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.)