Triumph of the Noösphere. Blue Men. Noösphere shatters into the Confraternities. Gray Men.

Ice Ages drive civilization into the sea. Rise of the Melusine (Human-Cetacean pack-minds).

Swan Era

• 10th Millennium A . D . / 61 V

SECOND HUMANS: SWANS

White Earth. Only a thin equatorial band of open water remains.

Creation of the Second Humans, the Swans, creatures more comely, ethereal, and intellectual than humans, but generally reticent and isolated. They are based on Bonobo (Pan Paniscus) rather than human neural templates, so neither marriage nor incest taboos pertain to them. Their nervous systems are standardized and easily fitted with biotechnical and cybernetic implants, augmentations, and networks.

• 11th Millennium A . D . / 60 V

Rise of the Final Stipulation. Weather control reestablished. Fifth Age of Space Travel. Judge of Ages and the Master of the World prohibited from further cliometry.

Del Azarchel begins the long process of sophotransmogrification of the core mass of Jupiter into a Power of the same name.

Deneb is the Pole Star

First Sweep—The Decimation of Man

• 12th Millennium A . D . / 59 V

FIRST SWEEP: The Hyades Armada “Asmodel” arrives. End of the Long Wait.

Lamination of the Swans—Swans defeated with absurd ease. Earth altered from equatorial to polar orbit (but, oddly, keeping the same pole star). Diaspora to First Sweep worlds.

Cenotaph praxes enable a more rapid evolution of Jupiter Brain to self-awareness than otherwise would have been possible.

(A.D. 11400) Deracination Ship reaches Proxima.

• 13th Millennium A . D . / 58 V

Rise of the Dark Swans. Tribadism among the Early Swans dies off, as the isolated males become paramount. The peaceful nature of the race is subverted as the custom of dueling adopted among male Swans: Swans form alternating generations of male and female dominance, females growing to the ascendant during diebacks.

(A.D. 12850) FIRST POWER of SOL: The myriad mental ecologies of the Jupiter Brain combine into federal self-awareness. [Jupiter is roughly 7,000 miles in diameter at this time, 90^4 IQ .]

Jupiter persuades and forces the lesser versions of mankind to enter into a concord with him. Humans taught pantropy and terraforming by Hyades through Jupiter.

• 14th Millennium A . D . / 57 V

Fourth Biotechnological Revolution. Pantropy allows for the combination of Aurum Vitae and murk to produce a wide range of organisms, some of which drive natural organisms into extinction.

Ghost population exceeds living population.

Deracination Ship reaches Delta Pavonis.

• 15th Millennium A . D . / 56 V

Jupiter enters a period of odd inactivity lasting until the 19th millennium.

(A.D. 14300) Silent Years—All save two of fifteen extrasolar colonies perish. Emancipation makes two expeditions to these survivors, Nocturne of Epsilon Eridani, and Splendor of Delta Pavonis. Attempts to maintain radio contact with scattered human worlds fail.

(A.D. 14600) Endarkening: Dependence on talking machinery and biomachinery spreads mass illiteracy. Factions embracing anti-intellectual doctrines become predominant. Widespread system failures of infosphere leave whole continents without literature or learning for generations. Ghosts decimated.

Montrose retreats to the plutino worldlet 28978 Ixion.

Vega is the Pole Star

Myrmidon Era

• 16th Millennium A . D . / 54 V

THIRD HUMANS: MYRMIDONS

Jupiter under Del Azarchel’s direction creates the Third Humans, the Myrmidons, based on extrapolations of Hyades’ mental architecture. Originally intended to be the replacement race for mankind, longer-lived and more cooperative, the Myrmidons are hideous creatures, as uniform and inhuman as insects, lacking sex, art, religion, or any finer feelings. The Myrmidons are capable of total Noösphere nerve-machine integration.

Swans remove to Antarctica, Greenland, and Siberia to maintain strict isolation from Third Humans during these centuries.

(A.D. 15177) The Myrmidons construct and send out Leucothea, what will later be called the Antepenultimate White Ship, to a second antimatter star found in M17, the Omega Nebula, in the Sagittarius Arm of the Galaxy, 5,000 lightyears hence. Del Azarchel departs.

• 17th Millennium A . D . / 53 V

Loss of the Earth’s magnetic field. Solar wind damages Earth’s atmosphere, leading to widespread desertification. Domes of lightweight fabric erected over cities as moisture traps. Widely regarded as an assault by the Myrmidons (who are unaffected by the change).

Nyctaloptic Earth. Unshielded Humans and Swans able to emerge only after sunset.

[This is the predicted end of the human race, had not pantropy and terraforming techniques been decoded to allow the race to resist the ecological disaster.]

• 18th Millennium A . D . / 52 V

Rise of the Adamites, ascetics who reject human gene-experimentation. (These are the ancestors of the Covenanters.) The Sacerdotal religion, at this point in history, is decidedly ecumenical and universal, rejecting no expression of faith from any culture: Adamism comes to dominate Sacerdotalism, and ancestor worship and ritual purity form the backbone of this system.

Many diseases reappear in the human ecology, and various forms of mental retardation.

• 19th Millennium A . D . / 51 V

Rise of the Living Empire. This is a single life-form occupying most of the equatorial region, growing the foodstuff and materials of life for a highly dependent core population: perioeci and helots live in the temperate zones, with ruling Myrmidons able to pass freely between climate zones.

Jupiter emerges from his somnolence. [Jupiter is roughly 14,000 miles in diameter at this time, and 70^5 IQ.]

• 20th Millennium A . D . / 50 V

Ice Age. Swans emerge from the polar regions, and multiply in numbers. Living Empire becomes coniferous. Adamite political system, which prohibited human bio-adaptation even to Eskimo levels of alteration, is overthrown.

Rise of the Hibernal Men, who change fur during seasonal variations.

Myrmidons under Jupiter’s guidance begin an active program of colonizing the main asteroid belt. Ice Age ends due to military bombardment.

At about this time, Dominions in Sagittarius become aware of the existence of Tellurian expedition and colonies in the Omega Nebula.

• 21st Millennium A . D . / 49 V

Swan Renaissance. Humans alter the Living Empire to create jungle canopies to prevent asteroid drop targeting from the Myrmidons, and all surface technology is dispersed into a highly diffuse and mobile form, an insect-based infosphere. Biopeonage exists in the cultivated areas, elsewhere nomads in large tribes live as herdsmen, hunter-gatherers in smaller bands.

Hibernals, Nyctalops, and Troglodytes flourish, and decimate other, older, human races. Earthbound Myrmidons driven into the Andes and Himalayas.

• 22nd Millennium A . D . / 48 V

Swans form first mathematical descriptions of human thought. Rule by the Swans through the Neural Indication Protocols, a xypotechnology-intensive hierarchy where each person’s duties and role in society is determined by his thought-architecture. This is a limited and individualized form of the Sculpture of the 24th Millennium (see below).