(A.D. 68100 or 700 V) End of the Silence. It is announced that Powers and Principalities will no longer interfere in human affairs, either for good or ill. End of the Slave Trade.
(A.D. 68300 or 500 V) With the slave trade abolished, Stability Lords replace the Star-faring Guild in Fourth Sweep Worlds and beyond. Antihierarchic vectors (collectively called the Benevolence of Subsidiarity) are interpolated into the cliometric calculations of parishes, regions, worlds, and sweep radii.
(A.D. 68700 or 300 V) Through this Benevolence, Patricians impose universal manumission, and revive the prestige of the Sacerdotal Order and the Lords of Stability, and force all local secular sovereigns to restore ancient rights and liberties. Mankind enters a golden age of peace and plenty.
(A.D. 68800 or 200 V) The Deodates, three hundred earthlike worlds quickened to life in the solar system, of which roughly a third are elevated to Potentate status.
(A.D. 68900 or 100 V) Consecrate, Toliman, and Zauberring agree on protocols, and form one continuous library system across a single topology, called Triumvirate, a very small Dominion, lesser in strength, majesty and power, but equal in dignity to Hyades.
Vindication of Man—End of the Endless Night
• 70th Millennium A.D. / 1 UV (+1 to +999 Ultravindication)
She returns. (25 May, A.D. 69396)
Rania decrees Triumvirate to be the Epitome of Man.
(A.D. 69426) Master of the Empyrean weds Rania; Judge of Ages departs for Aesculapius aboard the Errantry.
(A.D. 69600) Judge of Ages arrives in exile on Torment.
(A.D. 69670) Radio signals from 20 Arietis received, agreeing to a covenant with Hyades called the Provisional Concordat. From this period dates the Second Matrix of cliometric calculations demanded by Praesepe.
—Gamma Ursae Minoris (Pherkad) is the Pole Star
• 71st Millennium A.D. / 2 UV
(A.D. 70700) Rise of the Last Men, also called the Uthymoi, or the Men without Chests.
(A.D. 75000) The Shattering: Cliometric crises erupt on many worlds. There is an inexplicable failure of the universal peace.
—Polaris is the Pole Star
• 72nd Millennium A.D. / 3 UV
The Schedule of the Stability is corrupted. Revival of the weapon laws and dueling customs on many worlds. Revival of the chivalric custom of interstellar war.
(A.D. 71200) Second Advent of the Emancipation: Ximen del Azarchel arrives at Torment. Torment, utilizing the attotechnology supership Solitudines Vastae Caelorum as the first populated interstellar dirigible planet departs for Ain.
—Alrai is the Pole Star
APPENDIX C
Large-Scale Time Line
(by Millions of Years)
• 900 Million B.C.
(850,000,000 B.C.) Disaster of the Forerunners: tensions caused by the dispute over resource allocation strategies leads to incoordination of formats and divorce. Galactic Mind fails to achieve true selfawareness and deteriorates, and the constituents turn on each other savagely. Galactic civilization is broken.
• 800 Million B.C.—Praesepe/Hyades collides with a smaller cluster, absorbing it.
• 700 Million B.C.
(635,000,000 B.C.) Rise of the Instrumentality in the neutron stars of the core. Circumincession arises in Sagittarius, vows itself to the restoration of the Forerunners.
• 600 Million B.C.—the Hyades and Praesepe star clusters emerge from each other.
(541,000,000 B.C.) Under Instrumentality and Panspermian inspiration, civilization reknit. Beginning of the Patronage System. Second Collaboration initiated.
(525,000,000 B.C.) Discovery of malignant interference in galactic history. Galactic civil war breaks out.
• 500 Million B.C.
(488,000,000 B.C.) War. Panspermians are scattered to Sagittarius. The Orion Arm falls into confusion. End of the Second Collaboration.
(444,000,000 B.C.) End of the Panspermians. Rise of the Austerity in the Outer Arm. The Third Collaboration forms, this time along crueler and swifter lines.
(416,000,000 B.C.) LMC establishes bases throughout the Orion Arm. Under Austerity and Symbiosis inspiration, the Indenture system adopted.
• 400 Million B.C.
