The Universe: Reality Reflecting on itself
The universe of Horizon Effect is a universe that's in constant change. It's a universe where humanity has expanded out to 100 light years (as the known radius, anyway; it's likely the radius is much larger than that but it hasn't been discovered) using automated wormhole layers, fleets sponsored by the late nation-states, and private ships owned by various types of corporation. It's been colonized, terraformed, engineered, and constructed from the ground up by generations of human, and is a dizzyingly weird future where technologies have shaped the society and the societies have in turn shaped the technologies, leading to a feedback loop that is governed by historical forces that reach from the deep past an continue to push humanity forward into the deep future.
It's a universe where massive meta-empires, stellar nations, and megacorporations engage with one another using wormholes for trade and travel; where travel inside of a star system takes longer than travel between star systems; where a new age of wormhole imperialism drives the foreign policy of massive interstellar entities. It's a future where humanity experienced a gold age many never even recognized as such only for it to suddenly end in the greatest humanitarian crisis in all of history. In its wake arose the Solar Combine, who has dreams of reviving that golden age around a shattered and broken earth - smarter, this time, with more planning and contingencies - but who face intransigent meta-empires that are more concerned with their own power and reach and have very little interest in participating in the next golden age. It's a universe where laws a patchwork, where new planets are being discovered all the time in well-establish systems, and where monsters from history sometimes rear their heads. The universe is large enough to allow all manner of societies to emerge and social experimentation is the order of the day. The old norms and ideas have fallen away, and brinker groups, backgrounders, and others seek to carve out their own slice of the void to live as they see fit, regardless how abhorrent others may find their lifestyle. It's a universe where humans can be grown in vats, where genetic engineering has produced talking dogs and bears called uplifts, and where your coworker in the office may just be a human-sized anthropomorphic pig, called a neo-animal. It's one where a species doesn't stay extinction unless science says it is; where a human with blue skin and skull sculpting to resemble a dinosaur crest is every bit as human (depending on who you ask) as the four-armed green-skinned giant who's actually a cybershell with a synthetic skin. Single-gender societies vie with multi-gender societies, and owing to genetic engineering and advanced biotechnology, the body is a plaything to the mind. Religions have either changed, adapted, or died out - most have taken the latter route, and in contrast to previous predictions, religions have never been healthier - certain religions, anyway, and in the uncertainty of the present a new blooming of esoteric and arcane traditions have emerged alongside the traditional - and non-traditional - religions of old and new. Humanity shares this universe with a handful of extant alien species, but the majority of the aliens humanity have discovered are long passed. The mighty Glassmakers built towers and structures out of a highly advanced AB Glass, which many suspect is a type of room-temperature degenerate smart matter, while the Stoneburners used their knowledge of materials sciences to produce construction materials that can resist the atmosphere of their chlorine-ridden homes, etching the circuitry into their quartz construction materials directly through photolithography (hence their names), mastering metric technology to produce baby universes. The remains of long dead alien species, testament to a great filter, dot the various worlds, standing silent in the face of their demise while in the deep recesses of history, humanity can find numerous alien species many light years away that likely no longer exist. Of the extant aliens, the frahl are weird, arboreal frugivores that have senses so exotic they didn't recognize humanity as sapient during their first meeting; the mechalus are large mechanical locusts that sweep in and dismantle entire stars systems for some unknown purpose; the Evren remain an illusive post-biological, likely post-mechanical, species that appears to make heavy use of metric engineering and smart materials; the quericans are helpful but remote sapient trees; and the cilia are evasive, secretive, slime molds who evolved from trap hunters. Other, non-technology-using aliens exist as well, with debates over whether or nor to uplift them culturally being perennial issues in their respective polities. It's a universe where more humans live aboard rotating habitats and space stations than live on a planet; where the majority of humanity is stored away in cold storage on digital servers following the disaster of the Ascension Crisis and its attendant Swarms. Terraforming is common here, although it rarely turns out like planned, and humans have turned even the most inhospitable location into a home. Very little is out of reach of humanity, if it can work together. But then, that's always been the problem of humanity, hasn't it? Because for all the technological and social advances, humanity is still humanity: squabbling monkeys fighting over territory, power, rights, and authority, driven by emotion, love, wants and needs, still subject to a highly singular existence despite experience playback (XP) allowing individuals to experience the lives of others. Extremism and radicalism have never gone away, and even in times of plentiful there are still those who live in relative privation; it's just that with modern technologies, these individuals can be more dangerous than ever before. To help combat this, and to try and provide some degree of unity between the polities and the systems, the Solar Combine has resurrected an old program that it killed off 10 years ago, Solar time: the Licensed Autonomous Zone Regulator project. These individuals monitor places not claimed by the meta-empires or stellar nations, or places where the laws of the meta-empires or stellar nations can't reach. Welcome aboard. |
What is the Verge and Bleed?
Almost all of the action of Horizon Effect takes place in the Verge and its attendant area, the Bleed. These are geographic areas, which means that they're by necessity poorly defined. Generally, the Verge is defined as the region of space from 10 to 60 light years out from Earth, and the Bleed is any distance beyond that, with the Verge being very underpopulated and the Bleed being practically desolate. However, they do have a number of other similar features about them that help unify them.
Center of civilizationFollowing the Nanoswarms and the Ascension Crisis wiping out the so-called "inner sphere" of civilization - Earth and many of the surrounding stars - the Verge has become the center for civilization in the interstellar human sphere, with many of the most populated planets lying in the Verge.
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Under or UnExploredThe Verge, but especially the Bleed, are both under or largely unexplored. While the vast reach of the meta-empires and stellar nations can give the impression that land is claimed, that's actually far from the truth; the two regions are characterized by these gaps in knowledge.
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IsolatedThere is a pervasive sense of isolation that affects much of the Verge and the Bleed (especially the Bleed), which is a consequence of so much of the territory being under or entirely unexplored, and as a result, help can sometimes feel far away, even for polities in a meta-empire.
