from Splendor use weather control technology to decimate the Oneness, and return Earth to a technological footing. Rise of the Ninety-One-and-Nine Realms. Labor market for slaves both on and off Earth is abetted by a return to plantation and factory work.

Epsilon Eridani creates a Power called
Atramental
. Under his guidance, the Sacerdotes of Nocturne, in advance of the Third Sweep, launch a voluntary multigeneration colony ship toward Rigel, and colonize Orphan.

The Splendids prevail upon Jupiter to take closer control of mankind.

Deneb is the Pole Star

Third Sweep—The Long Golden Afternoon

• 35th Millennium
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The Long Golden Afternoon of Man
—Earthly society, under the gentle guidance of the Jupiter Brain, using Cherished technology and Oneness Edenwork (a type of biotechnology), produces a stable yet flexible genetic caste system.

Widely regarded as a near-Utopia, the Long Golden Afternoon endures from the 35th to the 53rd Millennium, over eighteen thousand years, one of the most stable forms of society in human history. Wars are contained as small and local, executed with punctilious chivalry on all sides; disease is unknown, except as a weapon; poverty is unknown, except as a voluntary spiritual discipline. Sacerdotalism persecuted.

Atramental, perhaps due to malign influence from Jupiter, suffers psychotic spasms, and commits suicide.

• 36th Millennium
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The Great Revival. Under the pressure of Hierophantic persecution, Second and First Sweep Sacerdotalism transformed into an intolerant, exclusive religion, as Judeo-Christian elements in the lore absorb or render moot other, less coherent elements such as ancestor worship. Much of this set in motion by a martyr named Purewater.

Under pressure from the Sacerdotal Order, Jupiter grants certain rights and immunities to First and Second Humans.

(
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. 35400)
First ignition
of the deceleration starbeam directed at M3.

A Hierophant named Photinus proposes a different calculation of the first ignition date, due to changes in Earth's orbit, and the unreliability of records. The matter, at first academic, gathers all dissatisfied elements of society to question the entire basis of cliometry, and all planned history.

Onset of the Ahistorical Wars. Mutiny, tumult, and the highly ceremonial, tournament-like, but still deadly warfare of the Golden Era spreads to all worlds.

Immaculate
, a Fourth Power, created by Covenant of Altair by gathering all the material of their Oort cloud together into a single superjovian mass.

• 37th Millennium
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THIRD SWEEP.

The plasma-based Virtue called by astronomers
Shcachlil
but popularly called
The Salamander
takes up its position inside Sol. This time, the Hyades does not bother to bring ships to transport the weeping millions to their fates, but merely orders the construction of them, and directs solar-prominence-powered energy-discharges at any who defy or delay. Jupiter no longer possesses control of the starbeams which power interstellar sailing.

The Third Sweep worlds are colonized as Hierophantic world contingents. At the same time, Myrmidon populations are deracinated to Second Sweep worlds, which now have the technological base to support them. The Myrmidons compel these worlds to enter the tight cliometric controls of the Golden Lords.

Shcachlil commands the resumption of M3 deceleration beam. Photinine heresy suppressed. Rosycross and other First Sweep worlds are taken under the command of cliometric planners, local Hierophants called Golden Lords.

The Isolation. Human-based starfaring suspended due to lack of resources.

• 38th Millennium
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End of the Isolation. Starfaring Guild removed to December of Tau Ceti, declares independence from Jupiter's control.

(
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. 37400)
Second ignition
of the deceleration starbeam directed at M3. Energy budget of the Empyrean Polity impoverished by this extravagant uses of energy. Economic collapse.

Photinine controversy revived under the prophetess Lares, who claims to be in communion with extragalactic cherub named Dorado, alleging that the Monument mathematics, and all cliometric calculations, are false.

The Grand Duel of Time. Orthodox Golden Lords challenge those of their order who are disciples of Lares to reorganize history, in order to see whose cliometric calculus is more accurate.

Unexpectedly, in less than four hundred years, the Orthodox Golden Lords are compelled by socioeconomic developments to capitulate, and embrace Laresianism.

The Crusades. Covenant and other anti-Domination worlds still ruled by Swans or Myrmidon Potentates raise troops to send to Earth, to make war upon the Golden Lords.

Vega is the Pole Star

• 39th Millennium
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Establishment of a short-lived Crusader Kingdom under Prestor Pfin Aiven Bromion on the surface of the terraformed moon.

Laresianism persecuted.

Kitsune Era

• 40th Millennium
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(
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. 39024) Arrival of the
Penultimate White Ship
.

News reaches Earth of a Second Empyrean polity of ninety stars in the Sagittarian Arm spreading outward from the Omega Nebula. Decryption of signs from the interior of the Second Monument found at the Omega Nebula leads to a revolution in cliometry, nanobiology, and terraforming praxes.

Tellus is revived by techniques discovered from the Second Monument, and emerges from Halt-State (entered in the 24th Millennium).

FOURTH HUMANS: KITSUNE

Rise of the Fourth Humans, the totipotent Kitsune, also called Fox Maidens. These nanobiological shapechangers are able to alter organs and neural configurations at will, adopting different personalities as need arises. Every cell can carry neural charge, allowing the entire body mass to become a brain mass, which is standardized to interlink with other Kitsune and compatible systems. The race is monosexual, reproducing by parthenogenesis. There are no male Kitsune.

Legend names their founder Cazi Regina.

• 41th Millennium
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(
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. 40522) Launch of the
Ultimate White Ship
by Peacock, the Power of Delta Pavonis.

The Kitsune aid the Covenant crusades on Earth, but then establish their own hierarchy under Cazi the Fox-Queen (whether the same immortal individual, or her remote descendent, history does not say). Kitsune upset the genetic balances of the Golden Afternoon caste system.

Kitsune create the “psychic spinal” system of pluripotent cells in Swans and Firstlings, allowing them multiple personality appliances, with the associated benefits of temporary expertise.