The Judge of Ages
2370
First successful experiments in modest intelligence augmentation in prenatal subjects genetically designed to receive it. Psychics, Scholars, created.
2385
Fears of predicted warfare disturb the counsels of Del Azarchel (which will eventually compel the Hermeticists to revive Rania in 2390; see below).
2390
Rania revived amid general celebration for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tellurian Concordat (90cal/20bio). That same year, Honoré VI, with the advice and consent of the Concordat, abdicates in favor of Rania. She is crowned Sovereign of Monaco. Thucydides thawed (67cal/38bio).
2392
The Hermeticists, fearing Rania, force her back into hibernation (92cal/22bio).
2399
After much procrastination, Menelaus is revived (189cal/25bio). Rania (99cal/22bio) is thawed and effects a partial cure. Menelaus, as Hyde, deciphers the Iota through Kappa segments of the Monument, so the claim of the Hyades Domination over Earth is revealed. The Xypotech emulation of Del Azarchel achieves posthuman intelligence levels.
2400
Menelaus meets Rania at a New Year’s Eve party. She is 100cal/23bio.
2401
Menelaus marries Rania at San Francisco de Quito. Second Revolution in Biotechnology, due to Hermetic technology and techniques being made public. War breaks out, and causes a crash of the Data Environment, and Menelaus is cut off from Rania when her ship launches. She departs, uprooting the Celestial Tower of Quito. Menelaus, 191cal/27bio, enters cold sleep. Rania is 101cal/23bio. Thucydides hibernates (69cal/40bio).
Interregnum
2400–2480
General breakdown of law and order. Loss of the monetary system. Depthtrain system becomes unreliable.
2401
Exarchel orders the wounded bodies of Menelaus and Del Azarchel hospitalized and placed in biosuspension. The coffin of Menelaus is spirited away by Ozymandias Montrose, a Psychoi (Scholar) loyal to Rania.
2402
The sudden departure of the world contraterrene supply, expropriated by Rania, collapses the monetary system, cripples the energy industry, and triggers global depression.
The Chinese directorate moves to impose rationing and wage and price controls throughout the Chinese sphere of influence. The Australian market, taking the opposite tack, permits speculators to make fortunes during the turmoil: this sudden wealth is used to buy up land in the real world and server space in the Data Environment. The Concordat, which theoretically has final say over economic policy touching trade and immigration between member nations, is discredited, and its jurisdiction ignored. The entanglement of economic interests, in a world where Peking is a forty-five-depthtrain-minute commute from Sydney, and there are no trade barriers whatever had been the rule since 2360, can no longer be peacefully separated along national boundaries. The Australians and Chinese attempt to rediscover and reimpose national sovereignty, each pursuing a course incompatible with the other, and each in an angry panic brought on by shantytown riots. By no coincidence, the armed forces of both powers are swollen with unemployed young men.
2402–2404
The Indochinese War breaks out between China and Australia, and spreads to India, Madagascar, and Mesopotamia. Exarchel ruthlessly atom-bombs Peking and Canberra and quells the open war after two years; acts of terror and assassination continue.
Populations flee into cryonic hibernation in record numbers.
2403, 2405, 2416, 2440, 2453
Montrose thawed and his biological age climbs from 27 to 41.
2404
The Encryption. New Information Protocols erected in the world datasphere: machine languages become incomprehensible and untranslatable into any human mathematical system. Montrose briefly thawed (193cal/28bio.)
Tradition identifies this date as the beginning of the period of the Judgment. All ages of mankind are hereafter held to be subject to the condemnation of the Judge of Ages.
2405–2409
The Humanist War (later called the First Global Civil War) begins as police actions in Pacifica, ostensibly to overthrow the reign of Exarchel and restore Del Azarchel. Sino-Australian Axis galvanized by the Salon of Simplicity, run by Tsian Belascu, an influential nature-worshipper, and joins the Pacific states in rebellion. Chinese-backed power prevails, but the Exarchel Xypotech is deleted from all known mainframes. Del Azarchel returns to power as Nobilissimus (Supreme Executive of the Special Advocacy).
