Timeline, Part Five

[stickmaker]

Fifth part of a timeline I created as part of the background for some science fiction stories I'm writing.

Timeline

Part Five

 

 

392 MYBP The Vig become a starfaring species. They expand quickly, largely due to a Slow Time in the Local Great Cluster. They wind up filling many of the gaps - and roles - left by the Adagentai, who are still praised by the few surviving cultures old enough to remember them.

391 MYBP A special project by Management researchers to determine the source of a subtle distortion to deep layers of subspace again discovers the Underway. How to use it is quickly determined, but what mechanism (if any) was used to monitor for the presence of oncoming or intersecting traffic remains a mystery. This discourages usage except for emergencies. However, it does inspire Vig theorists to begin the work which will lead to the Linked Rings. This and other projects result in the Vig achieving the highest overall technological level since the heyday of the Old Coalition. In some areas they approach - and perhaps exceed - the Strangers. Some of the discoveries they make about the manipulation of spacetime actually frighten the Vig. However, they long ago learned that the safest course is not always the wisest. The investigations continue. Cautiously.

A new series of Cleansings begins, but soon ends as the Vig - warned about the severity of the menace by surviving old cultures and records - organize major, aggressive campaigns against the Purifiers each time. The incursions never exceed the status of minor threat, at least on a galactic scale. 

The Vig are an unusual species to hold the leading position in civilization. Open-minded, philosophical and patient, they are seen by many as far too casual and easy-going for the role. Despite these "shortcomings" they win every major conflict - military, economic or social - and most of the minor in which they engage. This is due in large part to their natural inclination to look at things from a different angle than convention teaches. A grudgingly admiring comment survives from the early days of their dominion, which translates approximately as "It's hard to beat someone who politely criticizes your technique as they block your attack at their face, meanwhile thrusting a spike in your back you never see coming."

387 MYBP The Vig - now the supreme technological and political society in the Local Great Cluster and what is known of the rest of the Universe - develop a new technology. They reveal the concept of the Linked Rings, and campaign for the creation of a vast transportation system using these. Despite the difficulty of harvesting and working with negative matter the project begins and is soon progressing rapidly.

Before this technology, travel between most galaxies was generally restricted to large convoys of specialized, long-range ships, optimized for the trip through the intergalactic medium. These convoys usually followed the dark matter filaments which run between galaxies, such as the Magellanic Stream. Since these are at least somewhat curved the travel distances were even longer than the straight-line distance. With the Linked Rings intergalactic travel becomes nearly instantaneous, and standard interstellar craft can make the trip.

On their own the Vig provide a limited system connecting all the significant galaxies in the Local Great Cluster, as well as important trade and production centers within most of these galaxies. After seeing that the concept works and how useful it is, other cultures join the effort. Within ten thousand years an extensive network is in place throughout the Local Great Cluster, with a few links to scattered locations outside. The Linked Ring system continues expanding - though irregularly - through the present time.

Some minor problems crop up but are solved, with one of the solutions involving a system of monitoring stations to accurately plot pandimensional phenomena throughout the Local Great Cluster. This incorporates the old Adagentai Purifier warning system, other systems appended to it down through the ages, several independent monitoring systems of varying purpose, as well as many new installations built for the task. The result is soon formalized into the Grand Monitoring Network. Applications for this network expand from supporting the Linked Rings to general research, and even interstellar traffic tracking. One significant important use is finding negative matter for constructing Linked Rings.

Most negative matter is located in the vast reaches between galaxies; not surprising, since negative matter repels and is repelled by positive matter. While the GMN helps to locate negative matter it cannot harvest it. Even with the best technology available, harvesting negative matter is difficult and sometimes dangerous work. Many expeditions encounter great difficulties. Some simply disappear. However, the Vig either do not discover the purpose of the original Adagentai warning system during this work, or believe that purpose to be long unnecessary. 

The Linked Rings changed the nature of social, economic and military interactions in the Local Great Cluster. The change in the application of military resources was particularly disruptive. Even today, many cultures don't fully appreciate the advantage the Linked Rings give in combat.  

Great interstellar empires have vastly more military resources than smaller entities but those resources tend to be more thinly spread. Before the Linked Rings a local entity encompassing as few as a hundred or so star systems could build up a concentration of power and dominate their region. The task of gathering enough ships in that the region to put down troublemakers required more time, effort and expense than most rulers of the Local Great Cluster were willing to expend on such minor annoyances. After the linked ring network was sufficiently developed the Vig could muster the needed force in small groups at multiple, widely scattered sites, without weakening their forces significantly at any one location. They could then send the elements through the rings to assemble at the Ring closest to the troublemaker. 

There are still small and medium militaristic cultures which haven't quite grasped the idea that if they generate too much irritation for the Vig a force several times the total mass of their full fleet will be sent against them.

