The Judge of Ages

  Crucxit, Axcit, and Litcec of Seven Twenty-One North Station [date not given: anywhere between A.D. 7480 and A.D. 10000, most likely circa A.D. 8000]

  Inquiline Locusts (Blue Men)

  Illiance—Illiance Vroy, a Locust Inquiline of the Order of Simplified Vulnerary Aetiology (the Simplifiers, aka the Blue Men); his false-mother-name is Lagniappe [A.D. 8800]

  Ull—Ull Ynglingas, Illiance’s Mentor

  Orovoy, Naar, Yndelf, Yndech, and Ydmoy—Preceptors; Naar is the machinist

  Saaev, Aarthroy, and Unwing—Blue Men of lower dignity: an Invigilator, a Docent, and a Bedel

  Aanwen—Aanwen Leel, a Blue Widow; her dignity is Preceptrix

  22 others, names not given

  Tendrilless Locusts (Gray Men, also called Linderlings)

  Keir and Keirthlin—Linder Keir Laialin and Linder Keirthlin Laialin of Northeastern Region, Fifteenth Configuration [A.D. 8866]

  Followers

  Eie Kafk Ref Rak—a canine Moreau (Irish wolfhound)

  Ee-ee Krkok Yef Yepp—(a stately Doberman Pinscher)

  Ktatch-Ee Yett Ya-Ia—(a Collie)

  Rirk Refka Kak-Et—a Great Dane

  196 others, names not given

  Melusines

  Alalloel—Alalloel u lal rir Lree, also called Alalloel of the Lree, Eighteenth Configuration [A.D. 10100]

  Legion—Alalloel when compiled and updated to the standards of the Final Stipulation of the Noösphere Protocols; also called the Finality, these are Melusine openly loyal to Del Azarchel

  Swan

  Anserine—Alalloel of the Anserine, a Paramount of the Second Humanity, of unlimited mental configuration; occupying the same nervous system as Alalloel, the exact nature of her continuity of persona is subject to debate

  APPENDIX B

  Small-scale Time Line

  Dates whose events are portrayed in the text are in bold font.

  Note: to calculate by the Chimerical Military calendar, merely subtract 1737 from A.D. to derive AUCR

  Preposthuman Era (Count to a Trillion)

  Genocide Century

  1901–1930

  The Great War, the effective end of monarchy in Europe. Invention of the aeroplane; mass-production of the automobile.

  1931–1970

  Economic Theory Wars. Socialists lose open conflict in 1940s, make immense gains through indirect means. British Empire lost. United States of America rises to world predominance. Sexual pathologies erupt in the West, become commonplace. Period of rapid intellectual decline: poetry ceases.

  1969

  First man on the moon.

  1971–2000

  The Crazy Years. Collapse of the Socialist Empire in the East. The Holiday from History. First world infosphere.

  Century of Faith Wars

  2001–2020

  Little Jihad. Jerusalem, Tehran nuked. Economic collapse and civil war in China.

  2021–2050

  Indian Summer of Liberty, also called the Age of the Sovereign Individual. International banking system subverts and overthrows remnants of the Old World Order and establishes a semilibertarian plutocracy.

  2054

  Launch of the NTL Croesus.

  2051–2070

  International credit system collapses. Hyperinflation, world depression. End of the infosphere. Rule by the Local Military Governors, Advocates, or Euro-American Proconsuls established throughout Asia and Africa.

  2071–2090

  Greater Jihad.

  2090

  Burning of New York the Beautiful by Jihadi atomics. Historians count this as the beginning of the Little Dark Ages.

