The Architect of Aeons

by John C. Wright

  Maier—a peace officer for Dee Parish

  Zolasto Zo—a Rosicrucian expatriate and mountebank

  Nocturnals

  Nochzreniye—a Zarya of Nocturne of Epsilon Eridani, Norbert’s adjutant

  SECOND HUMANITY [Intelligence = 1,000]

  Swans

  Enkoodabooaoo—an Inquiline of the Noösphere (Third Comprehension)

  Photinus—a Hierophant and heresiarch of the 36th Millennium

  Lares—a prophetess

  Lemur—revives the heresy of Photinus in the 47th Millennium

  THIRD HUMANITY

  Myrmidons

  Dissent—emissaries to the Judge of Ages in the plutino Ixion

  Superintendent of the First Elite Process—a command segment of the Black Fleet. Slain by Montrose in a duel.

  FOURTH HUMANITY

  Fox Maidens

  Cazi—a sovereign and trickster

  Gitsune and Strega—her attendants

  FIFTH HUMANITY

  Patricians

  Cnaeus—called the Father of Neptune

  Nemenstratus—a Lord of the Golden Afternoon, that is, Cliometric Historian for the Triplanetary Jurisdiction

  ARCHANGEL [Intelligence = 10,000 or 10^3]

  Mother Superior Selene—Abbess of the Order of the Discalced Friars of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, called Whitefriars. The moon.

  POTENTATES [Intelligence = 800,000 or 80^4]

  Tellus of Sol

  Rosycross of Proxima

  POWERS [Intelligence = 250 Million or 25^7]

  Jupiter of Sol

  Neptune of Sol

  Cerulean of 82 Eridani; Peacock of Delta Pavonis; Immaculate of Altair; Twelve of Tau Ceti; Vonrothbarth of 61 Cygni. Atramental of Epsilon Eridani is technically a superpotentate, but not a power.

  Hyades

  VIRTUES [Intelligence = 500 Million or 50^8]

  Asmodel the Living Planet—First Sweep in the 12th Millennium

  Cahetel the Dark Cloud—Second Sweep in the 25th Millennium

  Shcachlil the Salamander—Third Sweep in the 37th Millennium

  Achaiah the Immeasurable—predicted to arrive at the behest of Jupiter in the 61th Millennium

  PRINCIPALITIES

  Ain—which men call Epsilon Tauri but Myrmidons call Oculus Borealis

  ARCHON

  Circumincession—Sovereign of the Sagittarius Arm

  APPENDIX B

  Middle-Scale Time Line

  (Thousands of Years)

  Each entry on the list below represents a millennium.

  Notable Events and Epochs for each millennium briefly noted.

  Changes to Earth’s pole star due to procession noted as aid in comparison of time scales.

  Preposthuman Era

  • 1st Millennium A.D. (Anno Domini) / -3 V (Antevindication or Precountdown)

  Imperial Rome. Caesar, Christ born. Western Empire Falls, creating a Dark Age in Europe. Heavy cavalry. Islam rises.

  Gamma Ursae Minoris (Pherkad) is the Pole Star

  • 2nd Millennium A.D. / -2 V

  Age of Discovery. Industrial revolution, scientific method. World westernized. Man walks on the moon.

  Polaris is the Pole Star

  • 3rd Millennium A.D. / -1 V

  First Age of Star Travel. Diamond Star found. Croesus Launch. Little Dark Ages. The Jihad and the Japanese Winter. Hermetic Launch. Rania, “The Swan Princess,” first human created by mixture of human and Monument genetic codes. Monument partly deciphered.

  RANIA DEPARTS FOR M3. Vindication Countdown begins. The Long Wait begins.

  Earthquake Wars decimate Japan, California, Italy.

  (A.D. 2500) Humanist Wars shatter the Concordat. Exarchel augments the Cetaceans.

  Cryonarch Period—The heirs of Montrose rise to world power. Montrose in disgust disinherits them, and donates their power and resources to the Roman Pontiff.

  Ecclesiarch Period—Giants born.

  Diamond Star carried off. Moon marked with the hand of Del Azarchel.

  Rise of the Ghosts, human brain-patterns kept unalive in electronic limbo. Frankenstein Panic.

  (A.D. 2525) Decivilization. Exarchel reduced.

  Simon Institute Founded. Lifespan of women expanded to 350 by nano-cellular xypotechnology.

  Alrai is the Pole Star

  Era of the Hermetic Millennia

  • 4th Millennium A.D. / 67 V (Countdown to Vindication)

  (A.D. 2525–3100) Giants.

  (A.D. 3050–3150) Cetaceans raise the Cloud.

  (A.D. 3100–3300) Simon Families.

  (A.D. 3300–4000) Under Witch rulership, collapse of Christianity undermines faith in scientific worldview, leads to radical loss of technological civilization on three continents. Decimations of Exarchel copies. Extinction of the Cetaceans.

  • 5th Millennium A.D. / 66 V

  Warlocks. Nameless Empire oversees a brief reindustrialization. Nine Centennial Empresses of Canton. Butlerian overthrow and the return of barbarism.

  Rise of the Chimera. Chimera Eugenic Republic spreads from Virginia. Proscopalianism.

  • 6th Millennium A.D. / 65 V

  Centennials in China overthrown by Chimera. Rediscovery of Atomics. Unification wars. Chimerical World Empire. Third Age of Space Travel. Space Chimera created. Cities in Space founded. Fall of Richmond. Cities in Space abandoned.

  Iota Cephei is the Pole Star

  • 7th Millennium A.D. / 64 V

  Naturalists. Weather Control initiates seasonless Earth. Decline. Winter returns. Rise of the Leeches.

  • 8th Millennium A.D. / 63 V

  Iatrocrats organized into mutually bio-incompatible clades. Third Biotechnological Revolution.

  (A.D. 7500) Locusts. First neuro-infosphere or Noösphere. Fourth Age of Space Travel.

  Locust Wars. Genocide.

  Triage.

  Mars Colony.

  First Interplanetary War ends Mars colony.

  Linder.

  Alderamin is the Pole Star

  • 9th Millennium A.D. / 62 V

  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 alterna
ting 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).

  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, Hormagau
nts, 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.