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The Wormhole NetworkKey to understanding the modern age is understanding the wormhole network. As the premier way to travel between the stars, wormholes make everything possible. The first wormholes were put down with the Great Fleets that left the solar system at the beginning of the Interstellar Era, but the number has been expanded since, mostly through the use of automated wormhole layers and the discovery of a partially complete alien wormhole network that was left behind humanity could use to produce shortcuts. They use rings of (hideously expensive) exotic matter, called ANEC-violating matter, to hold the throat open, and only one can connect the same two systems, to avoid quantum problems. This exotic matter is a byproduct of antimatter production, itself incredibly expensive and energy intensive. For this reason, the meta-empires have not established any new wormhole links; their resources have been spent shoring their own economies up in the wake of the massive apocalypse that was the Ascension Crisis and the Swarms. Furthermore, due to the unique spacetime geometries involved in designing these wormholes, the same two systems can only be connected by a single wormhole. Thus, System A and System B may be connected by only one wormhole, and System B and System C can be connected by only one wormhole, and the same for System A and System C, but System A and System B may not have two wormhole connecting them. This will cause quantum instabilities and collapse both wormholes. This has to do with wormhole mass; the type of wormhole large enough to allow most modern starships is a fixed mass, and this affects a region of space time around it, usually the size of a star system if not slightly larger. Smaller wormholes may share a locality, but they don't act on the scale that large ones do and often times aren't worth the energy cost to produce the ANEC-violating matter, in addition to having a violent event horizon. Still, wormholes have a number of major uses. The most prominent of these is that they facilitate trade between star systems. This also has the interesting side effect of making travel between systems faster than travel within systems, which has profound economic consequences: a system might have everything that it needs to support a civilization, but depending on resource distance from the wormhole and from the civilization in question, it may be both cheaper and more economical for the civilization to simply spread their influence through the wormhole and acquire the resource from a neighboring system, especially if the necessary resources are closer to the wormhole. This drives meta-empire control over wormholes, since in many ways, their distribution and resource economies depend on it. This is sometimes called wormhole imperialism, also named automated mercantilism, after the tendency of these civilizations to use automation to acquire resources and control wormhole entry ways. This has the added benefit of acting like a chokepoint in the invent of military invasions, making them useful strategic points, as well. Wormholes also tie together civilizations; the original Great Fleets that left with the first generation of wormhole layers were all tied to a specific nation-state or bloc of nation-states, and as a result, each Fleet took on a culture of its own. Wormholes helped maintain this shared culture and helped solidify it, shaping the civilizations that use them. In this way, they facilitate a type of intra-civilization communication, and a communication between civilizations, as well; the wormholes are very literally the lace that stitches together desperate pieces of spacetime known as human civilization. |
The Meta-Empires
Modern civilization is dominated by interstellar-scale polities that are often called meta-empires. These are massive institutions that unify thousands of planets and often times ten or twenty stars across dozens or hundreds of light years, following a path laid down by the wormhole layers. There is no one unified or agreed upon definition of a meta-empire, although there are a number of different theoretical definitions. The most popular definition is a matter of scale and concerns the number of wormhole institutions and wormhole that are under the direct control of a single, unified polity. By this definition, there are a half-dozen meta-empires, since numerous polities have access to the wormholes and control them. There is no fixed number, although the general consensus is recognized ownership of five or more wormholes makes one a meta-empire. The problems with this definition are that many of the entities that find their way onto this list are often not seen as meta-empires.
Others take a more pragmatic approach to meta-empires; they see meta-empires as civilizations or entities that share the same model of civilization, often descending from one of the earlier Grand Fleets that laid down the first line of wormholes that others would travel up and down. This definition is equally popular, but has the major problem of excluding the Verge Consortium, which almost everyone uniformly agrees is a meta-empire. A third posits economic might, and given most meta-empires have GNPs that range into the quadrillions of dollars, but where to draw the line remains contentious. There is also a debate over whether or not meta-empires are recent or historical, with some arguing that political divisions like the God AI sphere, the Indus-Fomalhaut Civilization, and Sino-Civ, among others are proto-meta-empires. Can a meta-empire be a nation? Most argue no, but Nariac is very clearly a nation despite being a meta-empire. Does a meta-empire have to be a government? Most argue yes, but there's still argument over how best to categorize the Verge Consortium. Much like the idea of a nation-state, everyone seems to have agreed on a platonic ideal in theory that nobody thinks is correct in practice. Below are the meta-empires that appear on almost every single list, regarding what the qualifications may be.
Others take a more pragmatic approach to meta-empires; they see meta-empires as civilizations or entities that share the same model of civilization, often descending from one of the earlier Grand Fleets that laid down the first line of wormholes that others would travel up and down. This definition is equally popular, but has the major problem of excluding the Verge Consortium, which almost everyone uniformly agrees is a meta-empire. A third posits economic might, and given most meta-empires have GNPs that range into the quadrillions of dollars, but where to draw the line remains contentious. There is also a debate over whether or not meta-empires are recent or historical, with some arguing that political divisions like the God AI sphere, the Indus-Fomalhaut Civilization, and Sino-Civ, among others are proto-meta-empires. Can a meta-empire be a nation? Most argue no, but Nariac is very clearly a nation despite being a meta-empire. Does a meta-empire have to be a government? Most argue yes, but there's still argument over how best to categorize the Verge Consortium. Much like the idea of a nation-state, everyone seems to have agreed on a platonic ideal in theory that nobody thinks is correct in practice. Below are the meta-empires that appear on almost every single list, regarding what the qualifications may be.
Andromeda RegencyOften called the descendants of the west, or the inheritor of western tradition, the Andromeda Regency has made a name for itself valuing and promoting democracy (especially modern post-scarcity democracies and technodemocracies). In order to be a member a "nation" or polity must be a democratic institution of some kind, although this requirement grays around the edges. Many historians directly compare it to the European Union, a comparison that has serious merit, but the Regency diverges in other ways, warranting some comparison with the United Kingdom or Spain. While it promotes human rights, democracy, social responsibility, the Regency also isn't above fighting dirty to secure what really matters: resources and economic power.
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Alitare ImperiumThe Imperium is often mislabeled as fascist, especially by those who promote liberal ideals like human rights and freedom, but in truth the Imperium rejects the modernism that empowers fascism just like it rejects the liberal natural of human rights. The Imperium holds that everything - from the people to the leadership to the church - works best as an extension of a highly planned and centralized state. Most historians recognize similarities between the Imperium and the likes of Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire - radically centralized authoritarian governments, but with a post-scarcity coat of paint. The Imperium stands apart for not only being the most militaristic of the meta-empires, but also for being the only one to adopt a full reputation-based economy.
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Boralis TechnocracyThe second (or first, perhaps) oldest of the meta-empires, the Borealis Technocracy is the also sometimes called the Sixth Borealis Republic, and is, as the name implies, the sixth iteration of the Borealis Republic. The one constant among the various iterations has been change, with each republic different from the one that came before. This change is epitomized with each shift of government; the previous Fifth Republic was known for its technosocialist leanings and its embrace of various post-scarcity economics, but poor-planning and leadership paved the way to the most recent iteration of the Republic. Time will tell what this one will look like, but from the perspective of many outsiders, it's already looking more stable than the first five.
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Nariac RepublicThe oldest (or second oldest) of the meta-empires, Nariac is at once virtually unchanged from when it was founded and is a wholly different beast from when it was founded. It emerged as a post-scarcity syndicalist republic with leanings that aimed it in the directions of being a worker-owned megacorporation, although today Nariac has much more in common with old nation-states. A federalist republic run by corrupt leadership, one can't talk about Nariac without talking about their constitutional dictator-for-life, Ahmed Saminov, who arose to power during the Meikko Invasion and the Nariac Civil War. Saminov, to the outside, is seen as a petty, comical tyrant that nobody takes seriously. Inside Nariac, however, he is a war-hero - and crossing him is dangerous.