Menelaus thawed (195cal/27bio).
2409
The Blackout. No electronic records of any kind exist between January and October of this year. Del Azarchel flees to northern Germany. North America in civil chaos. Rise of the Montrose Clan, remote descendents of Menelaus Montrose’s ten brothers, to posts of leadership, first in enclaves in Nevada.
Since the landed property of the slumbering clients is effectively under the control of the Montrose Hibernation Syndicate, and since entering hibernation cures nearly all known bodily ills, the entering world population becomes beholden to the Montrose Clan both for their power use and for their medical health. The Concordat constitution observes no clear demarcation between political and economic power: the Montrosines soon parlay these advantages into an unstoppable political machine, and suppress dissent to their rule.
Beginning of the Cryonarchy. Menelaus now 199cal/31bio.
Cryonarch Period
2410s
First Augmentation experiments on Hermeticists end in madness and disaster. At about this time, Exarchel, commanding the Hermeticists of Japan and Micronesia, begins augmentation experiments on dolphins and whales. First Cetaceans.
Rada Lwa becomes a Scholar at about this time.
2413–2418
Second Global Civil War. The Special Advocacy overthrows the remaining Hermeticists. A strike team led by Athena Montrose seizes control of the orbital Petawatt Deceleration Laser, now dubbed Surtur.
Montrose thawed from 2416 to 2418 and he ages from 206cal/32bio to 208cal/34bio.
2420–2439
Montrose Clan, able to provide broadcast power to any princes or local governments swearing fealty to them, spreads their suzerainty across the Southwestern States, Baja and Central America to Panama, the Canadian Northwest, and Alaska to Kamchatka.
2439–2445
Third Global Civil War. Montrose Clan selected to the Special Advocacy of the Concordat. Imposition of uniform laws governing Thaws and Currents. Division into Northern and Southern Concordats along racial lines, Sino-Caucasian (Northern) and Afro-Spaniard (Southern).
Montrose thawed from 2440 to 2445 and ages from 230cal/35bio to 235cal/40bio.
2450–2453
Fourth Global Civil War. Balkanization of the Southern Concordat into the Twelve Districts. Montrose thawed for 2453 (243cal/41bio).
2467–2471
Fifth Global Civil War. During this period, the Russian spaceport at Baikonur is restored to working order. Inconclusive peace. Northern Districts balkanized (Gallic, Russo-Persian, and Quebecois Directorships). Emulations of world leaders made in secret. (Ctesibius, perhaps self-servingly, lists this as the beginning of the Golden Age of the Ghosts.)
2470
Del Azarchel departs from Earth, and takes up residence amid the ruins of the Mare Ingenii Lunar Pit (or Lava Tube) Base from the Second Space Age, which he restores to habitability.
2476
During this period, the Advocacy cooperates with Exarchel.
2481
Frankenstein Panic. World computer systems wrecked by mobs or dismantled by police.
2481–2486
The Darkness. A complete computer blackout worldwide. Transatlantic cables cut, communications satellites downed.
First evidence of shipping destroyed by Cetaceans.
2485
At about this time, Rania and the scientists aboard the Hermetic begin the macroscale engineering project to turn the V886 Centauri star system and its magnetosphere into a near-lightspeed r
amscoop. The gas giant Thrymheim is destroyed and fed into the antimatter star.
2490s
All seaborne shipping halted by Cetacean piracy. Eastern and western hemispheres maintain only tenuous contact by air travel.
2501
Collapse of the Cryonarchy. Montrose dispossesses the Montrose Clan, and turns to the Knights Hospitalier for aid and sanctuary. Release of the Prometheus Formula.
