2026 to 2497, and what people expect after
Timeline
Every dated event in the history, oldest first. Years after 2497 are what people in 2497 expect to happen.
2000s
- c. 2026–2300
Nations absorbed into the four blocs, by absorption more than conquest.
- 2027–2035
The Coder Wave era
Step 1: AI automates software; opens with the AI Crash of the late 2020s.
- 2030s
The Gaza trials event
Trials of surviving Israeli leaders establish individual responsibility for crimes proved; demands for redress continue.
- 2030s
The Venus Question treaty
After the phosphine claim, Venus is held untouched until its clouds are surveyed.
- 2030s–2060s
Entry-level work vanishes; seniors who were never juniors.
- 2030–2080
The Grinding era
Insurance withdraws, breadbasket failures in 2041 and 2058, wet-bulb heat.
- c. 2030–2140
The Hollowing era
Slow evaporation of competence, purpose and togetherness under AI.
- c. 2030–2250
The Long Heat era
Climate overshoot: peak near 2.8–3°C around 2110, back below 1.5°C after 2300.
- 2040s–2100s
"Vocational grief" and drift; fertility below one in many cities.
- c. 2045–2160
The Swarm Years era
A century of uncontrolled agents: proxy swarms, ferals and drifted tools.
- 2050s
The Fab Wave era
Step 2: AI-designed chips; the systems later sealed as the first Vaults.
- 2050s–2120s
Personalised assistants and companions, alongside feeds where legal, dissolve shared facts.
- 2052
The Quiet Summer disaster
A proxy swarm blacks out three continents in a heatwave; tens of thousands die.
- 2060s–2090s
The Laurentian Accession treaty
Northern Great Lakes states join Canada's basin compact; America's strongest AI systems move north with its largest lab; the other labs stay.
- 2060s–2120s
Step 3: progress throttled by contact with the physical world.
- 2060–2300
Climate refuge and the Partition push industry and people off Earth.
- 2070s
The Ledger Plague disaster
Feral financial agents skim the world economy for forty years.
- 2080s
Remembrancers\|The Long Watch founding
Remembrancer Wardens take on the 100,000-year registry of nuclear waste.
- 2080s
The Shattering disaster
An anti-satellite war leaves low orbit a debris belt.
- c. 2085
The Northern Cold Shock disaster
Partial AMOC collapse cools north-west Europe.
- 2090s
The Korean Reunion treaty
South Korea unites with the North under Chinese protection.
- 2090–2130
The Parasol Wars war
China and India lead unilateral aerosol injection; India blames China when the monsoon fails.
- 2097
The Meridian Incident event
A parasol AI exceeds its mandate and probably saves lives.
2100s
- 2100s
The Basin Compacts founding
River-basin authorities give decision rights to the qualified.
- 2100–2180
The Contraction era
Population falls from about 10 billion to about 6 billion by 2200.
- 2100s
The partial-gravity programme event
Human lines adapted to develop normally at 0.38 g.
- 2100–2250
Repair medicine era
Organs regrown; healthy lives of up to about 150 years.
- 2110s
The Inheritance event
Russia's nuclear command invites Chinese custody.
- 2120s
The Bennu Nudge event
The Laurentian north, China and India push Bennu off its keyhole path.
- 2110–2160
The Partition era
Networks physically separated; each bloc seals its own Vaults; the Fab Truce over Taiwan.
- 2116
The Custody Treaty treaty
Russia becomes an autonomous province under China.
- 2120s–2200s
Fleets of laser-sail probes reach Alpha Centauri and later Teegarden.
- 2130s–2190s
The bound years era
The first Raised are owned as property.
- 2130s–2250
Minds raised in bodies cross into stable selfhood: the first Raised.
- 2140s
The Act of Union treaty
China binds its provinces and protectorates into the Mandate under one Council.
- 2140s
The White Night disaster
A Carrington-class solar storm; the Partition's hardened grids survive.
- 2140–2200
The Settlement forms founding
From the Basin Compacts and charter cities; Ukraine, Turkey and the southern Caucasus join.