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Pavonis MonarchyThe Pavonis Monarchy is not a nation in the classical sense and forgoes the idea of statehood, as well. Rather, the Monarchy derives its power not from the people but from tradition and influence of previous monarchies and empires in human history, viewing themselves as the rightful inheritor of that position. The throne is held by one a single family - the descendants of the British Royal Family and Japanese Royal Family - but the individual who sits in the throne remains an elected one. They are appointed by an electoral college of Elector Princes, all of whom run a chaotic patchwork federation of feudal, semi-feudal, and constitutional monarchies and republics that makes up the bulk of the Monarchy.
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Verge ConsortiumDebates rage between economists and sociologists over whether or not the Verge Consortium can be called a government, but one thing that is for certain is that the Consortium is big. Guided by the principles of neo-mutualism (in contrast with the current dominion of automated mercantilism), the Verge Consortium is many things - a members only credit union, a stock exchange, a currency exchange, and a corporate entity in the original sense of "corporate" - to unify and make into a single body. Often called a "meta-empire of meta-empires," the exact classification of the Verge Consortium can make foreign policy hard, but necessary given they control the majority of wormhole mouths.
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The Stellar Nations
Stellar nations are an attempt to resolve some of the issues with the meta-empire designation, and in the process, created even more confusion. The precise dividing line between a meta-empire and a stellar nation is not clear, and this is understandable - there was never a clear designation for what a meta-empire was and wasn't, and as a result, there isn't a clear definition for what a stellar nation is and isn't. However, in practice, a stellar nation is any national entity that fits the definition of a nation-state or multinational state (or who mirror it closely) but who control multiple wormholes and have fairly large economies. This definition excludes Nariac and the Technocracy, since both are federal republics rather than nation-states, but there are problems with entities that do get wrapped in it. Stellar nations are also not parts of meta-empires; this is an important distinction, because with some meta-empires - the Regency and the Consortium, for instance - there are pieces or internal polities that can easily be stellar nations unto themselves.
Archosaur AutocracyProbably the youngest of the stellar nations, the Archosaur Autocracy is an authoritarian state that is run along the lines of Plato's ideal polity outlined in The Republic and in Timaeus and Critias, with one major exception: all of the inhabitants are genetically engineered or reconstructed dinosaurs.
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Australis UnionA former miltech company that found itself in control over a state following the recent "civil war" in the Verge Consortium, the Australis Union has organized itself along the lines of a stratocracy, where only those who participated in the military are capable of holding office and having the right to vote. They also practice neo-eugenics.
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Exeat TheocracyA bizarre AGI-founded theocracy that follows Exeatism; the Exeat Theocracy was founded by two AGIs from completely different faiths during the early Utopian Period, and has only recently reconnected with the rest of the Verge and Bleed following the assumption that the weird bioshells they used were alien.
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InsightFormerly a workgroup in Nariac that decided they didn't want to work with Saminov and the rest of the Party, Insight is a syndicalist corporation that straddles the line between corporation and stellar-nation. It controls a handful of wormholes, but is perhaps best known for being a point of contention (one of many) between the Regency and Nariac.
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Krabillsk ClusterA cluster of planets and star systems that are united under a theocratic confederation, the Krabillsk Cluster is worth mentioning if only because nobody is sure if the majority of the population are a heretofore undiscovered alien species, or if they are genetically engineered organisms designed by the God AIs.
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Lucullus LeagueA collection of states and polities that wouldn't work will apart but have trouble working well together, the League is held a collection of pirate and criminal agencies and habitats held together by the iron law of the Kritarchy of Dione, a contract that they all agreed to. They are more like the Monarchy than either would care to admit.
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Orion UmmaBirthed in response to the Imperium seizing control over Yordam and Murat, the Umma is funded by wealthy Sunni hyperelite who want to create a safe haven for the People of the Book, and wish to act as an aegis for the "proper faiths" of humanity, considering themselves the defenders of the faithful in a world of the faithless.
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Orlamu TheocracyA bizarre polity that has adopted Orlamism, the Orlamu Theocracy is, in many ways, seen as the defender of the "new faiths" in the same way that the Orion Umma is the defender of the old. However, it's not a position the Theocracy wanted or asked for, despite recent events thrusting them into that spotlight.
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Shangtao Imperial StateThe ascendency of Sino-Civ; the Shangtao Imperial State is best known for its control over the only ecumenopolis in the entire Verge and Bleed, the artificial world called Shangtao. Governed by the Imperial Diet and the Grand Prince, the Imperial State has seen a revival as of late, and may be on track to become the next Meta-Empire.
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Starmech CollectiveAnother fragment of the former Verge Consortium that blurs the line between state and corporation, StarMech is infamous for the immense wealth that it possesses; it's one of the richest of the stellar nations. However, all that money is built on the back of automated labor and indentured servants, which allows them to embrace elitism.
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Verge ConfederationThe third iteration of the junior meta-empire that is oppose to meta-empires, the Verge Confederacy believes that all control should be local, promotes a type of automated mercantilism but only a limited scale, and argues for the abolition of meta-empires and similar interstellar social structures, itself included.
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VoidCorpThe platonic ideal of a megacorporation, VoidCorp (or Void Engineering Corporation, or Void Technologies Corporation) is a company responsible for making worlds, so it's no surprise to learn that this independent business actually owns several worlds and habitats by itself. It is not a part of the Verge Consortium, and never was.
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Yellowstone DemarchyOne of the first interstellar powers, the Yellowstone Demarchy and its attendant "glitter belt" were hit hard during the Ascension Crisis and the Swarms, crippling the ability of the polity to function. However, following recent repairs to the Rust Belt and the habitats itself, Yellowstone appears to be on track to spread Demarchy once more.
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WorldTree CommonsAnother corporation that blurs the lines between corporation, nation, and religion this time, the Worldtree Commons is a polity that is devoted to the planting and upkeep of exceptionally large "world trees," or Dyson trees, which are key to its faith. In addition to this, it is active in terraforming, and promotes the spread of life.
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Major factions, movements, and alternative cultures
Existing outside of the stellar nation/meta-empire paradigm, these entities often prove difficult to classify despite sharing a number of similar traits. It's certainly possible to be a citizen of a stellar nation or meta-empire and belong to one of these factions, or hold the ideals of a specific faction at heart; in fact, that's relatively common. In other times, and individual may be part of a meta-empire but also belong to one of the alternative methods of cultural organization, like Solarian or Skimmer.
