Timeline, Part Seven

[stickmaker]

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

Timeline

Part Seven

Enter your cut contents here.

100,000 YBP Symbolic items - including carved shells, engraved ocher and ocher-processing kits - are left in Blombos Cave in South Africa. 

93,000 YBP The Management is persuaded by the Kulkong - with support from the Vig - to allow limited sociological monitoring of early humans, and also non-invasive exploration of Demmit S'Tee (and other ancient) artifacts in Sol System. The P'Thaliani howl in protest (literally) since they believe they have the only rightful claim to both the life forms and the artifacts, having (according to their own inerrant records) discovered them when all others were blind to their presence. However, with the Vig not only supporting the work but having a small presence on the job, the P'Thaliani don't dare take military action. (Truthfully, they would have very little chance of success against even the Kulkong.)

83,500 YBP The Dekabor build a substantial research vessel to explore hostile environments, such as the volumes around very active stars and stellar remnants. They pack the thing with multiple new technologies they are developing, including a potentially sapient computer. They do not register the computer with the Management as a person (as required by law) planning to do so after they evaluate its performance. 

During the ship's third mission, the computer begins doing and saying things which worry the crew. They physically disconnect it from the ship, then discover that they've been locked out of the control systems. They use auxiliary craft to push the ship into a highly elliptical orbit, most of which is too close to the white dwarf being studied to make salvage easy, then escape in the smaller craft. All mention of the ship is removed from official records and the crew conditioned to never reveal any information about it. 

81,000 YBP The Tsalt become a starfaring species.

75,000 YBP The Bergal become a starfaring species. 

Block of ocher with inscribed geometric patterns left in Blombos Cave in South Africa. 

Oldest known shell beads.

71,000 YBP Scholz' star passes within 50,000 AU of Sol, disrupting several large bodies in the Oort Cloud. It captures a few of these while losing a few of its own. Millions of years will pass before any of the disturbed bodies in the Oort Cloud reach even as close as the orbit of Neptune.

65,000 YBP Neanderthals leave wall paintings in La Pasiega, Maltravieso, and Ardalesand other caves in Spain and other parts of Europe.

63,000 YBP Oldest known carved ostrich eggshell. 

43,000 YBP Drilled fox tooth necklace ornament made by unknown Neanderthal. 

40,000 YBP "Lion Man" carving created, left in Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave.

Oldest known hand stencils, in a cave on Sulawesi Island. 

Oldest known flute - made from a griffon vulture bone - left in Hohle Fels Cave.

39,000 YBP First painting in Altamira Cave in what would later become Spain. This consists of several abstract symbols. 

37,000 YBP Stencil handprints left in El Castillo Cave. First period of human occupation at Chauvet Cave begins. "Horse Panel" and "Great Panel" drawn in Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc.

35,000 YBP Oldest known "Venus" figurine, from Hohle Fels Cave in what would later be Germany. 

Ivory carvings of horse and lion heads left in Vogelherd Cave, in Germany.

33,500 YBP End of first period of human occupation at Chauvet Cave.

31,000 YBP Second period of human occupation at Chauvet Cave begins. 

28,000 YBP Second period of human occupation at Chauvet Cave ends.

26,000 YBP Ivory carving of stylized human head and stone "Venus" left in Véstonice, in the Czech Republic. 

25,000 YBP Miniature ivory bust later known as the Lady of Brassempouy created from a mammoth tusk. Found in southwest France.

19,000 YBP First animal paintings in Altamira Cave. More would be occasionally added for the next 4,000 years. 

13,000 YBP Syrian prehistoric village of Abu Hureyra and its immediate surroundings destroyed by airburst of cometary debris. Temperatures on the ground immediately under the fireball reached 2400 kelvins. The comet had fragmented before entering Earth's atmosphere, and impacts are spread widely over much of the planet.

Long theorized, late in the Twentieth Century the event is found to be recorded in the long-buried ruins of the Göbekli Tepe temple in modern Turkey.

12,850 YBP The Younger Dryas period begins after a series of major volcanic eruptions across the Northern Hemisphere of Earth. 

 

12,000 YBP The Heerg become a starfaring species.

8,000 YBP The Plokt become a starfaring species.

1589 YBP The Tierra Blanca Joven eruption in Central America devastates Maya communities in what is now El Salvador.

1477 YBP A major volcanic eruption by a high-latitude volcano lowers temperature across the Earth. This may have caused the notorious Plague of Justinian.

Three years later, a major volcanic eruption of Ilopango, a now-dormant volcano in El Salvador, causes an extreme cooling in the Southern Hemisphere and equatorial region. The Maya, in particular, are adversely affected. 

