Energy-intensive forms of war cease. Earthbound Myrmidons ejected into space, take up residence in the asteroid belt.

[Jupiter is roughly 28,000 miles in diameter at this time, and 50^6 IQ.]

Alpha Draconis is the Pole Star

• 23rd Millennium A . D . / 47 V

The Time of the Dark Cloud. The approach of Cahetel becomes the epicenter of human history.

A crude form of murk, created by slavish mimicry of the murk electronic arrangements, becomes the primary building material of all artificial minds. This allows a divarication to form in the previously unified Third Humans.

(A.D. 22196) Divergent Myrmidons prevail upon Montrose to emerge from his self-exile and become supreme military leader of a resistance.

The Re-Armaments. Creation, over centuries, of the Black Fleet. The office of Nobilissimus revived.

• 24th Millennium A . D . / 46 V

Sculptured Lifeways. Time of the Bred Men. Rise of the Five Families, famed biotechnicians (Eventide, Leafsmith, Phosphor, Orison, and Grimm. The Bloodrose family is usually considered collateral line of Leafsmith, despite their pretensions, not a separate family).

Although later regarded as an anarchist utopia, the Sculpture was a rigid set of social control provisions that operated through the media, schooling, medical networks, marriages, fertility control. The ability of Firstling-tribes to form or ignore systems of force known as governments was largely bypassed as irrelevant to the aims of the Swans.

Scholars returning from deep communion with Jupiter usher in the Nanotechnological Revolution. Matter on Earth is hereafter regarded as a programmable substance.

Tellus enters a Turing Halt-State. (This state will persist until the 40th Millennium).

Gamma Ursae Minoris (Pherkad) is the Pole Star

Second Sweep—The Starfaring

• 25th Millennium A . D . / 45 V

SECOND SWEEP

(A.D. 24113) Arrival of Cahetel Cloud—second immediate defeat of Tellurian forces by the Hyades Domination: Myrmidon Noösphere is betrayed into the Cahetel Format. The Myrmidon Black Fleet cannibalized for Diaspora to second sweep worlds: the asteroid belt flies into interstellar space.

The failure of the Black Fleet persuades humanity to cease active resistance to Hyades deracination.

This sweep is considerably more melancholy, as all failed colonies are reseeded, so the ruins and corpses of previous civilizations are visible. Colonial Myrmidons die; Swans survive marginally, but are insufficiently communal or family-oriented to thrive. Humans thrive, especially Sylphs, Witches, Chimera, Hormagaunts, Hibernals, and Nyctalops. The smaller failure rate is perhaps due to stronger Terraforming effort and subtle, more patient Pantropy.

[Jupiter is roughly 40,000 miles in diameter at this time, and 25^7 IQ—achieving plateau maximum.]

• 26th Millennium A . D . / 44 V

(A.D. 25177) Arrival of the Antepenultimate White Ship.

Influx of snow ushers in a period of supremacy by pro-Domination Potentates. (No further expeditions to Omega will be mounted until the 29,900, some four thousand eight hundred years hence.) Del Azarchel returns, duels and kills the Myrmidon Nobilissimus, a copy of himself, who suffered divarication during the long absence.

Widespread use of snow (antimatter-powered weapons) makes the Sculptured Lifeways nonviable, as handheld weapons could wipe out a city, or an army.

The wealth of the expedition allows Jupiter to establish the first Collaboration-Strength Launching Lasers, a human-built starbeam.

(A.D. 25544) Foundation of the Starfaring Guild. From this date until the 37th Millennium, Jupiter is in direct control of all interstellar trade and traffic.

Polaris is again the Pole Star

• 27th Millennium A . D . / 43 V

Rust, a system of chaff clouds and superhighspeed nanotools (including small atoms spun at lightspeed, colliding with antimatter to discharge the energy back along the path of attack) is found to be a partial defense against snow—the snow-weapon is still formidable, but no longer unstoppable.

Discovery of Nerve-Mandala and Nerve-Mudra techniques. Warfare now formed by neural symbols. Nations break into smaller psycho-morphically similar sets. Note that only species practicing neural uniformity, Locusts, Melusine and after, are vulnerable.

Alrai is the Pole Star

Hierophant Era

• 28th Millennium A . D . / 42 V

After centuries of Nerve Wars, the Hierophant Cohesion forms. First and Second Mankind form one psychomorphic set of man-swans called the Hierophants. The Swans can use their man-brains to defend against Nerve-Mandala techniques, but employ aesthetic logic and xypotechnology as Swans.

Myrmidons migrate to 82 Eridani, the planet Cyan.

• 29th Millennium A . D . / 41 V

Under pressure from Cahetel, Hierophants enter this symbiosis with Ghosts, which mitigates their natural love of isolation, and produce a social system based on a flexible series of highly individualized rules, known as the Gracious Acts.

The Graciousness includes the removal of large-scale weapons and the reintroduction of a dueling custom. Women subjugated as several misogynistic philosophies and sects gain predominance. The Graciousness reduces Firstling humans into fawning servility.

Interstellar slave trade begins.

Iota Cephei is the Pole Star

• 30th Millennium A . D . / 40 V

(A.D. 29024) Launch of the Penultimate White Ship toward the Omega Nebula, there to establish a permanent colony and a Second Empyrean Polity of Man.

Cahetel departs. Hierophants left without calculation power which had been loaned to them (at interest) by Cahetel. The Hierophant Cohesion lost forever.

• 31st Millennium A . D . / 39 V

Hyades signals detected at 82 Eridani, thought to originate from a descendant or revision of Cahetel. (The Cyanese loyalty to the Hyades dates from this early period.)

The Gracious Acts ended in a year widely hailed as the Matriculation of Man. The Servants of the Spirit of Man enforce anarcho-libertarian covenants on Earth, for perhaps six months, before falling apart into factional grief and strife. The Holocaust of Northern Hemisphere.

Spiritualists clash with Sacerdotes. The Sacred Wars reduce the biosphere of Earth to partially uninhabitable. Ghosts, Locusts, and Troglodytes wiped out by mandala techniques.

Alderamin (Alpha Cephei) is the Pole Star

• 32nd Millennium A . D . / 38 V

The Cherishing. Under Hierophant guidance, Earth recolonized from Mars, Proxima, Cyan, Splendor, Covenant, Nocturne, and Gargoyle. Establishment of the Castellan system: Arcologies at various points, well defended against snow and murk attack forms, dominate local countrysides. Human training techniques nullify mandala and mudra impositions added to posthuman consciousness.

At about this time, Cerulean, a second Power after Jupiter, is born in the 82 Eridani system, constructed by the Cyanese.

• 33rd Millennium A . D . / 37 V

Spread of the Oneness: biotechnological Archangels inhabit the local biosphere, and revive the Living Empire. Battle of the Trees: invulnerable tree-monsters slowly uproot and destroy the arcologies. Hierophants flourish in the environment, surfeited by ambrosia, nectar, and sweet dreams. Technology forgotten by humans.