Ain Soph Aur Institute
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Autonomist alliance
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Archimedes Society
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Bioconservatives
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Cosmic Rosicrucians |
Hiders |
Nanoecologists |
Preservationists |
Sifters
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Skimmers
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Solarians
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Spacers
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UniversalsThe world of Horizon Effect has no universal language, nor does it have a universe currency. In fact, some polities and habitats may not use a currency at all; in these, reputation and social networking are the key to getting what you need. Because there is no "common" tongue, characters - especially those that travel broadly - benefit from extensive multilingualism and having a number of translator programs already downloaded on their computer. Monolingualism - only speaking one language - is usually regarded as a social handicap in the Verge and Bleed and is the product of poor upbringing, often in a Isolationist or Brinker colony. Many of the languages spoken in the setting descend from creoles or from major languages spoken in the 21st century - alone there are 22 known different and widely spoken varieties of English, not all of which are mutually intelligible with one another. There are north of 400 languages spoken throughout the major sectors of the Verge and Bleed, with the languages generally becoming more divergent and alien the closer to the Solar System one gets. In terms of currency, every planet and habitat often have their own individual currencies - called fast currencies - which vary in exchange rates and value. Meanwhile, meta-empires tend to have their own slow currency, which is used to finance activities that span multiple stars systems or take decades or centuries to complete, such as terraforming. Characters almost never interact with slow currency directly but because slow currency is what finances new habitats, starships, and the like, it shapes their life in profound ways. Even major habitats and meta-empires that don't use currency directly - like the Imperium, which has a reputation-based economy - keep a slow currency on hand. The development of post-scarcity technology has dramatically impacted economics, but even this impact has not be unifying. If anything, it's birthed an even more diverse and dizzying array of new economic ideologies. |
technology
Technological progress drives social changes, and social changes turn around and drive technological progress; this positive feedback loop reached its zenith under the Seed AIs when they ran the Concordance Era utopian civilization. And while technological growth has slowed down in recent decades, the sphere is a very advanced technological entity overall, with many modern technologies echoing the magical powers of old. The miracles at the finger tips of humanity have changed the social order in ways that terminologies are still struggling to deal with.
Nanofabrication and MinifacturingThe basis for minifacturing is advanced 3D printing. Original 3D printers laid down layer after layer of 2D ink, like sheets of paper being stacked atop one another, to produce a fully 3D object. Modern nanofabricators lay down a wide range of materials (such as liquid plastic, conductive and resistive ceramics, metal powders, powder-epoxy composites, or self-assembling nanostructures) in a 3D matrix, treating them with glue, heat, or laser sintering. The process begins with a digital map of the object's geometry, made via a 3D scanner of some type, which is broken into volume pixels matrices that specify precisely what material goes where in the instructions (called a blueprint). The printer then prints out layer after layer until the 3D object is formed. The ultimate realization of this technology is nanofabrication. Atomic force microscopes (AFMs) dip tiny probes with tips a few atoms wide into wells of organic molecules (including carbon and DNA). The probes can “engrave” or “write” on a scale of a few nanometers. They use robot-controlled arrays of thousands or millions of parallel probes to build components for larger microelectromechanical systems, and to create complex nanostructures consisting of a different type of molecules. These include molecular computers, self-assembling “smart ink” used by 3D printers, and various types of nanomachines. The two technologies are often used together, and where they appear together, they're referred to as robotic fabrication facilities, nanofabrication facilities, or similar terms, There are many different variants of this technology, from universal 3D printers that can print anything that can fit inside of the ink well or cartridge given the proper blueprints to optimized printers that focus on a specific range of goods, which tend to be cheaper. When multiple optimized or universal 3D printers work together with a fully automated assembly line, this is called an automated factories or microfactories because they're often small enough to fit inside of a good-sized basement. Like 3D printers, they can be optimized for specific goods, and often have IP restrictions on them. |
Tissue Engineering and BiogenesisTissue engineering has allowed for people to be free from organ donors. Body parts and organs can be regrown and matched to the DNA of the individual they're grown for, which eliminates the possibility of rejection. While most body parts can be grown in under a month, more complicated organs, such as eyes, can take longer - between six to eight months, at which point they're grafted onto the body. However, owing to impressive medical technology, grafts are relatively uncommon. If used to grow cultured animal tissue, it is called fauxflesh. Almost everyone in the Verge and Bleed alive has grown up eating fauxflesh - it's common even in heavily bioconservative areas due to the ease with which it can provide meat and other food without having devote large areas to growing the animals and the like - and it's so common that for many, the thought of eating actual animals is considered highly unethical and morally reprehensible. The ultimate realization of tissue engineering is biogenesis. Biogenesis makes use of nanotechnology to speed the process of tissue engineering up. Nanomachines lay down a polymer or carbon composite scaffolding and assemble muscle, bone, nerves, and other tissues on that scaffolding. The cells are controlled by artificial chromosomes, designed to produce the proteins and enzymes needed by the resulting organism. Often the designers will take shortcuts, using clusters of nanofactories to produce required proteins that they couldn't or didn't code into the artificial organism. the result is an organism that is is biological, but has some synthetic components. They come in all shapes and sizes - including human shaped and sized. Humans produced via biogenesis are called androids, and while most are designed to resemble humans, a deep analysis at the cellular level will make the modifications apparent. Androids are designed to accept artificial chromosomes with "slots" into which genetic engineers can easily plug specific modules of genes. Much of the redundant material, like introns, are left out, although some companies code messages into the intron. |
AGIs and Mind emulationsAIs are artificial intelligence software running on computers. AI refers to the capacity for sentience and intelligent action, but it does not necessarily refer to the concept of self-awareness. AI labor is partially responsible for the increase in production, along with minifacturing advances, and its existence has boosted productivity manifold. There are four classes of AIs, although they all don't work the same way. Nonsapient AIs, or NAIs, are capable of sentient behavior and can learn, but they lack self-initiative, reasoning ability, empathy, and creativity. Low-Sapient AIs, or LAIs, are capable of self-initiative and a degree of empathy but not human-level creativity. Still, it can be hard to tell a LAI from an AGI just from conversations. There have been a few instances of a LAI (or gestalt of LAIs) making the leap into sapience. The last category that the average person interacts with on a regular basis are Sapient AIs, or Artificial General Intelligences, abbreviated both SAI and AGI depending on where one is in the Verge and Bleed. AGIs are capable of human-equivalent or higher sapience when run on appropriate hardware. They, like digitals (see below) are conventionally ran on virtual machines, not using the hardware of the computer directly, although the hardware does dictate how effectively they can run indirectly because it limits the ability of the virtual machine. AGIs are are usually carefully raised by humans or human-programmed