History

Historical Framework (short stories in italics):

Corporate Era Earth 

21st Century: Rise of technology, and the beginnings of genetics. Genetics are held back by human conservatism and technology takes the lead. 

2071: The first signal is received from Procyon. 

22nd Century: Interchange, Mars and the Sunstorm Project. The rise of Corporate power accelerated and entrenched by involvement with the Sunstorm. This is the Corporate Era. Streamers.

2197 - The Fall.

23rd Century: 2200 to 2250 lean years on Earth, but culminating in the rise of the Consensus. 

2197 - 2025 Population crash on Mars. 

2225: Much of Mars abandoned. Storm Damage. Life staggers on.

24th Century: The Militia reach mars orbit in 2313. Flowers in the Dust - chronology no longer fits. The planet falls in hours. In 2314 Santiago triggers the Little War and the Coup that puts Ruth By 2324 Downfirst is fully established and the fleet is assembled in orbit. 

2324 is the year of Interchange. Hal's embassy is sent to Procyon and Jude Harrison's ghost leads a Mars that can now be re-built with the supplies revealed at the Arsia Industrial Fields. This year marks the high point of the domination of technology.

2335: Hal reaches Procyon. First Contact. The Orna - blue, monkey like creatures, long extinct, but surviving in a virtual environment. They reveal the truth - brut engineering attempts to colonise space have been tried again and again and always failed. The zone of space for hundreds of lightyears around are littered with ruins and wrecks. No intelligent species has ever co-existed in the flesh in the same place and the same time. Whilst the Orna have found the remains of many species, and raise many from the dead electronically where those species use substraights.

They also reveal the solution - the Dark Music of Matter, genetic restructuring in tonal form that allows flesh to mould to it's surroundings, for an intelligent life to fit itself to the stars. This was created after they were exstinct, and is a gift for the first living intelligence that they could find. Humanity is that intelligence.

2346: First messages back to the Sunstorm from Hal and his embassy are expected. Little more than whisperings, but then a big transmission - the Dark Music, hosted in the Sunstorm computer system. 

2350: Led by the dead but digital Jude Harrison Mars has had 25 years of growth and is now a small but thriving community. They are in a position to (in a small way) probe towards the outer solar system, Jude is seeking other pockets of Interchange. She has the intellectual resources to build the future. 

She has also established a base in the old militia encampment on the Sunstorm - can she enter the Sunstorm systems?

Earth at this point is inward looking, scarred by first the fall, then the destruction of the Militia fleet. There is huge distaste for space.

2352: The release of the Dark Music. (What triggers the release? A plot by Hal? An accident? Something goes wrong? A miss calculation by the monkey people?)

2352 - 2358: The change time. The chaos sweeps Mars. Only the ghosts reman human.

NOTE: How long does forced evolution take?

2370: By this point 'Martian Human Variant' is recognised. 

2370-2399: Scattered martian farmers, Alpha Ville??, the old forest in the Hellas Basin. Hal has returned from Procyon and is aboard the Sunstorm.

25th Century: Rise of Mars, chaos on Earth. Advancing settlement of the solar system by those willing to change. Those unwilling re hiding under domes. the dead watch on from Interchange, fragments linked again, custodians of Human technology in the face of the rise of genetics. They are the racial memory, and led by Jude Harrison. Sanctuary Farm, House of Robot Ginger Bread, Thing in the Box, Game Four. 

Conflict between Jude and Hal - she represents technology, he genetics. He represents the Starbeasts, she exploration as Hal himself undertook - putting Interchange stations into other systems and 'broadcasting' to them. These are the 'two futures' which are in tension.

What role do the 'Sunstorm Vaults' play - essentially a fortress for Jude in the solar system.

26th Century: Reclaiming of Earth begun (lasts until the 30th Century). 

2572: The Jupiter Star Beasts set out for the stars. The start of 'The Blooming (???)' - the spread of life at 0.3 speed of light in a continuous expanding wave.

27th Century: First encounters out in the stars between Engineering and Genetics. (how has this played out back in the solar system??). Mr Cicada.

30th Century: Reclaiming of the Earth ends - is this the reconciliation? What does reconciliation look like? But the ripples of ancient conflict go one and one at the fringes of occupied space.

33rd Century: Bonesong

What is the fate of the Orna?