  Little Dark Ages

  In the confusion and mutual recriminations of the disaster of New York, the factions of the American political system resort to open violence, destroying the last democracy on the planet. Rapid disintegration of the international economic open order follows, followed by a sudden drop in technological application (albeit not scientific knowledge). Certain popular doctrines, rife with foolish economic errors and ancient religious prohibitions on usury, are enforced with particular fury in both the Islamic and the Christian world, and meanwhile the Chinese and Japanese economic spheres fall prey to a strange philosophy that combines the worst elements of Marxism, Buddhism, and Confucianism (Xun Ziism, the Way of the Wise). Only in the severed and warring states of India does anything approaching sane economic practice prevail, and it is among their splintered princedoms that the civilization to dominate the next two centuries rises.

  The Jihad is a more or less continuous effort during these years, an ongoing attempt to make the West and Far East more favorable to sharia law, or to grant special privileges to Muslims. The British Parliament is dissolved during the confusion and riots following the Abecedarian War (2139 until at least 2182, the Treaty of Charleston; historians disagree as to an end date). The Plague is an Abecedarian attack, meant to wipe out the Jews: 2165 is when the virus is released, 2216 is the last known untreatable case of the spore.

  2091

  Jefferson Dayles refuses to step down when impeached, instead attempts a coup. Succession Wars in the USA.

  2092

  Joint Chiefs of Staff assume administration “for the duration.” Beginning of the Imperial Federal Government.

  2111–2150

  Rise of India. Genetic manipulation of castes in India.

  2112

  The Croesus arrives at V886 Centauri and begins mining. FIRST CONTACT.

  2120–2220

  The Starvation Years. Famine reaches worldwide levels in A.D. 2120.

  2121

  Disunion War. American Imperium breaks into People’s Ergonomic Positive Republic of California, the Gaianist Democratic Union of America, and the Confederate States of America (informally known as Oddifornia, Greenyland, and Jesusland, respectively).

  2139

  Abecedarian War begins (so called because it is Atomic, Biological, and Chemical).

  2150–2170

  The Harmonious Forward Leap Together. Japan makes territorial gains along the coast of North and South America, establishing enclaves, and erecting schools and factories.

  Reindustrialization spreads from the Orient. Supremacy of Japan under the Tenno. Cyber-Shintoism. Japanese establish the Co-Prosperity Sphere in the Pacific, from Australia to the Aleutians, and parts of California. Pacific Rim Wars. Artificial Volcanism first used as military terror-weapon.

  2151

  The Big One. The long-expected San Andreas earthquake destroys the coastal cities of California. The coastline is shattered into an archipelago. Japanese commercial interests and military units are invited in by Sacramento to restore prosperity and order. Oddifornia becomes a client state of the Tenno.

  2155

  The Southwest frees itself from California, declares itself Aztlan, a province of Reino del Extasis, the federated drug-theocracy stretching from Mexico to Brazil.

  2162

  Presumed date of first broadcast from the Croesus, lost in transmission.

  2165

  Persian nomads release the Final Solution Bacillus: Plague Years begin (also called the Fifty Years).

  2166

  Presumed date of second broadcast from the Croesus, lost in transmission.

  2170

  First reception of broadcasts from the Croesus. First pictures of the Monument studied on Earth. Monument notation revolutionizes logic, semantics, mathematics, and gives rise to a suite of analytical techniques called Semiotic Quantification.

  2171–2190

  Semiotic analysis of the human genome prompts the First Revolution in Biotechnology. Rapid advances in bioengineering.

  2176–2180

  Reconquista. Southwestern United States overrun by Mexico.

  2176

  The Armed Republic of Greater Texas breaks away from the Confederacy.

  2180

  Semiotic analysis of semantic neuropsychology prompts the Linguistic Consequentialism theory, or “Volksseele,” f
irst in Dutch Africa, later in Europe; first as an academic theory, later as a political movement. As a result, nation-states, blamed for the horrors of depopulation and war, begin to lose predominance to Lingospheres.

  2181

  The Kali Yuga. India reduces the Middle East and Indochina to radioactive wasteland, bombs European cities. Effective end of the Jihad. Copts rise to power in Egypt.

  2182

  Treaty of Charleston essentially ends the Abecedarian War.