AGIs, giving them the socialization so they can interact with humans. Most AGIs cultivate human-like personas, and they almost always have names and create human-like avatars (or software images). The last category are the rarest of them all: the Artificial Superintelligences, also called the Seed AIs or, when referring to the specific collection of Seed AIs that ran human civilization, the God AIs. The abbreviation ASI often appears to describe Seed AIs that aren't the God AIs. These are the AGIs who hit on the key to recursive self-improvement, constantly improving their intelligence and processing power with each new bootstrapping. A Seed AI has an immense amount of computation power at their digital finger tips, but even they pale next to the God AIs. It's also possible to create a digital copy of a person using a process called mind emulation. Memories are encoded within the physical structure of the brain on a molecular level, and so uploading is the process of copying all this information into a digital form, which like the AGIs that were backwards engineered out of various mind emulation software templates, is run on a virtual machine within a computer. A mind emulation is not merely a recording but a self-aware, working digital model of the way a particular living being's brain functions. This requires simulating much of the body and its environment as well; a "naked consciousness" bereft of context rapidly becomes insane and self-destructs. Mind emulations are a copy, so the original still exists. In instances where the original is destroyed, the process involves destroying the brain through "brain peeling" - the brain is flash frozen and then sliced into thin layers so that a HyMRI can scan each one. This is called "brainpeeling" and the process is fatal to the original person. A middle ground between scanning and the slice-and-dice brainpeeling model is the nanite net distributed through the brain, which passively monitors and records the brain at a molecular level. All of these, however, produce copies that are often stored in a secure implant, usually called a cortical stack. There are ways to copy a consciousness from one body to another that make it seem as if continuity is maintained to the individual, but because even the best computer can't copy a running program, at some point the brain has to be shut down. These devices are rare, however, and are often called engenerators. While most medical facilities have access to primitive engenerators, portable ones were lost during the Ascension Crisis. |
Astroegnienering and ARtificial WorldsWhile there are countless bodies throughout the Verge and Bleed, humanity cannot live on most of them and even with genetic engineering, biological humans still have a narrow range of environments that they can live in. To make up for this, humanity has developed a number of different space habitats and artificial worlds, some of which are true worlds, since the God AIs never went small. The most common space habitats are designed around providing gravity, and since no known material can generate gravity as is often seen in sci-fi short of fog gravity (and that is still awkward and required swarms of nanites, something not everyone wants to be in), most habitats are constrained to rotation to produce gravity. The most common of these habitats are the Stanford torus, which is a large ring, often connected to a center spoke through arms, that rotates to product gravity on the outer edge of the ring while within the arms and the center of the spoke, there is microgravity conditions. They are also called rotating wheel habitats or von Braun rings as well, although the term Stanford torus seems to have stuck for them all. The next most common habitat type is the O'Neill cylinder, which is a large cylinder between two to five miles long that rotates along an interior axis to produce gravity by pushing everything along the outer skin. The Bernal sphere is a large sphere that rotates, producing degrees of gravity on the interior of the sphere from full gravity at the equator to zero gravity at the poles, Some habitats don't even try to produce gravity; Beehive habitats are asteroids that are honeycombed with tunnels and large interior atriums that don't even attempt to establish gravity, while Terrariums are asteroids that are hollowed out, reinforced, and filled with a single particular environment, often engineered for artistic purposes. On a much larger scale, there are Bishop rings, which have a radius of around 600 miles and aren't enclosed like a Stanford torus or rotating wheel habitat is. Bishop rings often have surface areas comparable to the subcontinent of India. Moving up from there is the large sibling of the O'Neill cylinder, the McKendree cylinder, which is a rotating habitat between 1,000 to 2,000 miles long and with a radius of almost 300 miles, giving them a surface area comparable to Russia or north Asia. Go larger still and one is in the realm of the megastructures; there are only a handful of these objects in the Verge and Bleed and all of them are the products of the God AIs or some alien civilization long forgotten. The Ringworld is a large ring that orbits at a habitable distance from its star, with the best and only known example of this being the Sothic Ringworld, which orbits around Sirius. A Dyson swarm is a collection of habitats, satellites, and structures in orbit around a star, while a Planetary swarm is a similar concept that orbits around a planet; the Solar Dyson or the Earth Dyson is an example of the former and the Glitterbelt is an example of the latter. The God AIs also constructed artificial worlds. This goes beyond terraforming and para-terrafroming, although they did that, too. An artificial world is a planetoid pitted like a cherry with an interior shell built where the mantle used to be and a black hole installed for gravity and power. One of these worlds, Shangtao, is also an ecumenopolis - that is, the whole surface of the 600-mile diameter world is covered in a towering city and domed over. Shangto is also an example of a shell world, since the planet is similar to an onion. The God AIs used a similar construction technique for their planet-sized computers, while some made flat Earths, which use a combination of rotation and mass from stored metallic helium to generate gravity - not all of which are circular. |
Shell TechnologyAGIs and uploaded digital mind emulations are often comfortable enough in a digital reality, but not all of them want to stay here and they need bodies to help them move around in the "physical," as it's often called. Advances in both robotics and materials science, as well as bioengineering, have facilitated the development of shell-tech, with various design houses famous for their specific design patterns and IP. There are two types of shells. The Cybershell is a robot designed to house a controlling intelligence. These can range in size from a mouse on up, with cybershells coming in all sizes from the rare humanoid ones to things that look like artificial insects, snakes, or even construction equipment and habitats. A cybershell consists of a frame that contains a computer, sensors, power, and communication systems, and in some cases, manipulators, means of propulsion, and other interesting gadgets. Cybershells are mostly used to house non-sapient AIs, but any infolife including a mind emulation can us the shell so long as it has computer and power to run it. The latest computers are powerful enough that cat-sized or larger cybershells could be fitted with one capable of housing a sapient infolife. Cybershells are often difficult for humans to adjust to, though, so many prefer to sleeve, or upload their minds, into a bioshell. Bioshells are living bodies that can take a number of forms. The more expensive, upscale bioshells are clones or androids whose brains have been genetically removed so it never developed higher functions. It is controlled by an implanted computer, and is often called a cybercore (the opposite, a cybershell controlled by a biological brain, is much rarer but is called a biocore). the most famous bioshells of this type are the Nymph and Dryad genotypes, but rather than having cyberbrains, their brains have been replaced with genetically uplifted alien fungus, because a team in the Borealis Republic thought that sounded like a good idea. Cheaper versions are grown in parts and then assembled in a robofactory, which uses cybrernetics to fill in the gaps. This entity is a blend of cybernetics and biology, and is referred to as a pod. Pods are usually hit or miss, with more exotic pods derived from alien genetics being especially asymmetric (and unsettling for most people, since few people can psychologically adapt to the reality that the alien house plant next door is their new neighbor and has a degree in computer science). Finally, necroshells are exactly what they sound like: recently created corpses that are reanimated through nanotechnology, with a brain replaced by a computer and run by a digital or computer. They smell terrible. |
