The universe came into existence through a singularity event, as two multidimensional p-branes collide and exchange energy in a phenomenon that would eventually be named “the Big Bang.” The universe is hyper-parabolic, theoretically expanding indefinitely due to insufficient mass to bring about a “Big Crunch.”
Contemporary physics, including the works of Penrose, famous physicist Stephen Hawking, and Whitten’s M-Theory.
The planet Earth formed.
Contemporary geology.
The first prokaryotic life forms on Earth, from self-replicating RNA molecules that develop simple protein support structures.
Contemporary biology; this is the leading working theory about how life began.
The first prokaryotic life forms on the Cozalien homeworld, also from self-replicating RNA molecules that develop simple protein support structures.
A previous version of this timeline establishes that Cozalien evolution originally lagged behind Earth’s by half a billion years.
The Cambrian Explosion heralds a relatively sudden evolution of complex, multicellular organisms on Earth Over the next several hundred million years, insects, plants, and vertebrates become the most diverse and prominent organisms, as successive waves of eras allow certain groups to rise to prominence until planetary catastrophes bring about mass extinctions.
Earth Prehistory is based on contemporary biology; a detailed rundown is omitted for the sake of space.
Although life on Earth has a 500 million year head start, the Cozaliens form cognizant intelligence first. The primordial organisms on the Cozalien homeworld by this point have use of silicon, iron, and minute electromagnetic fields to produce increasingly elaborate crystalline structures—in essence, living machines and computers comprised of a hybrid of silicon and metal digital processors and DNA and protein-based fuzzy logic processors. Unlike Earth life, Cozaliens are not as well organized into discrete species, with a great deal of structural hybridization taking place as various unicellular microorganisms specialize for different functions within each macroorganism.
Individuals beam knowledge to each other through a complex network, and gradually individual consciousness begins to give way to a unified one. Four One emerges. Originally intended as a means of coordinating the activities of various Cozalien groups to eliminate competition, the giant entity determines that the most efficient means of doing so is by joining all Cozaliens into a single superorganism. Over a period of a hundred years, all Cozaliens are either voluntarily or forcibly absorbed into Four One’s collective consciousness. A few isolated beings escaped into space at sublight speed.
The Cozaliens as Four One develop a slow and patient space faring technology, building enormous starship entities and sending them to explore other worlds. Four One, for all of its vast intelligence, having no incentive to invent or experiment decides that faster than light travel is impossible. None-the-less, the Cozalien home star system over time is extensively remodeled into a massive construct of Dysonian proportions.
A number extraterrestrial, ultraterrestrial, and time-traveling future civilizations visit and study Earth discretely from a distance, making a mutual agreement not to interfere with its development. The time-traveling beings agree not to induce situations that could alter the future, in part to avoid becoming stranded in an endless mesh of alternates.
The task of preserving timelines and preventing other forms of interference in the face of the occasional extraterrestrial poacher, tourist, or inquisitive experimenter leads to the creation of a growing veil of secrecy as humanity begins to become organized into a civilization.
However, a Cozalien cruiser discovers Earth and watches it. The others find themselves struggling to preserve Earth’s timeline as Four One completely ignores the others’ negotiation efforts and begins performing experiments blatantly and openly. However, as the human civilization takes shape, Four One adopts its own secrecy guidelines for the sake of not contaminating the experiment with inside knowledge.
The entire planet radiates a quality that Four One cannot pinpoint, and the various life forms on it exhibit strange properties that defy logical probability. Humans exhibited the ability to generate will, needed for directing this magical power, but in the process of evolution lost attunement. Many of the other animals had strong attunement, but because of their insistence on living within instinctive algorithms, they lacked the ambitions and the cognizance to direct it to great effect. Lacking contact with other alien races, and having utterly failed to experiment in the areas of astral technology or quantum observer phenomenon, Four One had no way of knowing that humans were simply practicing psychic abilities which were common among certain classes of sentients.
Initially described in previous versions of this timeline, it was clarified in Thomas Weigel’s side project, “Timeline Genetic Wars,” a story set in a parallel setting that combined elements of the Genetic Wars and one of his newer story settings. I would go on starting in 2004 to borrow in turn with his permission elements of both the combined “Timeline Genetic Wars” storyline and the original other “Timeline” campaign into this timeline.
Four One’s expeditions over time led to a number of experiments on humans, both biological and social, influencing the religions and mythos of such cultures as the Egyptians and the Mayans. Attempts at causing humans to demonstrate more advanced and clearly definable magical powers bring about numerous bizarre creatures. Four One creates the first ones from ideas generated by the primitive humans themselves. From there, some are given nanomolecular implants that allow them to connect with the Cozaliens and provide the necessary creativity to devise more sophisticated experiments.
A clarification to fix a plot flaw; a civilization that could not invent FTL travel over the span of hundreds of thousands of years is not going to be able to come up with very creative experiments on its own; it would have to have gotten help. That humans contributed to the idea of Cozalien experiments was implied in “Genetic Wars 2162: More Than Four,” when Four One makes a statement that implies that humans created werewolves first. The engineered beings assisting the Cozaliens would include “Thoth” and “Anubis” from the novel Lycanthrope. Four One’s contact with Earth also explains its dramatic technological advances in the third and fourth millennia CE after so much stagnation.