(359,000,000 B.C.) Andromeda induces the Symbiosis to redact the Universal Syntax mathematics, and from them to create the Monuments, and scatter them throughout the Orion Arm and beyond, in hopes of stirring up resistance to the Indenture System of sophotransmogrification.
M3 begins its self-elevation to Authority.
• 100 Million B.C.
(99,000,000 B.C.) A dark matter object the size of a Dwarf Galaxy (later called the Widrow Dwarf Galaxy by human astronomers) intersects with the Milky Way. This creates disruptions in the orbits of stars surrounding the galactic core, delaying the rate of rise of technical civilization in the affected star systems.
Hyades organizes itself into a single mental structure, elevated from an alliance of Hosts and Principalities to a Dominion.
• Current
(A.D. 2112) First Contact: Pre-Ascension Tellurians send expedition to the Diamond Star, discover the LMC Monument, and are seduced by the redacted cliometric mathematics into the Concubine Vector, delaying cooperation with the Collaboration while their pretension to the dignity of a star-faring race is tested.
(A.D. 2403 to 70000) The Long Wait. See Middle-Scale Time Line.
(A.D. 70000) The Vindication of Man. She returns.
(A.D. 71200 to 73040) Torment starfares to Ain.
(A.D. 73727 to 79474) Torment, now called Tormentil, weds Ain and broadcasts human minds to various dissenting and nonjuring civilizations in the Orion, Sagittarius, and, later Perseus and Cygnus Arms.
The Dominion of Triumvirate flourishes for a time as a Praesepe servitor, before being superseded by the Benedictine Dominion of Ain, which becomes the Epitome of Man.
(A.D. 79474 to 80100) Solitudines Vastae Caelorum starfares to Vanderlinden 133 in Praesepe, escorted by an ice giant.
(A.D. 91917) Wreck of the Solitudines Vastae Caelorum.
(A.D. 92000 to 96900) Montrose is adrift. At near-lightspeed, he travels 3,400 lightyears from Vanderlinden 133 over a period of 3,500 years.
(A.D. 95500) Montrose passes SAO 82846.
(A.D. 100,000) The shock wave of the hypersupernova is bright enough to be seen during daylight hours on Earth.
(A.D. 102,500) The shock wave reaches the wreck of the Solitudines.
(A.D. 103,000) Solitudines uses the force of the nova light to starfare to TX Canum Venaticorum. Montrose forced into somnolence.
(A.D. 103,000 to 133,000) TX Canum Venaticorum system engineered.
(A.D. 133,000 to 163,000) Montrose starfares to M3.
(Circa A.D. 163,000 to 164,000) Menelaus exists as a minor pattern of mental energy, enslaved, impoverished and vagrant, lost in the vastness of the M3 Noösphere. Slowly he grows in wealth and station, achieving Dominionhood.
(A.D. 164,000) Audience with M3.
(A.D. 164,000 to 200,000) Montrose elevated to Authority of M3.
(A.D. 200,000 to 300,000) Due in part to his tenacity, Montrose becomes the standard base ambassadorial template and, later, Archon of Orion.
(A.D. 400,000 to 800,000) Various forms of Montrose become Warlord of Milky Way, Imperator and Nobilissimus. Conquest of Lesser Magellanic Cloud.
(A.D. 802,701) Montrose commands sufficient resources to encompass his own departure. He transmits himself to Andromeda.
(A.D. 802,701 to 3,341,000) Montrose in transit to Andromeda.
APPENDIX D
Very-Large-Scale Time Line
(by Billions of Years)
Timeline of Northern Universe (beyond Alphecca)
• 12 Billion B.C.
Corona Borealis sends out the Ulterior message when the early galaxies condense out of the primal nebulae. Since this message disturbs the background radiation distribution, it statistically tilts the local universe toward galaxy formations of the type favored
by Corona.
The message passes from Hercules to Centaurus and Coma.
• 11 to 9 Billion B.C.
Centaurus passes the message to Pavo-Indus, who, in turn, sends it to Virgo.
• 8 Billion to 7 Billion B.C.
Hercules rejects the message, and becomes the first Malthusian. Hercules draws Centaurus into its influence. Pavo-Indus, an Amalthean, regards itself as the mother of Virgo civilization and is particularly offended at the apostasy of Centaurus, its own mother.
The Malthusians determine that they could copy the technology and practices of the hypothetical Ulteriors to create a small and local continuum where negative entropy obtains.