During the next incursion by the Purifiers - less than two million years after the Linked Rings system is officially opened to general traffic - the purpose of the old Adagentai warning system is rediscovered. Later speculation leads to the suspicion that the incursion might have been caused by the extensive activity involved in harvesting negative matter from between galaxies for the construction of the Linked Rings. Subsequent searches made for Purifiers in small galaxies and globular clusters outside the developed galaxies of the Local Great Cluster are not successful. However, thanks to the information on Purifier activity which the alert system provides, the strategic talents of the Vig, the organizational skills of The Management and the ability to use the Linked Rings to transport resources over even intergalactic distances quickly and easily, the Purifiers suffer extreme losses while the defenders are left relatively intact. (Oddly, the Purifiers never target the Linked Rings, nor the Grand Monitoring Network as a whole. However, some installations of the latter are attacked. Those targets are mostly among the oldest components.) The sound defeat dealt to the Purifiers during this period results in them withdrawing from any known interaction with any part of society for over a hundred million years. Knowledge of them rapidly fades from the collective awareness. Many starfaring cultures rise, flourish and fall without ever learning of them.

During this same period the Vig - irritated by how much knowledge from the past has been lost and the difficulty of accessing what is left - work with the ancient Preservationists of Civilization to found the Archives. This establishment exists independently of The Management but follows its rules. In return, The Management supports the Archives and protects them. Soon after, the Vig encourage a group whose members are almost entirely from young cultures to form the Society for Preserving the Works of Civilization. While the purpose of the Archives is to gather and share current and past information with extant researchers, the Society is intended to provide a similar but longer-term service, deliberately isolated from pan-galactic society: They gather and preserve ancient knowledge. The Archives are organized as a business; the Society as a religious order. 

Though they are distinctly different organizations, the purposes of the Archives and the Society overlap significantly. The two groups quickly develop a process for sharing resources and working together to solve problems. Eventually the Society takes over for the Preservationists of Civilization, whose tired, old remnants go gratefully to their long-awaited retirement. The tradition of using talented members of young starfaring species as field agents and special advisors for the Society continues through the current time. 

385 MYBP Due to their leadership during the Purifier attacks, the Vig become the unquestioned rulers of the local segment of the universe. 

376 MYBP The Solvao become a starfaring species. 

379 MYBP The Tlippi become a starfaring species. 

360 MYBP An erosion of the ozone layer causes a mass extinction among land and freshwater plants and animals. 

300 MYBP A dwarf matter galaxy rich in dark mater impacts the Milky Way, causing gravitational ripples which help form the current spiral arms. 

289 MYBP The last known series of incursions by the Purifiers. They are not as soundly defeated this time, due to never committing to more than small raids. Though defense takes time to organize, once underway it is fierce and very effective. The Purifiers vanish again, hopefully forever this time. 

263 MYBP The Solvao and Tlippi fight over incongruously young Demmit S'Tee artifacts found in Sol System, during a period when The Management is not closely monitoring the region. The Vig subsequently reinforce their picket of Sol System.

The Solvao uplift the Oltolita, and sponsor them before the rest of Civilization. The young species shows great promise, especially technically.

262 MYBP An Oltolita inventor studying a Demmit S'Tee home entertainment unit determines the basic principle behind it. This is then used to build a devastating new weapon. The Tlippi learn about this, and have collective apoplexy. Their resulting attempts to wipe out the Oltolita and seize this weapon doom their society, which wastes itself to a few, scattered remnants with wars, both civil and otherwise. The burden of the defense falls to the Oltolita's sponsors, the Solvao. The Solvao win - without using the new weapon - but the conflict strains their already struggling society, and they soon begin withdrawing to a handful of worlds. 

The Tlippi are also weakened, but also more determined, and hang on, gradually fading to obscurity over the next million years, before a final paroxysm during a conflict with a younger, less technically advanced species which has been taking over their abandoned or poorly supported worlds. Within half a million years the savage remnants of the Tlippi have evolved into several different subspecies, none of which retain starflight capability. So far, none have regained it, but a few have managed to create short-lived technological societies. 

The Oltolita themselves are so shocked by these events that they also join their sponsors in retirement, soon becoming nearly extinct. In one of their last acts before withdrawing from the universe, the Oltolita turn the information on their studies of the device over to the Vig with a collective sigh, saying they never intended to develop a weapon, that's just what happened when they took some of the device's principles to their logical conclusions. A few small populations of Oltolita still exist, on scattered worlds. 

252 MYBP On Earth, a Large Igneous Province (LIP) known as the Siberian Traps Eruption propels massive amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Global temperatures soar. This leads to a massive dieoff, causing the Permian Great Dying and ending the Triassic Period. 

251 MYBP The Vig, using a principle discovered through study of a Demmit S'Tee home entertainment unit and combining this with their own developments in space structure manipulation, realize one potential application is converting themselves into "non-material beings," multi-dimensional patterns of force imposed on the structure of the universe. They put the idea aside for later. 

