11,000 Years, or From Tell es-Sultan Until Now

11,000 Years,
Or From Tell es-Sultan Until Now
mark roth-whitworth, 2020

In 2018, I read a book written by a co-worker. I had two reactions to it: one was to write a short piece on “What’s Wrong With Superheroes and Supervillains?”, which was published in the WSFA Journal. The other was to write a short story, demonstrating how people with real what we would consider superpowers would use them (and not make giant green fists to bash the baddies in their BVDs (with a nod to Tom Smith, filker)). Oh, yes, and I dedicated it to Vox and all his puppies.

While I was submitting it, I got to thinking that I’d created something interesting, and I really wanted to know more about this future. It took me a while, but as I began exploring it in my head, I found an expansiveness that drew from everyone from Doc Smith and Ed Hamilton to Olaf Stapledon, with as much realism as I could manage.

Yes, well, it’s a novel, and coming out soon. (Just republished, July 18, 2023)

It’s a future that I really find interesting, and one I wouldn’t mind living in (at least some parts of it). I’ve been considering and discussing various parts of the universe, and just wound up writing an outline of the history of the next 11,000 years, and this is the short version of it. Note, of course, that the further away in time, the more approximate the dating.

Now to 2078	Terra’s population peaks around 9.5B due to falling birth rates, and begins to decline. Major climate disasters, along with technological innovation, causes world-wide economic collapse, wars, new petrochemical extraction drops, while reuse of many materials grows massively. Consumer society fails. 3D printing develops into full-scale major production. In the mid-2000’s, a faster-than-light drive is developed. We begin to spread out, first to the Solar system, then to the nearest stars with planets that can be lived upon. Planets that are feasible to colonize are found, but colonization starts slowly, and is rocky, as even with autonomous drones, terraforming is unbelievably expensive.
2079	Francoise, 17, and Amelie, 12, taken by trillionaire Phillipe Tolliver (Francoise’s Story, short).
2092	Trillionaire James Garrick infected with genengineered virus. Treated by Rose at the NIH Clinical Center (Butterfly’s Wing, short)
2094	UN trying to deal with wars and disasters run by trillionaires. Francoise saves NYC Ameilie provides definitive evidence to UN. UN reforms to become the Terran Confederation. (End Game, short.
2110-2117	Some time in the teens, the First intelligent alien race found. Information hidden by trillionaire agents. (Flashback in A Dark and the Storm Knight)
2119	Militia and trillionaire revot (Bloody Strawberries, short)
2120	Escape of (some of) the Trillionaires (Somewhere to Go, short) Introduction to the mesh, and Rosalyn (The Mesh, short) Art, the mesh, and tracking the attack. (Artist and Agent, short)
2169	The research starship Hawking, built twenty years before, is sent on the longest mission ever planned: about 2800 light years, to V616 Mono, also known as A0620-00, to do research on the black hole, and the companion that it is slowly eating.
2170	Hawking, after sending a data dump and report, is presumed lost. (Beginning of 11,000 Years [Falling Uptime]) The crew and researchers are declared heroes of the Confederation. By now, about a dozen worlds are being terraformed, and the second and third ones begun have started accepting immigrants. Millions of people leave Terra.
2193	First clearly intelligent alien race is found. Technology is paleolithic. With much discussion, the Confederation sets up an embargo, and prevents any contact.
2337	We meet another technological race with star travel, around a gas giant in a star system about 600 ly away. They are fairly alien, and view Titan as a lovely location. These aliens also tell us about another race, that uses slower-than-light ships, and have three headed to establish a colony in a system we have not explored, but they will not arrive for several hundred years.
2445	We establish contact with the people with slower-than-light drives, but both they and we only offer a cultural exchange. What we receive is interesting, and slowly spreads through the Confederation during the next 50 years. The Confederation now straggles over 3000 light years.
2844	Alien Intelligent race recognized, opening of the once-trillionairs’ planet, Plentitude.
2845	Plentitude is opened to the human universe. In Plentitude. (Think Zelazny’s Lord of Light meets Anderson’s Flandry of Terra.)
2855	The beginning of the Time of Troubles, where the descendants of the Trillionaires begin to expand, and trouble the Confederation.
2900-3050	This is followed by a time of wars, of raiding, and silence. Colonies lose contact, and in some cases, lose access to space. Some fail, and some fall to a far lower technical leval, barely surviving. There are a number of attacks against Confederation worlds. J’wan and Ahn work to stave off the troubles.
3580	Plentitude, and two of the worlds that have become more important to the descendants of the trillionaires attack Terra. A billion and a half people die or are other casualties. In response, a battle group of the Confederation Navy destroy both colonies, killing everyone, and making the planets uninhabitable, then destroy the Cities of Plentitude. A third of the crews commit suicide in remorse. In the aftermat, the Terran Confederation becomes the Confederation of Worlds, with a rotating capitol, and closes to all human worlds outside the Confederation. Centuries pass as they try to find how to prevent such horrors in the future.
3900	The aliens who have a small colony on Titan have been horrified by the violence. and mostly have not have much contact, begin to open up with the Confederation. They offer to share information about star drives. A new drive is jointly developed over 25 years, faster, safer, and not requiring a gate.
3960 – 4180	With the new drive, a joint force of humans and aliens slowly begins to locate the colonies, and bring peace between them. In the following two centuries, peace slowly comes to human-colonized space.
4180 – 5130	In the next thousand years, several interstellar organizations form, last for a time, then fall apart, or are replaced.
5200 – 7500 (approx)	Finally, about 3000 years from now, the Confluence comes into existance. The next nealy 1500 years are considered the human Golden Age. Over the last 3000 years, there have been odd reports of meetings with other extremely advanced intelligences, but nothing solid, until about the year 1500 of the Confluence, we meet our first Advanced Intelligence.As what we learn from it spreads, over the next 500 years, humanity begins to drift apart, some working towards creating and becoming part of the first human AdvInt, others fleeing, although a majority accepts or rejects bits and pieces.
7500 – 11000	At last, the Confluence is dissolved. Over the next 3500 years, there is some commerce between the human worlds. In some regions, though there is some raiding. In one sector, farther from Terra, there is a cluster of worlds that were settled by strongly religious gfoups, moving away from the connection to the AdvInt. There is more violence here, including wars.
11,017(approx)	Three missions from competing colony groups to search for room to expand, and resources. In one direction, they make an amazing find, and meet Something, to find, afterwards, they have been given what they call The Revelation. (flashback in 11,000 Years)
11,045 – 11,233 (approx)	They fight wars over what was in the Revelation, and finally merge into the Society of Humanity, based on the belief in Purity, which comes from the Revelation.
11,250 – 12,000 (approx)	After they have impressed, or conquered, the rest of that cluster, they begin expanding.
12,000 – 12,100 (approx)	The Society begins to encrouch on an area closer to them than Terra, but who use much different, and higher tech.
About 12,100	In defence, the region being attacked forms the Alliance. Terra, and the Inner Worlds, are still much further than any of these polities, matched only by the Advanced Intelligences.
13,016 (approx)	The Hawking breaks free….

And this is where 11,000 Years picks up….