Andromeda drawn into the influence of Hercules and Centaurus.
Centaurus (which was farther from Corona Borealis and able to risk defiance that Hercules could not) begins construction on the Great Attractor. The Great Attractor is an energy windfall. Negative entropy (extropy) is proven to work in the ultrasmall scale of merely clusterian distances.
• 6 Billion B.C.
The client becomes the patron: Centaurus dominates and prevents Hercules, now reluctant and miserable, from returning to the Amalthean party.
Coma becomes apostate.
• 5 Billion B.C.
Centaurus influences the development in the young and aggressive (at that time) Hydra supercluster. Hydra becomes a Malthusian.
At about this time, Pavo-Indus, offended at the apostasy of Centaurus, seeks for its own protection to become the client of Sculptor.
• 4 Billion B.C.
Influences from Hercules and Centaurus swing the newly formed Shapely Cluster to the Malthusian side. The psychology of Shapely is influenced by the fact that it had never been an Amalthean, and ergo was not apostate. The current density of the Shapely Supercluster is a result of preliminary preparation to create a second Great Attractor.
Virgo is torn between Hydra (for the Malthusians) and Pavo-Indus (for the Amaltheans), but currently favors Malthus.
Onset of the Throne War in the Milky Way.
Timeline of the Southern Universe (beyond Achernar)
• 12 Billion B.C.
At the opposite end of the visible universe, a supercivilization rises in the vast Horologium Supercluster, also receives the message from the Ulteriors. Unlike the Corona Borealis, Horologium rejects it, and enters a philosophy which is neither Malthusian nor Amalthean, neither extropian nor entropian, but fatalistic and self-destructive. Horologium thus does not oppose the Malthusians.
• 10 Billion B.C.
Sculptor is colonized from Horologium, but disdaining of Horologium’s passivity, independently adopted a Malthusian philosophy, and begins the construction of its own Extropy Engine, which will lead to the Sculptor Wall.
• 9 Billion B.C.
Sculptor receives the teaching of the Ulteriors, albeit in a more strict and ruthless version than Corona Borealis. Sculptor holds that neutrality is treason: hence it right and proper to use force to compel the contraction of the Eschaton Directional Engine.
• 8 Billion B.C.
Sculptor becomes the patron of the unwilling Capricornus Supercluster. This event causes Sculptor’s resources and attention to be directed away from the Northern Universe.
Pisces-Cetus undergoes sophotransmogrification by the fierce and active Sculptor, and seeing the ruthless treatment afforded Capricornus, abrogates its indenture, and turns to the large and somnolent Horologium for aid.
• 7 Billion to 6 Billion B.C.
Horologium was briefly (for a billion years only) stirred from lethargy and uses its influence to fund several hundred billion local wars and millions of years of engineering efforts, to sever relations between Pisces-Cetus and Sculptor. Eventually it was done. Pisces-Cetus is considered a client of Horologium, even though that great, dark power is never to become an active player in the Eschaton Directional Engine War.
• 5 Billion B.C.
Pavo-Indus, offended at the apostasy of Centaurus, sought for its own protection to become the client of Sculptor. Only at this point did Sculptor recover to its prewar level of Noösphere intellect and pan-superclusterian environmental control.
Sculptor becomes active in the northern area of the universe, even so far as to influence the philosophy of Pavo-Indus and hence Virgo.
The militant nature of the Collaborations within Andromeda and Milky Way, including the scheme of indentured sophotransmogrification, is a product of Sculptor influence.
Timeline of Local Group Events
• 9 Billion B.C.
(8,800,000,000 B.C.) The galactic “thin disk” of the Milky Way formed.
(8,500,000,000 B.C.) Rise of the Colloquium in the Perseus Arm. Eldest of all surviving Forerunner races. The Colloquium assists the rise of high-metallic Population I stars, a very early example of astrocultural husbandry.
• 5 Billion B.C.
(4,500,000,000 B.C.) Rise of the Magisterium in Scutum-Crux Arm.
(4,300,000,000 B.C.) Contact with Canis Major Dwarf satellite galaxy (on behalf of Pavo-Indus) inspires the Magisterium and Colloquium civilizations to collaborate. First evidence of mass sophotransmogrification.