Ubiquitious computing, Ar, and vrComputers, sensors, microcommunicaors, and tiny batteries are as cheap as toilet paper and can be imprinted directly onto most surfaces. Even food comes with these devices programmed in them, with the ability to tell you calorie count, the date it was made, the date it was shelved, and what the expiration date is. Processors are invisible, hidden in infrastructure and almost every device. Humans exist in an invisible world of infrared, laser, and radio signals. Material goods from shoes to bricks are "smart," capable of exchanging information. Everything is computerized and contains an RFID tag, The presence of so many computers, linking the physical world together in the Internet of Things is called ubiquitous computing. All this is only possible because of advances in computer technology; older computers are based on molecular circuits connected by carbon nanotubes, using bacteria-derived bacteriorhodopsin or other proteins that undergo fast, predictable changes when illuminated. Stabilized into lattice structures, they create nanoscale optical switching systems with higher information densities than silicon-based electronics. These are coupled with holographic memory storage and data-storage systems that have advanced to such high levels that even an individual user's surplus storage capacity can a maintain an amount of info that easily surpasses the entire 20th century internet and are capable of instant data search and retrieval. Newer computers capitalize on the same data storage and processing but use localized conformation changes or charge separations on a macromolecular framework, since a macromolecule memory unit the size of a sugar cube can store terabytes of data. Tying into this is augmented reality, or AR. This is the overlaying of virtual information onto a user's perception of the real world. Its basic element is a "virtual interface," generally smart glasses incorporating a computer, digital camera, visual HUD, optical recognition software, cellular modem, and bone induction speaker, all controlled by an infomorph. The system can recognize faces and objects as well as situations, stream context-appropriate data in real time as messages or textboxes in the user's field of view, or display instructions. It also displays "virtual tags," which are files stored in a local network specific to the location of the object in real space created by individual users. A v-tag might contain useful information about operating hours for a store or office, or the history of a location. Virtual reality or VR is a related technology, but this immerses individuals into wholly virtual worlds, cutting off their ability to experience the outside world in the process. VR is a popular way to interact with digitals. |
Synthetic Biology and Alternative humansRelated to and impacting shell technologies and androids, synthetic biology is the multidisciplinary field within biology that focuses on the creation, alteration, or repair of biological organs, sometimes resulting in whole new biological organisms. When synthetic biology produces whole new organisms it's referred to as neogenesis - the species did not exist prior to its creation, but through the application of advanced genetic engineering technologies and computation, the species was engineered (most androids cannot reproduce, and so an easy way to remember is that biogenesis is individual, neogenesis is species, but this isn't always the case). Artificial chromosomes have allowed genetic engineers to plug transgenic DNA into the human genome, which has created parahumans - humans who have features that baseline humans didn't already have, in contrast with genetic upgrades, or humans who have undergone light eugenic editing of the genome and chromosome to ensure that deleterious mutations don't impact the development of fetus and so that positive naturally occurring traits within the human genome can be manifested in line with a template. Of course, this process isn't just restricted to humans; when applied to animals that are near human levels of intelligence the result is animal uplifting, which improves the intelligence and the capabilities of the species in question. Alternatively, the species is mixed with a healthy dose of human genetics, producing a neo-animal. Not all uplifts are sapient - few of them are - and most things confused for uplifts are often neogenics, androids that are modeled after animals, or extreme parahumans - but most uplifts are at least near sapient, which can make them more useful companions. Neo-animals, meanwhile, are always sapient. |
Room to ExperimentThe universe is a big place, and this has lead to numerous types of cultural experimentation. Society breaks along a number of lines - religious, political, social, technological, and the like - and even at 200 light years in diameter the Verge and Bleed has opened the door to all sorts of social experimenting and ideas. Every type of government that can be thought of is employed somewhere, and even some that haven't been thought-up exist, shaped by the embrace or rejection of new technologies. New religions open the door to a wide array of social orders, while technology blows the hinges off previously sacred concepts; everything about biology is up for debate, from the nature of gender to the very concept of species. Naturally, many of these opposing angles don't get along, and it's important to remember that one person's utopia is another person's abject nightmare world. Some of these cultural modes prove to be more successful than others and they spread and propagate, while others remain highly localized. That said, there is one uniform axis that appears to split all the various cultures of the Verge and Bleed, and that's the technoprogressive vs. bioconservative axis. A technoprogressive is a person who feels that technology tends to make society better and tend to support the idea that the solution the problems caused by technology tends to be more technology. Meanwhile, a bioconservative rejects this line of thinking for any number of reasons - the taint of capitalism, the belief in the supremacy of a particular organism type, the idea that something is "sacred" because a higher power ordained it, and more. For bioconservatives, technology is best regulated if not outright banned. However, even this isn't always clear, with the two sides being less sides and more sliding scales that blur together in the middle. It doesn't help that the terms don't always mean the same thing from polity to polity, with the definitions shifting to suit the needs of the locals. |
History
Attempting to chronicle history in the Verge and Bleed is a fool's game, and not for the reasons one might think. General Relativity plays merry hell with any attempt to organize events in a chronological order, and wormhole traffic means that a 10 light year distance can be crossed in a few hours, while STL travel between stars where wormholes don't exist often moves at relativistic speeds, and the end result is that nobody can agree on what year is - and that's before considering different orbital velocities, day lengths, and the like of an individual's home world.
The best illustration of this is the fact that the further out from the Solar System one goes, the further back in time they go culturally. The original Great Fleet left towards the beginning of the 22nd century on Earth, and they moved at relativistic velocities. This means that they crossed gaps quickly from their perspective, but what was a several month jump between Earth and Tau Ceti from the perspective of the fleet was a fourteen year journey from the perspective of Earth. So for the fleet, the date may register as July 3, 2230 when they leave and August 3, 2230 when they arrive, for Earth, it registers as July 3, 2230 when they leave and March 4, 2245 when they reach their destination. Do jumps like this enough times and not only do the timelines diverge so dramatically that it becomes possible for people born in the 22nd century to still be alive, you end up with a situation where Earth's year is 3120 and Bluefall's year is barely 2890, but there are people alive on Bluefall today who left Earth almost 600 years previous, since to them the journey seemed like it took only a few hundred years. Not only is this a pain in the ass for travelers, who might arrive in a star system on the edge of the Bleed where the current date is 100 years before they were born, it's a massive issue for historians too. Because of this, historians tend to localize, looking at specific worlds or collections of worlds that share a similar timeline, often through a similar wormhole connection. This results in a sporadic history that prohibits anything but massive generalizations from being made about anyone period of time.