1180 YBP A volcano erupts in what would become Mount Churchill in Alaska. Ash from this reaches as far as part of Europe. Due in part to this, the Dene native tribes undergo a diaspora, with many tribes winding up in what would be the US southwest. This includes the Apache and the Navaho. 

1100 YBP Due to multiple factors - the most significant a prolonged, severe, widespread drought - the Mayan Empire comes to an end. 

768 YBP The Yeval find their planet under bombardment by comets and asteroids disrupted from their normal orbits by a brown dwarf entering their system. 

751 YBP The Yeval complete a project to move their world to a new star, but too late. Only a few thousand survive, in various underground bases. They start their world on its journey, then enter suspended animation. 

A few weeks later the Yeval homeworld arrives in the Alpha Centauri system. The automated controls put it in a polar orbit around the star. As planned, over the next few decades organisms are released from suspension in a carefully planned sequence to reestablish the ecosystem. However, due to a mistake in the program code used to regulate the Yeval's own suspension chambers they do not awaken when planned. 

Present To maintain the fiction that humans are alone in the universe, the Management - under the direction of the Vig and with the help of the Kulkong - are very careful to keep any of their activities in Sol System hidden from the primitive but surprisingly capable human space exploration efforts. This occasionally means interfering with probes, even to the extent of disabling those headed to Mars when there is noticeable activity there. Humans half-jokingly ascribe the results of these actions to "The Great Galactic Ghoul," a mythic entity which eats space probes bound for Mars. There are also tall tales about the Martian Defense Force. None of those propagating these myths realize how close their jokes are to the truth.

50 YAP A human expedition to Mars encounters a Kulkong archeological expedition (with seven Fliring advisors and a still-physical Vig observer). The members of this three-species project were studying artifacts left there by a forgotten civilization which roughly 800 MYBP was studying the Demmit S'Tee artifacts present. Representatives of the three starfaring cultures agree that interfering with automated probes was one thing, but affecting the lives of sapient creatures would not be allowed. The Management later (after several decades of studying precedents and regulations) concurs. While attempts are made by the nonhumans to mask their presence (unsuccessfully; the human explorers prove surprisingly perceptive and inventive) the human vessel is left alone, and its crew discovers the aliens. 

After considerable discussion, the three older species sign a treaty with humans to become co-wardens of the planet Mars and its resources. The same treaty is later expanded to the entire Sol System, making humans co-wardens of any other archeological artifacts uncovered there. Excluded are the artifacts and remains of ancient humans on Earth, which remain in the charge of the natives. Humans are allowed to develop any resource in their home system not directly involving the co-managed remains. The Kulkong further promise to recognize humans as full partners once they develop their own FTL drives and prove they are capable of handling themselves in interstellar society. Until then, the Kulkong have the responsibility of protecting them from predators. Once news of this agreement is released the P'Thaliani do some more howling.

80 YAP The Kulkong are actually pleased - and act much like proud parents - when humans make their first FTL journey in near-record time. Adding to their delight, the trip is made not by agents of a human government, but by a team of social outcasts who use a drive from a cancelled research program. Other species accuse the Kulkong of helping their wards, but the Vig certify this did not happen. Indeed, some of the theory behind FTL flight was derived by humans decades before the fateful Mars expedition was launched. A few cultures begin to wonder if the encouragement of humans by the Fliring, Vig and Kulkong is safe. The Fliring, Vig and the Kulkong all understand that the safest course is not always the best one.

An unauthorized human FTL trip to Alpha Centauri by a private group leaves both human and alien bureaucracies floundering in confusion. Due to the wording of the treaty between humans, Vig and Kulkong, the group is allowed to determine the form of bureaucracy which will represent humans before the rest of the universe. This accident of history amuses the Kulkong no end. Even the Vig are said to have an occasional quiet chuckle over these events. Both species appreciate the dual meaning of the name the colonists give their new world: Asylum. Meanwhile, the Fliring collectively and figuratively roll their eyes over these events and the reaction of their bosses, the Vig, who are old enough they should act in a more mature fashion.

83 YAP A rogue faction within the UN covertly redirects military equipment and personnel in an attempt to seize the Centauri colony. The faction has the mistaken notion that whoever is in control of the colony will be recognized as the rulers of humanity. The colonists manage to hold out until the Kulkong can arrive and force the UN to recall the troops. This eventually causes the revelation to the general human population of the existence of aliens and FTL travel and the agreement between their governments, the Kulkong and the Vig. 

85 YAP The UN sends expeditions to over a dozen nearby star systems, looking for habitable planets. Or, rather, that is what the general public is told. What they actually do is use information from both terrestrial astronomers and the Kulkong to choose planets possibly suitable for human colonization. That contact has been made with intelligent aliens, and that the first extra-solar colony was organized without authorization by a non-governmental group are kept officially secret (though millions already know at least some of the truth). So is the fact that the Asylum colonists have been given the authority by The Management to regulate interaction between humans and the rest of the universe. 