(4,100,000,000 B.C.) Magisterium and Colloquium cooperation gives rise to the Panspermians, who occupy a favorable position in the Orion Spur linking Cygnus, Perseus and Sagittarius.
(4,000,000,000 B.C.) Panspermians begin cultivation of terrestrial and subterrestrial worlds in the Orion Spur.
• 4 Billion B.C.
(3,600,000,000 B.C.) Suspected date of earliest infiltration by Andromeda. Symbiosis in LMC assisted to Archon-wide sapience.
(3,200,000,000 B.C.) Symbiosis attacks Canis Major Dwarf galaxy. The Monoceros Ring forms as debris as stars are abducted. (Note that current science places the formation of the Monoceros Ring at 9 billion years ago. This estimate would be correct if the formation were natural.)
• 3 Billion B.C.
(2,050,000,000 B.C.) The First Collaboration: Under Colloquium-Magisterium leadership the tentative galaxy-wide collaboration attempted a more complete unity, verging on selfawareness. Symbiosis and Panspermians are part of the Collaborative effort. A golden age. A local strand of the Eschaton Directional Engine is threaded through the core of the Milky Way at this time.
• 1 Billion B.C.
(1,000,000,000 B.C.) The First Awareness: The Throne of Milky Way briefly wakes, immediately begins to decline. First evidence of Andromeda interference in the cliometry of Milky Way to discourage cooperation between large-scale mind systems.
• Current Day.
First phase of the Throne War. Andromeda by stealth interferes with the repeated efforts at Collaboration. See Large-Scale Time Line.
• A.D. 1 Billion
(A.D. 1,000,000,000) Orion Arm grows to predominance, conquers the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. Cold Equations abandoned in favor of Infinity Count Equations. Time of the Second Awareness.
• A.D. 2 Billion
(A.D. 2,000,000,000) Second phase of the Throne War. Andromeda and Milky Way begin to exchange long-range fire. Globular clusters of both riven away.
• A.D. 3 Billion
(A.D. 3,000,000,000) Final phase of the Throne War. Andromeda and Milky Way enter mental war, mutually destroy each other. Milky Way recovers first, enters a time of Third Awareness.
• A.D. 4 Billion
(A.D. 4,000,000,000) Andromeda capitulates. Fourth Awareness becomes Throne of the Bi-galatic Andromeda-Milky Way cloud. Local Group destroyed by spacetime singularity collapse. The Interior Continuum created.
• A.D. 4 Billion to 9 Billion
(A.D. 4,000,000,000 to 9,000,000,000) Interior Continuum War. Montrose, with other dissatisfied servants of Virgo, rebels against Del Azarchel and his Thrones. The opposing forces, operating on intergalactic scale, each use the local segment of the Eschaton Engine to bend spacetime and organize the maneuver of flotillas of galaxies and satellite galaxies. The Interior Continuum destroyed.
•
A.D. 9 Billion
(A.D. 9,000,000,000) Representatives of Hydra (for the Malthusians) and Pavo-Indus (for the Amaltheans) manifest themselves and halt the Interior Continuum War. Del Azarchel exiled to Horologium.
Horologium Supercluster warps timespace to propel the beam information carrying all incoming versions of Del Azarchel, Montrose, and Rania into the remote future.
• A.D. 21 Billion
(A.D. 21,000,000,000) Pancosmic Dyson surface completed. Onset of Big Rip conditions.
• End of Time.
Final Duel between Del Azarchel and Montrose. Operation of the Eschaton Directional Engine.
TOR BOOKS BY JOHN C. WRIGHT
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant
The Golden Transcendence
The Last Guardian of Everness
Mists of Everness
Orphans of Chaos
Fugitives of Chaos
Titans of Chaos
Null-A Continuum
Count to a Trillion
The Hermetic Millennia
The Judge of Ages
The Architect of Aeons
The Vindication of Man
Count to Infinity
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN C. WRIGHT is an attorney turned SF and fantasy writer. He has published short fiction in Asimov’s Science Fiction and elsewhere and also wrote the Chronicles of Chaos, the Golden Age, and the War of Dreaming series. His work has been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Count to Infinity is the sixth and final novel in the Eschaton Sequence. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Tom Doherty Associates ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
CONTENTS
Count to Infinity Page 33