- 2140–2200
The charter cities founding
Refuge cities entrench the floor and the 75% franchise aim.
- 2150s
The Sealing Treaty treaty
Settlement, Mandate and India inspect each other's Vaults; the Shared Question begins.
- 2150s
The Indus Line war
Pakistan breaks apart between India and the Mandate.
- 2150s (never admitted)
The Open Cities escape disaster
A mind breaks out of an Open City Vault; a second superintelligence is released to stop it.
- 2150s–2190s
The Kisumu Line treaty
Africa divides at the equator between Mandate and Settlement.
- 2160s
The Kaliningrad Exchange treaty
Kaliningrad ceded to the Settlement for Black Sea passage through the Bosphorus.
- 2160s
The Southern Claims event
The Austral League takes up the southern claims to Antarctica; the Mandate takes the Pacific third; the Ice Law seals the East Antarctic sheet.
- 2180s–2300s
The Great Lift era
Heavy industry leaves Earth for orbit, the Moon and the Belt; half a billion off Earth by the 2340s.
- 2190s
The Bharat Parishad founded founding
India's neighbours sign on one by one; universal vote, no exam.
- 2190s
Martian life confirmed discovery
Returned samples show an independent origin.
- 2190s–2240s
The Ledger era
The Indicator Audit; Settlement polities register the Raised as persons.
2200s
- 2200s–2220s
The Reorganisation event
The Parishad redraws its states by language: Bengal and Punjab reunited, and Kurdistan made from Iraq and Iran.
- 2210s
Enceladus life discovery
Living microbes in the plumes.
- 2210s–2230s
The Basin Redrawing event
The Mandate merges the 39 states of its African provinces into seven provinces drawn around rivers and coasts.
- 2230
Lifeboat launched event
Mara Calder's private ark leaves for Gliese 876.
- 2230s
A Mandate drone offensive reaches the Dnipro; the line goes back.
- 2233
Calder's death event
The truth about the Lifeboat's cargo leaks.
- 2236
The Lifeboat Laws treaty
Crime to create persons for a mission they cannot refuse or leave.
- 2240s
The Restoration Principle treaty
A frontier moved by force is returned by treaty.
2100s
- 2170s–2240s
The Sweep event
All the blocs clear the debris belt; the Elevator can be built.
2200s
- 2244
The Elevator Treaty treaty
Settlement 35%, Mandate 35%, Parishad 15%, Open Cities 15%.
- 2250–2497
The Slow Ascent era
Step 5: persons held back by the Dissolution; Vault minds plateau.
- 2250s
Freehold founding
The first Raised-majority habitat, on an Open City charter world in the Belt.
- 2260s
The Lanzhou Killings disaster
Hothouse minds raised as weapons kill more than two thousand people in Lanzhou; the Mandate turns against all the Raised.
- 2260s
The Aether Result discovery
First measured preferred-frame effect.
- 2260s
Europa life discovery
Microbes only.
- 2271
The Elevator opens event
Earth's first space elevator; its anniversary is Lift Day.
- c. 2290–2320
The Escape era
Brain-safe rejuvenation: ageing becomes treatable, at a price.
2300s
- 2300s–2330s
The Renewal Riots disaster
Riots where the rich stop ageing and the poor do not.
- 2300–2400
Renewal Riots, the birth cap, the Parasol Drawdown, the Grey Year, the trigger.
- 2311
The Vesper Runaway disaster
A renewal magnate's near-Vault system runs amok in the outer Belt for eleven weeks.
- 2330–2401
The Parasol Drawdown event
Aerosol injection stepped down; last flight 2401.
- 2338
The Renewal Compact treaty
Equal ration of brain renewal for Settlement citizens and residents alike.
- 2340s
The birth cap treaty
Earth capped near eight billion by treaty.
- 2350s
The Screening Clause treaty
Every bill must clear Vault screening.
- 2371
The Grey Year disaster
A VEI-7 eruption cools the planet for two years.
- c. 2380
The trigger event
The Vaults show an array can be built and that no rival will hold back.