Ecclesiarch Period (Age of the Giants)
2501–3060
The Uniate Orthodox-Catholic Church is given the orbital elements of the remaining centaurs of contraterrene by Montrose, as well as control of the Hibernation Syndicate. Under Thucydides Montrose, S.J., later Pope Sixtus VI, the Church uses her energy monopoly and control of slumbering populations to achieve world hegemony. Papal scientists enact an ambitious program of creating and raising biological posthumans, called Giants.
2510–2525
Emulation widespread. Rise of the Ghosts.
The last unsuccessful augmentation experiment is at about this time. All Hermeticists dead but six: Del Azarchel, De Ulloa, D’Aragó, Sarmento, Pastor, and Coronimas. (This elongated mass suicide pact lasted from A.D. 2410 to A.D. 2510, 109 years.)
2519
Scipio hibernates.
2525
Day of the Aurum Vitae. Ecpyrosis. De-civilization. Overthrow of Ghosts by space heat bombardment. Ctesibius hibernates. Beginning of the Sylphs.
2533
Del Azarchel paints the near side of the moon with the gauntlet of his challenge, and initiates the formation of the Simon Families through the false identity of Dr. Og Simon of Northumberland, a Giant he has captured and absorbed.
Posthuman Era (The Hermetic Millennia)
2535
Energy signals from V886 Centauri reaching Earth indicate that Rania has blown the Diamond Star out of orbit, abandoning plans to establish regular traffic in favor of a star voyage to M3, to plead with the Authority there for the vindication of man.
Montrose thawed, corrects Divarication flaws in Sylph serpentines.
2537
Trey Soaring Azurine hibernates.
2540
In his base at Mare Ingenii (Sea of Cunning), Del Azarchel establishes Cryocliometry and assumes control of the Hermetic Order, but is shortly after forced into hibernation.
2550s
Simon Families and other long-range foundations (“the Orders”) established by the Giants (at Del Azarchel’s direction).
At about this time, Exulloa is augmented to posthumanity. De Ulloa becomes the Master of the Age.
2580
De Ulloa begins to teach certain Scholars, including Rada Lwa, Cliometry.
2700–3000
Medusae use Sylph technology to hunt down Sylphs and decimate them. Medusae establish industrial civilizations at the poles out of orbital mirror flyover range. They are predominant until 3000, when the Giants, via Cliometry, arrange for their polar civilization to destroy itself by economic collapse.
3032
Day of the Giants. Encouraged by their victory over the Medusae, Thucydideans from Salt Lake City attempt a direct assault on the stronghold of the Judge of Ages beneath Cheyenne Mountain. The orbital space laser Surtur renders the surface area uninhabitable.
Montrose thawed. His bio age is 42.
3033
The Giants calculate a new Cliometric consensus, and foretell their own extinction. Bashan hibernates.
3050–3150
Cloud Century. Cetaceans raise a worldwide cloud cover, rendering the giant Orbital Mirrors useless.
3060s
Effective end of the Thucydidean Consensus as a world power. The Simon Family Orders, including the Longevity Order, maintain civic cohesion.
Simon Family Period
3090
Death of Melchor de Ulloa in a duel atop Mount Ypsilon. Cetaceans pull down Surtur by atmospheric dragging (heating the atmosphere till it expands, thus thickening the particle count around the orbiter, causing reentry). End of the Second Space Age. Rada Lwa hibernates.
Montrose spent one year tracking down De Ulloa. His bio age is 43.
3100–3200
Longevity Order, now called the Delphic Acroamatic Order, maintains an increasingly low-tech world. Church driven underground. Abolition of the nuclear family and of nuclear energy. Scientific research that reaches politically inconvenient conclusions outlawed by Thought Decontamination Laws.
3150
End of the Cloud causes global cooling, disrupts crop growth patterns, places mortal strain on the centralized command economy of the Delphics.
3222
The Delphic Acroamatic World Order schisms: Eastern Witches break into the Chthonic Order and Celestial Order, which in turn breaks into Orthodox Celestial and Reformed Celestial. Western Order breaks into seven: English; Continental; Mauritanian; Neo-Anglican; Amazonian (comprising Brazil); Archipelagic (comprising California, Baja, and Pacific Islands); and Aztectlan (comprising Mexico and New Mexico).