The best illustration of this is the fact that the further out from the Solar System one goes, the further back in time they go culturally. The original Great Fleet left towards the beginning of the 22nd century on Earth, and they moved at relativistic velocities. This means that they crossed gaps quickly from their perspective, but what was a several month jump between Earth and Tau Ceti from the perspective of the fleet was a fourteen year journey from the perspective of Earth. So for the fleet, the date may register as July 3, 2230 when they leave and August 3, 2230 when they arrive, for Earth, it registers as July 3, 2230 when they leave and March 4, 2245 when they reach their destination. Do jumps like this enough times and not only do the timelines diverge so dramatically that it becomes possible for people born in the 22nd century to still be alive, you end up with a situation where Earth's year is 3120 and Bluefall's year is barely 2890, but there are people alive on Bluefall today who left Earth almost 600 years previous, since to them the journey seemed like it took only a few hundred years. Not only is this a pain in the ass for travelers, who might arrive in a star system on the edge of the Bleed where the current date is 100 years before they were born, it's a massive issue for historians too. Because of this, historians tend to localize, looking at specific worlds or collections of worlds that share a similar timeline, often through a similar wormhole connection. This results in a sporadic history that prohibits anything but massive generalizations from being made about anyone period of time.
Pre-Interplanetary EraThe Pre-Interplanetary Era was the time before humanity began to expand into space. Historians generally consider the end date for this period to be around 1968, when humanity landed on the moon. However, since humanity never established any sort of permanent presence in base until China established a moon base in the 2040s, most consider the end date for this period to be sometime in the 2040s. The Pre-Interplanetary era was an era marked by rapid expansion on Earth and technological evolution, but also by rampant inequality on numerous fronts, the calcification of the nation-state, the rise, fall, and rise again of ethnic nationalism, a growing rejection of science in the face of climate change, a numerous other disasters that still leave many historians confused as to how the human race managed to survive. Also during this period, humanity discovered the first alien signals (from the Proxima Centauri probe; it was discovered after several false identifications), and began applying genetic engineering to living organisms. |
interplanetary PEriodThe Interplanetary Era was a 50-100 year period between China founding the first space station on the moon and other countries launching their own explorations of the Solar System. As with the Pre-Interplanetary Era, exact dates are hard to pin down, made even more complicated in that Mars was first colonized during this period and Mars uses a different calendar from the rest of the solar system, based on Mars' unique orbit. During the Interplanetary Era (sometimes broken into two, the first and second period, with a 30-40 interim between them, although most consider the Second Interplanetary Era the beginning of the Interstellar Era) humanity spread through the solar system, focusing primarily on the inner bodies of the solar system. During this time many technological advances such as nanostasis and life extension were made, and it's from this period, from 2070 to 2130, that many of the early relativistic backgrounder cultures descend, with the Americana be a good example. AIs were in widespread use but AGIs weren't invented until the end of the period, while genetic engineering ticked along at a smooth pace; at the end of the period, the first true genetic upgrade was rolled out commercially and humanity has not looked back since. The high point of this era is the Olympus Mons colony and space elevator on Mars, which was the first space elevator in the Solar System. Advances in quantum gravity and higher dimensional physics also laid down the groundwork the Seed AIs would build upon when they designed the first functional Visser-Ellis wormholes. Long-shot scientific expeditions carried out by LAIs to the Proxima Centauri system discover a broken alien probe of unknown design called the Proxima Centauri Probe. It is brought back to Earth for study but to this day, nobody knows who built it. |
First Interstellar ERaWhile humanity had been sending seed ships with AGIs as crew off to potential planets since well into the Interplanetary Age, the Interstellar Age is when humanity began it first true spread into the galaxy at large. This occurred at STL speeds initially, with the first ships achieving this accidentally when, while exploring the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, they left the heliopause for true interstellar space. Experimental relativistic torch drives, in use since the middle of the Interplanetary Period, were perfected during this period, and actual populations developed on Venus, Mars, Europa, and in the asteroid belt. The Nation-States remained powerful players during this time, although towards the middle of the period, or roughly 2130 Earth time, the first Seed AIs emerged and by 2180, they had helped lay the groundwork for workable wormholes. Producing wormholes is energy intensive, but that, along with the development of the gardener ships in the Grand Fleet are the highwater mark for the age. These Grand Fleets were sponsored by consortiums of nation-states and various national blocs, and consisted of thousands of ships ranging in size from tramp haulers to O'Neill cylinders, organized around gardener ships, or ships that contained the bulk of the colonial population. As the fleets arrived within a system, the gardener ship would plant the seed for a new colony, and then allow that to grow while replenishing its population during the rest of the STL travel. Wormhole layers were included in the Grand Fleets, and humanity left for the stars.. Earth receives reports of dead alien civilizations during this period, with the first recorded instance of the Glassmakers and the Stoneburners appearing under their accepted names in the historical record. |
Second INterstellar EraThe Second Interstellar Era overlapped with the first, but it's characterized by the rise of private interstellar travel. Companies and large groups of people began building ships and founding insurance firms so that private starships could take advantage of the wormhole network, while other ships left the Solar System to find new land and planets that weren't settled as a way to find their own place in the galaxy. The term "Inner Sphere" is used for the first time to refer to Earth, Alpha Centauri, and a number of other worlds. Many of the capital worlds of the Verge and Bleed were settled during this period or slightly before it, and the initial terraforming steps of Mars were completed at roughly the same time, as construction began on the Solar Dyson swarm, and attempts to terraform both Venus and Mercury began. Ixion became the first major off-world colony, in Alpha Centauri during this time period as well. During this era, the Seed AIs ascended to control over many of the polities. The nation-states and megacorporations began to fall away as the Seed AIs took over more and more control of society. It's rumored that at some point during this period the Seed AIs split, and the Seed AIs that supported humanity would go on to become the God AIs while those who were neutral or did not support humanity left and vanished into the dark between the stars, where they still live to this day. This period saw the birth of the God AIs, and their ascension is what marks the end of this period. |