  2187–2190

  Linguistic Laws, first in France and Germany, and later throughout the civilized nations, require subjects to declare their primary language, and to avow loyalty to it, rather than to nation-states.

  2191–2196

  Iberian War. Indosphere retreats from African and Far Eastern possessions.

  2199

  Last of the Great Apes perishes in captivity. Ximen del Azarchel born.

  The Purifications

  2205–2207

  Clean Mediterranean War. Noted for the lack of atomic or biological weapons. Coptic Order gains control from Tripoli to Armenia, called Greater Egypt.

  2209

  Napoleon Montrose born.

  2210

  Menelaus Montrose born. His father dies that same year.

  2210–2230

  Spain reestablishes intercontinental electronic systems with South America, issues letters of Marque and Reprisal, begins to clear the high seas of piracy. Texmexicans repopulate the Mississippi Valley and western territories.

  2211–2216

  Japanese Winter. Early Japanese-led attempts in planetary weather control via orbital parasol system end in climate disaster.

  2211

  Leonidas born.

  2216

  Last known untreatable case of the spore. End of the Plague.

  2216–2222

  Menelaus ages 6 to 12 in Bridge-to-Nowhere.

  2217

  Menelaus is apprenticed to an Artificer at age 7 (this means he would have risen to journeyman at age 14 in A.D. 2224, to be released at 21 in A.D. 2231, assuming the master kept honest debt records).

  2220

  End of the Starvation Years.

  2221

  At age 11, Menelaus vows enmity to Darwin, imaging him to be a cartoon villain.

  2224–2230

  Counterreconquest. Texas annexes Aztlan.

  2225–2226

  From ages 15 to 16, Menelaus sees service in the Counterreconquest. Sam Feckle dies on campaign against Utah.

  2230

  India lands an expedition on the moon, explores and restores the long-dead Tycho Base. With the resumption of manned space travel, this year is accounted the end of the Little Dark Ages.

  2231–2250

  Spain and India cooperate on a space program, including an interstellar expedition.

  2232

  At age 22, Menelaus is already an attorney and duelist (who has fought four men, killing two). Mike Nails is his third kill. Menelaus is frozen for fifteen months; his calendar and biological ages are no longer synchronized.

  2234

  Menelaus attends Soko University in San Francisco, at that time one of the Japanese enclaves of California, owned by the Sumitomo Zaibatsu.

  2235

  Launch of the NTL Hermetic. At age 25cal/24bio, Menelaus boards the punt for NTL Hermetic. An experiment with a mind-augmenting neuropharmaceutical renders him unfit for voyaging. He is biosuspended.

  2244–2324

  Reign of Queen Gloriana of the United Kingdom.

  2250–2300

  Rise of Azania. Ultradeep robotic mining techniques (later used to bore the depthtrain system) lower cost of extracting South African uranium, diamonds, oil. Discovery of the motherlode of uranium in Pretoria.

  2265

  Pacific War. Called “the Pacifist War” because peace protestors swing the victory to the Japanese in their territorial disputes with Texas for control of the West Coast.

  2260–2270

  Greater Texas makes territorial gains in California, Baja California, and the Pacific Northwest.

  2285

  NTL Hermetic arrives at the Diamond Star V886 Centauri.

  2287

  Leonidas (76cal/76bio) enters biosuspension, hoping to live until Montrose returns.

  2290

  Hermetic crew erects radio-laser of sufficient power to narrowcast to Earth.

  2297–2299

  The Irish Catholic Movement, the so-called Gaelosphere.

  2299

  Denmark is made a possession of the British Crown during the Second War of Jenkins’ Ear (so dubbed by journalists for the artificiality of the causus belli against Spain).

  2300

  End of the Indosphere dominion. Spain, supported by South American technocracy, emerges as a dominant power in Europe. Hispanosphere Collective.

  Concordat Century

  2300

  Rania born.