3250–3300
The Collapse. Downfall of industrial-scientific civilization. The Delphic Order now called Witches. Witches in massive numbers hibernate.
Newly thawed Simon Family members from an earlier period attempt to force open Tomb sites throughout the Mediterranean. The assault is repelled by thawed Knights Templar. Fatin hibernates.
Age of Witches
3300–4000
Witches enjoy world dominion, convulsed with a permanent state of civil war and turmoil, for seven hundred years. High-status Witches, despite their private dependence on emulation for cellular regeneration, publicly continue to hunt down and destroy all known copies of Exarchel.
3600
Despite heroic efforts by the Witches, the Cetaceans (lacking sufficient support from Exarchel) go extinct. Last known Great Whale perishes when beached in 3666.
3950–3951
Montrose is awake for a year during this era, and sends out teachers and scholar in the area around Lake Superior. His bio age is 44.
4000–4400
The Nameless Witch-King of Lake Superior revives certain scholars and scientists from the Tombs, and rediscovers the internal combustion engine, the aeroplane, the submersible boat.
The new coven formation, called “familia,” allows for one man and a subservient wife, with their children under the coven-leader’s strict control. The Nameless Empire conquers the Mississippi River basin from Ohio to Louisiana. The Superiors are Witches in name only, adhering to the outward forms of Ecological Communitarianism, but in practice are patriarchal capitalists.
4000
At about this time, Witches in China are unified under the brutal rule of the Nine Centennial Empresses of Canton. (Each of nine cloned sisters is kept in hibernation, and thawed to rule for one hundred years.)
First Chimera produced by Nameless Imperial scientists as an intermediate form of life designed to be hardened against radiation and bioweapon spores lingering in old ruins. The Chimerae rebuild Richmond and other Downfall-damaged urban centers.
4400–4450
The Nameless Empire expands to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Brazil, and maintains transatlantic trade with the Witches of Europe and Africa.
4450–4500
The Nameless Empire suffers reformation under a Witch named Argyron Butler, and returns to the original Witch principles of nonaggression, harmony with nature, equality of the sexes, divorce, infanticide, and hatred of industry. De-industrialization and aggregation into communal farms carried out with ruthless efficiency. The Nameless Empire balkanized into Temple Priestking feudalism, and Witch civilization returns to its norm of continual civil war and bloodshed.
4460
First organized Chimerae rebel lineages formed in the Louisiana swamps as a tribe of escaped slaves under an Alpha named Remus.
4600
Polar caps melt. Coastal flooding. Famine. Witch population decimated, many cities abandoned, large numbers of nomads, scavenger bands, and
pirates dominate land and sea.
4700
Rise of the mass-human sacrifice cults. Stepped pyramids raised in the jungles of Siberia and Canada.
4728
Montrose briefly (less than four months) thawed during this era, giving aid and education from certain near-surface Tombs in Mount Airy, teaching the Witches the basic principles of science and economics, in order to stave off a predicted civilization collapse. The attempt is unsuccessful, perhaps because he does not devote the requisite time to the project. His bio age still 44.
4730–4480
Plague of the Kuru disease (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy) decimates population, destroys Temple Priestking system. Medicine-Man interventions, hampered by quota rituals, aggravate rather than alleviate the plague.
4733
Melechemoshemyazanagual hibernates.
4460–4800
Uprisings and rebellions of the Chimerae, who are disease resistant to Kuru. Formation of the first Emergency Eugenic Command under Remus.
4800
Genocides. Chimerae spread throughout the Americas, first enslaving and later exterminating the Witches. Surviving Witches become the cattle, or “Kine,” of the Chimerae, in a cruel jest reflecting their animal totems: sheep, ox, goat, and so on. Note that the Kine continue to be longer-lived than the Chimerae.