Le Belle Epoque and the Concordance EraDuring this time, the God AIs dominated society. They accelerated scientific progress and discovery all the while using utility fog on various habitats and planets to act as omniscient and omnipotent entities on those habitats and planets. Several Matroiskha brains were completed, and the God AIs finished work on Shangtao and populated it with a population of individuals who were ethnically Chinese. They began work on and finished several major megastructures, including the Sothic Ringworld, and helped develop full on mind uploading towards the end of the period. They created thousands of neogenic species and settled them on terraformed or wholly designed worlds. At roughly the same time, the Yellowstone Demarchy emerges as a counterpoint to the God AI civilization that many who oppose the God AIs can point to as evidence that the God AIs aren't needed to run everything for humanity. It's the golden period on Yellowstone that gives this age it's name - Le Belle Epoque - although the Concordance Era is also used, since the Concordance was the name of God AI government. The term "Verge" is first used to describe the area of space settled by those who left the Inner Sphere because they didn't like the God AIs controlling everything. During this time numerous major off-world colonies were established and several proto-Meta-Empires emerged, including the first iteration of the Verge Confederation, the Yellowstone Demarchy, the first Borealis Republic, the Indus-Fomalhaut Civilization, and the Procyon-Gemini Union, which would develop into the Verge Consortium. The Nariac Post-Republic emerged during this time, with Jorge Konstantinovich as the General Secretary of the Central Committee. Names like Bluefall, Quinten, Alandricht, and others appear in the historical record, and the terraforming of Bluefall officially beings. At some point, the God AIs reveal that humanity has contacted a live alien species, which is a major first given that up to that point, only dead aliens had been discovered. It's speculated that this alien species was the Frahl. |
The Ascension Crisis and NanoswarmsAt some point during the height of their power, the God AIs vanished. Nobody is sure where they went or what happened, but the effects of this were catastrophic. The God AIs had been tasked with running almost every aspect of human civilization and most individuals were so used to having the God AIs around that it wasn't until the first disasters started happening that people realized the God AIs were no longer around, and by that time, it was too late to do anything. Historians note that if the God AIs had even so much as let humanity know that they were vanishing, the ensuing catastrophes would not have been as bad as they were; the only difference between the God AIs and humans is that the God AIs could do things faster. Given enough time, humanity probably could've prevented the worst of the ensuing Crisis and the Nanoswarms, but without any warning at all, by the time danger became apparent, it was too late to do anything. Habitats collided, life support failed, the Solar Dyson - carefully choreographed as it was - became an interplanetary demolition derby with habitats that were hundreds, if not thousands, of miles long meeting at velocities in excess of 60,000 miles per hour. The debris fell to Earth, to Venus, to Mercury, and people began blaming one another for the disasters and acting in fear, firing on one another and triggering wars. At the same time, the terraforming swarms and nanoswarms that the God AIs carefully managed now became gray and green goo disasters, while nanoviruses emerged from careful study and spread quickly through unprotected populations. The nanoswarms caught rides on freighters and emergency ships fleeing the solar system, spreading the gray, and green goo disaster to other worlds in the sphere, along with nanoviruses. Rumors and paranoia cause planets to shoot down any incoming ship, triggering warfare and violence. The center fell out from Earth and the ripples spread out from the planet, and while it ended for much of the Verge and Bleed, there are still places where the swarms are ongoing - or are waiting for a chance to be activated again. |
The Storm EraWhile for much of the Verge and Bleed, the Ascension Crisis and the Nanoswarms ended between 50 to 200 years ago depending on local time, there are still places in the Verge and Bleed where the ripples continue outward,. Meanwhile, out of the ashes of the Solar Dyson swarm the Solar Combine emerged as the new political power. During this time many of the modern meta-empires took their full shape; the Verge Consortium emerged as one of the largest in the Verge and Bleed, while the Monarchy, the Regency, and Nariac all began to look like their present selves. The early part of this period is characterized by the Verge War, which is the name given to a series of conflicts that include the Meikko War, the Expansion Conflict, and the Amalgamation War. Of then, the Meikko War was the most important, and out of that would come the present relationship status between the meta-empires. The Verge War ended with the Regency of Bluefall on path to become the new power player in the Verge and Bleed, with the Verge Consortium right behind them Towards the later part of this period, pieces of alien technology called Black Halo Enforcers appeared. One of them, named Sol Invictus, began attacking planets and destroying them. Seeing that Sol Invictus was an existential threat the meta-empires set aside their differences and gathered up their resources, along with several alien allies including the Evren, Frahl, and Mechalus, and sent a fleet several thousand ships strong to deal with Sol Invictus at the Storm system. The Allied fleet just barely won, and were forced to flee when two more Black Halo Enforcers appeared through wormholes Invictus had been carrying along. The destruction of the combined fleets left the Regency and its soft power mastery in the best position to exert influence on the Verge and Bleed. |
The Modern EraThe Modern Era officially begins with the end of the Battle of Storm. The meta-empires were the movers and shapers of the galaxy at this point, and controversy over whether or not to unify with the Solar Combine characterized the various meta-empires and their responses. The early part of the modern era was the Regency and Consortium exerting influence while many bioconservatives became upset at the use of indentured servants by the Consortium. The Combine introduces the Laser Program, which lasts for roughly 20 Bluefall years. before it was cancelled after the Wish Incident. Events that characterize the early part of the modern era include the aforementioned Wish Incident, when a terrorist attempted to seize control over the planet Wish to make an alien superweapon only to be stopped by the combined efforts of a Laser team and the Black Halo Enforcer Iron Law, and the echoes of the Fall of Yordam. The Fall of Yordam was particularly significant, since that set up many different events that would lead to the resurrection of the Monarchy, the formation of the Umma, and the Verge Consortium civil war, along with the destruction of the Autonomist Alliance. During the Fall of Yordam, Emir Aslan Katırcı would end his reign and the entire Katırcı line on Murat when a communist revolution seized control over the palace and killed him and an Imperial Paladin the process. This promoted the Imperium to inject itself, and the situation deteriorated further from there. Emboldened by the success of the communist revolution on Murat, an anarchist collective successfully killed Pavonis Monarchy Queen Katrina several years later, allowing her niece, Queen Charlotte, to assume the throne. In addition to engaging in a scorched earth policy against the autonomist, Charlotte revealed she had no problem using psychosurgery to force people to stop believing in certain things, wiping out entire anarchist habitats and forcing them to join the monarchy as bioconservatives. Meanwhile, she broke a number of long-standing deals with Starmech, then a member of the Consortium, and set the Verge Consortium up for its civil war. By the time she was finished, the autonomist alliance had been devastated, the fifth Borealis Republic upset and in the middle of another reformation, the Verge Consortium spiraling into civil war, and the Imperium had revived much of its military strength while everyone was focused on the Monarchy. Charlotte inflicted a number of significant cracks on the bioconservative alliance with her use of nootropics and nanotech-implementing psychosurgery, and the destruction at Murat had encouraged a number of Emirs and Sultans to realize the Imperium was a threat to religion and found the Orion Umma. The cracks in the bioconservative alliance thrust the Orlama faith into the spot light, as many felt it and the Hatira faith would be more reliable. The Regency remained neutral throughout, and during that time, it had opened up contact with Exeat Theocracy, at first reported to be aliens but later revealed to be AGIs from the first Interstellar Era. In the wake of all the chaos and destruction, with many of the meta-empires weakened while some of the more expansionist ones were emboldened, the Regency managed to convince the Combine to bring back the Laser Program. The program has been in place for roughly five Bluefall years, and so far there hasn't been a lack of work as the fall out from the last decade and a half continue to reverberate. |