  2303

  Sinosphere–Anglosphere conflicts in the Pacific spread from Australia to California.

  2306

  Rania is 6bio when mutiny breaks out. Eight of her nine fathers are killed.

  2310

  Hermetic, under de facto command of Ximen del Azarchel the mutineer, departs from V886 Centauri. Rania is 10bio, and is the de jure Captain.

  2323

  Thucydides Acumen Montrose, later Father Montrose of the Society of Jesus and Pope Sextus VI, born to Patton and Athenodora Montrose.

  2332

  Hispanosphere erects the Beanstalk (Torre Real de Estrellas).

  2333

  The Germanosphere (that is, the Boers of Azania) enters the Sinosphere–Anglosphere conflict.

  2333–2338

  Yellow War. Japanese outposts in California treated with sickening brutality by Boers. The Reunited States suffer a constitutional crisis.

  2339

  Japanese home islands invaded. Members of the Imperial Family placed in biosuspension.

  2340

  First narrowcasts arrive from Hermetic: revolution in mathematics has implications in biotechnology, cybernetics. Universal Logical Syntax “the Notational Logic” developed, Unified Field Theory, Uniform-to-Manifold Genesis Theory, Automata Cell Theory. German superiority in mathematics allows this language group to exploit the new knowledge more extensively than others.

  2340–2360

  Rise of the Germanosphere, led by the Boers (Azania) of South Africa, to world dominion. They enforce medical purity laws in order to combat diseases left over from previous wars, particularly venereal diseases. They ally with the Xi Mandarins in Manchuria and the Coptic Christians of Greater Egypt, and form the Purity Order.

  During this period, the Reunited Confederate States of America lose power and prestige; Kansas, a haven of Azanian technology, breaks away. America is balkanized.

  2341

  Japan becomes a client state of the Purity Order.

  2343

  George Edge of Hong Kong writes an influential series of essays on the relaxation of moral discipline due to virtuality addiction. The philosophy is called Condemnationalism.

  2344

  Japanese nationalists thaw the Imperial Family survivors from biosuspension. Emperor Mikohito officially embraces Condemnationalism (abstinence from neural implantation) as proper to the Japanese national spirit. Cyber-Shinto becomes the first religion to define neuralimplantation as ritually impure. Certain Christian denominations also condemn the practice, but on moral grounds. Condemnationalism becomes the official doctrine of the Copts, later of the whole Purity Order.

  2350

  Mandatory Health Assurance system in South Africa makes genetic “designer babies” mandatory. Azanians rendered immune to all known natural diseases.

  2359

  Signals from the incoming Hermetic persuade the Purity Order to shoulder the vast expense of launching a spaceborne braking laser, in order to slow and intercept the wealth-laden Hermetic. (Leonidas, as per his instructions, is
thawed from hibernation, 148cal/76bio.)

  2360

  The Hermetic arrives in the solar system, is attacked, defends herself, destroys the navigation satellites of the Purity Order. Rania persuades the Purity Order to surrender. (She is 60cal/19bio—the speed of the return voyage was higher, due to abundant antimatter fuel, and hence there was more severe Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction. Only nine years shiptime passed.)

  2360–2369

  A political-economic worldwide or “Tellurian” Concordat, devised by Rania using Cliometry, is established, with the Hermetic Order as its informal head. Rania is placed in suspension soon thereafter, allegedly due to maladaptation to Earth conditions. The Hermetic is retired from active service, but kept aloft allegedly as a floating museum; actually to tend the contraterrene satellites.

  2361

  Leonidas (150cal/78bio) meets Rania (61cal/20bio), and is present when she thaws and examines Menelaus, who is incurable and returned after a month to biosuspension. Rania is commanded to return to biosuspension by the Hermeticists. Leonidas, heartbroken, dies. Fr. Thucydides Montrose, S.J. (38cal/38bio) administers the Extreme Unction. True to the last wish of Leonidas, Thucydides also enters biosuspension.