233 MYBP An extinction event, which human scientists later dub Carnian Pluvial Episode, sees significant reductions in biodiversity and the loss of 33 percent of marine genera on Earth. The episode may have created the ecological space for the emergence of a variety of important modern plant and animal lineages, including conifers, insects, dinosaurs, crocodiles, lizards, turtles and mammals.

Scientists suspect these changes were triggered by massive volcanic eruptions in what are now Alaska and British Columbia

210 MYBP On Earth, the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province Large Igneous Province (LIP) causes another dieoff. This leads to the rise of the dinosaurs.

201 MYBP On Earth, a mass extinction is caused by release of CO2 by volcanism with global warming as a consequence. At the end of the Triassic around three out of four species on Earth disappeared. This was likely due to increased concentrations mercury from volcanoes.

Increased mercury levels from volcanism in a Large Igneous Province (LIP) are also suspected as contributing to the most severe mass extinction known, the end-Permian crisis, where perhaps as much as 95% of life on Earth disappeared. Volcanic activity in LIPs is thought to be responsible for four of the five largest mass extinctions during the last 500 million years.

150 MYBP Peak eruptive period for Arsia Mons. 

130 MYBP As the Vig contemplate the future - and their likely withdrawal from mundane affairs - they begin several long term projects, some of which are intended to continue indefinitely after they are gone. Among these is the creation of a successor through uplift. This requires thorough study and experimentation and some failed attempts - and tens of millions of years - before they are satisfied. 

125 MYBP A small satellite galaxy captured by the Milky Way three hundred million years previously merges with its captor.

108 MYBP Tycho Crater formed.

80 MYBP The Baptistina family of asteroids is formed in Sol System. 

66 MYBP A massive asteroid strike causes mass extinctions on Earth.

Contributing to the environmental stresses on the living things present on Earth at this time were the aftereffects of the ocean acidification, global temperature rise and mercury release from previous, massive volcanic eruptions, later named the Deccan Traps Event. These effects were fading by the time of the impact, but life on Earth was still recovering. 

52.2 MYBP The Vig uplift the Fliring from the distant descendants of a ferret-like animal domesticated by them over a third of a billion years earlier. They are intended to take over running The Management in the near term and to replace the Vig themselves eventually. This particular project is successful in that it produces an extremely intelligent and capable species. However, the Fliring prove to have an aversion to bureaucracy and a low tolerance for boredom. They quickly place others in the drudge (aka middle management) jobs and today only hold the most upper of upper Management positions. 

This is enough to satisfy the Vig. In fact, they are more than satisfied, once they learn to appreciate the first innovations introduced by the Fliring. Taking a cue from the Society for Preserving the Works of Civilization, among these is a policy of using anyone from any culture - with members of young ones specifically sought out - in the work of The Management as long as they are qualified. This helps improve its flexibility. The policy has the added benefit of outraging tens of millions of career bureaucrats. 

51.1 MYBP The Threlk become a starfaring species.

Quietly competent, willing to deal peacefully with others but not really desiring outside contact, the Threlk slowly and methodically build their civilization upwards and outwards, until they possess an advanced level of technology and occupy nearly a hundred systems. The few technologically primitive societies they absorb are treated fairly, by most standards.

50 MYBP Last eruption of Arsia Mons. 

49.8 MYBP A small group of Bargel take advantage of a lapse in the monitoring of Sol System and make an attempt to reach and loot the Olympus Mons discontinuity on Mars. It fails due to a combination of natural hazards and a renewal of attention by The Management. They manage to escape with all hands, covering their tracks fairly well in the process. They may intend to return later, but for whatever reason don't.

35 MYBP Australia and Antarctica separate due to tectonic plate movement. There is a massive and rapid climate change in Australia, with the entire continent becoming colder and dryer. There are lesser but still significant effects on the rest of the terrestrial biosphere.

34 MYBP The Arctic Ocean - largely fresh water for the previous 22 million years - becomes connected to the Atlantic, and soon is a salt water ocean. This happened because the land bridge between Greenland and Scotland disappeared, allowing the first ocean passages for circulation to emerge, connecting the Arctic with the North Atlantic and making water exchange possible.

22 MYBP The Ferg become a starfaring species. 

The Ferg are not interested in conquest, just doing business.

16.5 MYBP Earliest known eruption of what would later be known as the Yellowstone super volcano.

15 MYBP A satellite galaxy of the Milky Way which has long been spiraling closer to it begins colliding with the Milky Way's outskirts. Over the next two million years most of the gas, dust and stars in the smaller congregation are stripped away by stars and globular clusters in the Milky Way. This finally leaves only the core point mass and a few stars and stellar point masses, gradually moving as a group towards the center of the Milky Way.