Besides Alpha Colony on Asylum, there is only one potentially suitable world within reach of the early human ships, and it is in the Delta Pavonis system. A colony is established by the UN, but after losing a third of their number within eighteen months the survivors are evacuated. Meanwhile, two more colonies are established on Asylum by the non-governmental group which produced the first colony there.

These new settlements are far enough from the original - and each other - that most natural disasters would only affect one group at the most, but close enough for people to commute between them with a few days of ground travel. (The colonists don't inform the UN that they have a method of underground travel, using the old subtrain system left by the original inhabitants. Neither do they tell Earth that they have found hundreds of the original inhabitants in cryogenic suspension. They instead work with The Management to develop a program to revive the original occupants of the planet safely.)

90 YAP The United Nations renames itself United Humanity. This follows a major shakeup in the UN, as the rulers of member nations discover what their representatives in that body have been doing without telling them.

153 YAP A human archeological expedition to Mars opens the largest stasis enclosure there after traversing several kilometers through a lava tube to reach it. At the wall of the enclosure they discover the remains of a Betped who reached it before them but died after being stranded by a rockfall. Other bodies from that same illicit effort are later found under the rockfall. 

160 YAP Humans become a widespread starfaring species with surprising speed. The fact that they are used to dealing with multiple, often quite different cultures among themselves helps greatly with this. As promised, the Kulkong recognize their sole rule over Sol System (except for the non-human archeological sites) as well as responsibility for their own defense. Friendly relations between the two species continue as humans assume a rapidly rising position in their home galaxy.

Human communities are soon established on over a hundred worlds. However, only five of these are actual colonies established by humans. Life-bearing worlds are scarce, and there are few not already occupied by other starfaring cultures. The Management long ago declared that worlds where intelligent life was developing were not to be colonized, further reducing the opportunities. (Of course, that also protected the Earth and humanity.) Humans are beginning to understand why most species with space travel have so much of their population in sealed domes on lifeless worlds and in orbiting habitats.

Earth, Mars, Asylum and a few other natural bodies and some artificial objects in Sol System and Centauri System continue to be protected by the Kulkong, with a few Fliring and an occasional Vig also staying on both the red planet and Asylum. This second presence greatly reduces the temptation by other cultures to test the primitive early defenses humans establish. Many would find the human efforts trivial to overcome, and might also be willing to take on the Kulkong, but very, very few are willing to challenge the Fliring; forget about risking the ire of even an individual Vig. Nearly all starfaring cultures have the policy that if the Vig are involved, just walk away, whistling casually and thinking peaceful thoughts. 

The heart of human starfaring bureaucracy is based on Mars, but policy is still determined by Alpha Colony.

165 YAP Someone recommends that the human government contact the Threlk. Their system is located over twenty thousand light years from Earth. However, a trip using the Linked Rings requires only a little over twelve hundred light years of ship travel between there and Sol System, which takes a bit under an hour by civilian transport. The Threlk are stalled in their recovery efforts, and humans desperately need the experience of dealing both with non-human cultures and advanced technology. At their peak, the Threlk were technologically well beyond where even the Kulkong currently are.

Humanity and the Threlk reach a mutually beneficial agreement. The biggest problem the Threlk have encountered is that of closing the gap between what needs to be done to restore them to a true starfaring society and bringing their infrastructure to the level necessary for accomplishing that. Most worlds only get one industrial revolution. Since humans have recently learned how to take the first steps in this process themselves, they can sometimes interpolate between what they know how to build and what the Threlk did in the past. Both cultures learn from this process and the Threlk resume mass production of pandimensional equipment within a century. Meanwhile, human technology makes several leaps forward.

Additionally, the cultural benefits to both species prove significant. Exposure to the young and enthusiastic humanity stimulates the Threlk to increase the pace of their own efforts. Humans in turn are inspired by Threlk persistence. 

185 YAP During a period when all Vig and Fliring are absent from Sol System and there are only a few Kulkong present, the P'thaliani organize a fleet to capture Mars and "recover the valued remnants of our illustrious predecessors from the grasp of the primitives." The fleet disappears somewhere along the way. The Kulkong refuse to comment, but secretly are baffled. A few individuals in the Kulkong government know what and why, and understand the need for secrecy. They are still young as Civilization counts time, and the secret could aid them as well. Key individuals among the Fliring and Vig also know what happened, and are a bit worried about humanity having such a big gun.

220 YAP An illegal human expedition to the Osran homeworld runs into trouble. 

320 YAP The first confirmed Cleansing in nearly three hundred million years begins.