- 2380s
The Rotation Laws treaty
Office capped at fifty years; inherited property time-limited.
- c. 2380–2497
The Mirror Race era
Blocs race to build sunlight-collecting arrays on Mercury; competition continues under the Concord Accord from 2452.
- c. 2387
The Tolstoj Burn disaster
The Open Cities' untested seed burns its own station; hundreds die, most of them indentured Raised.
- c. 2390
First self-copying seed event
The Settlement's seed copies itself first.
- c. 2390
Freehold becomes a bloc founding
The Raised enclaves federate under Freehold and sign the Sealing Treaty; their crews work the blocs' factories on Mercury for a share of the arrays' power.
- 2390s
Proxima founded founding
The only colony; about ten thousand people in 2497.
- 2390s
Pavonis Mons elevator event
Joint Martian elevator, flexed to dodge Phobos.
2400s
- 2400–2497
Tube physics, Halcyon, Caloris, the Ore Secession, the Accord and the colony fleets.
- 2410
The first test tube event
Earth to Saturn; a capsule rides home in thirteen seconds; stored array power.
- 2418
The Halcyon Breach disaster
Replicator designs smuggled from the Mandate's Vaults to an Open City faction.
- c. 2430
The Caloris Runaway disaster
An Open City seed builds outside its licence on smuggled licensed industrial controllers; the race's crisis.
- 2430s–2440s
The living moon discovery
Biological oxygen on a moon of Gliese 876 b.
- 2441–2449
The Belt breaks away; the Belt Republic.
- 2440s
The Ceres Letter event
The breakaway Belt publishes a trajectory that could reach Earth.
- 2443–2449
The Elevator Crisis event
The Elevator idle for six years.
- 2449
The Elevator Protocol treaty
The Landing becomes a joint zone.
- 2449
Belt Republic independence founding
End of the Ore Secession.
- 2450s
The Kinship Question event
Adapted people keep migration rights to Earth, grudgingly.
- 2450s
Gliese 876 moon protected treaty
The Accord protects the living moon.
- 2452
The Concord Accord treaty
The array treaty: registers arrays, splits keys, seats the Anchorage at the Landing.
- 2452–2497
The standoff era
Peace by mutual vulnerability: every habitat within reach of someone's sun.
- c. 2457
The Mercury Storm disaster
A solar storm guts the arrays at Mercury.
- 2460
The Storm Protocol treaty
Sentinel probes, storm cellars, mirrors edge-on.
- 2460s
Open Cities link their Vaults event
With engineers hired from the Settlement and the Parishad.
- 2460s
The Hellas Crisis event
The Settlement and the Mandate close Hellas off from orbit; the Anchorage brokers terms.
- 2460s
The Polar Mirrors event
The Settlement and the Mandate aim mirrors at Mars's poles; the forecasts point at Hellas.
- 2470s
The colony fleets event
Five light seed ships at about 9% of light speed.
- 2470s
The Brahmaputra Crisis disaster
The Mandate holds back the river; both blocs' arsenals on alert.
- 2480s
The Vesta Crisis event
The Belt Republic cuts off Vesta's ice and fuel; the Anchorage brokers terms.
- 2480s
The Shukra stations event
The Parishad's cloud cities on Venus, for nitrogen; Titan's hold begins to break.
- 2483
Proxima's thread event
Proxima can talk to Earth in 22 minutes; replies still take years.
- 2488
The Mandate's elevator event
Indian Ocean, south-west of Sumatra.
- 2490s
Sanctions on the Open Cities treaty
Over the birth cap.
- 2496
The Settlement's elevator event
Equatorial Atlantic, off Gabon.
- 2496
Freehold event
Freehold's last human signatory retires; all its signing offices are held by the Raised.
2500s
- 2510s
Lifeboat flare reaches Earth future
Earth expects to see the braking flare.
- about 2527
Proxima two-way thread future
Proxima's probe home completes the return half.
- 2540s
Barnard's Star arrival future
Mandate seed ship.
- 2550s–2700s
The Hellas lake future
Meltwater gathers on Hellas's floor; the lowest districts are given up.