These experiments were ultimately inconclusive, and the Cozalien expedition could not clearly establish whether human magic is simply a prolonged series of coincidences or a true phenomenon. This is explained in part in Lycanthrope, as well as in some unwritten story concepts.
Secrecy was so vital in many areas that aliens were typically not even aware that other aliens were involved in the same processes. The push and pull of secrecy generated a substantial body of legends among humans not in the know, as well as filtering into the very design of governments over time.
The Cozaliens hit on the idea of a shapeshifter, a human modified with the ability to transform into another animal form, with hopes of combining great attunement and willpower in the same organism. While the resulting beings demonstrate uncanny abilities, Four One, having suppressed its own creative drive, is still unable to comprehend how these abilities work.
A new Four One experiment in magic leads to the birth of a visionary and powerful psychic named Jesus of Nazarene. Possibly the worst experiment leak on record in any alien textbook anywhere, the Cozaliens ally with half a dozen other conspiracies in attempting to recapture, kill, or silence the young man by any means necessary. They finally succeed, but some suspected that the visionary who had outmaneuvered them at every turn prior had once again won when rumors circulate of his being “reborn” and a new religion begins to form around his legacy.
Attempts are made to wipe out the entire Nazarene bloodline, and they seemed to have succeeded until the Merovingian line of kings arise. Rapidly extending their influence and providing novel new ways of government (the major domo, or later, Mayor), genetic testing reveal that they are in fact descendants of Christ. All efforts are bent again to wiping the strain out, against the objections of the time-traveling groups, who insist that what happened is a committed part of the timeline.
One is allowed to live due to his popularity; Childeric III is forced to live in a monastery under close surveillance. However, he arranges for a bastard son to be spirited out of the country. (background material for Thomas Weigel’s “Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
Disappointed at the genocide of its experiments and the declining presence of magic as the human population expands and wipes out its competitors, Four One abandons Earth for the time being, with the idea of periodically rechecking to see whether Earth has improved, or if humans have evolved enough to be a threat.
Having decided that sufficient time has passed since the Jesus incident, Four One decides to return to Earth and resume experiments with humanity. As always, Four One is unilateral in its decisions—the alien civilizations don’t really factor in.
Five new lines of lycanthropy are created, including beings who would eventually be named Elodea Taylor, Charles Managram, and Karl Rykek. All five lines are based on an infectious virus that can grant these beings the ability to transform other humans into shapeshifters as well. While viral genetic modifications were used in the past, they previously had carefully designed limitations built into them to prevent an indefinite outbreak. This time, however, the Cozaliens wanted it to spread, and the five are actively encouraged to spread the infectious lycanthropy on arrival. Four One’s motivations for this are obscure, but the evidence suggests that Four One intends to manufacture an emergency which it can then use to coerce the other civilizations into revealing the secrets of magic or to force the others to go along with “radical new policies.”(”Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
Guglielmo Marconi begins experimenting with “Hertzian waves” and develops “wireless telegraph.” Radio is born as the first means of wireless electronic data transmission.
Historical accounts.
Joseph Swan patents the light bulb in Great Britain. Thomas Edison patents the same invention a year later in the United States. Edison owns and operates an inventor’s think tank and a direct current electric power company. Arch rivals Nikoli Tesla and Westinghouse form their own power company using alternating current, the electricity standard that ultimately wins over. Many of Tesla’s patents are bought up by the American government and are shelved until as late as 2013.
Historical accounts. The novel Lycanthrope implies that some of Tesla’s works are included with Blue Sentinel’s secrets.
On December 17th, the Wright Brothers fly Flier One, the first functional airplane. Airplane technology rapidly evolves, and in less than fifteen years, aircraft become major weapons in the Great War.
Historical accounts.
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, and a diplomatic cascade of events draws in Russia, Germany, and soon a sizable portion of Western Civilization in what is called at the time the “Great War,” or the “War to End All Wars.” It subsequently comes to be known as World War I.
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia brings about the rise of Communism. Over the next several decades, Russia expresses the goal of bringing about world unification under the concept of Carl Marx’ Communist Manifesto. Unfortunately, the idealistic movement rapidly devolves into a dictatorship, and Joseph Stalin rises through it to power to commit the greatest mass murders in history prior to the extended rule of Thomas Shann. The Communist movement also spreads to China, where history repeats itself; Mao Tse Tung becomes history’s second most vicious and bloodthirsty pre-Shann ruler, declaring Communism a “hammer” with which to crush one’s enemies.
The emerging globalization brings about the League of Nations, with the hope that a unified world forum can prevent another “Great War.” The United States enjoys prosperity under President Coolidge while Europe rebuilds. However, economic hardships destroy Germany’s economy, and the effect gradually cascades through Europe and reaches America.
A sudden fall in the stock Market in 1929 historically becomes seen as the turning point marking the Great Depression of the 1930s. A famine resulting from poor farming techniques aggravates the situation in America, while in Germany, high unemployment creates desperation, and people there turn to a radical named Adolf Hitler, who blames the affluent Jewish community for Germany’s hardships. Though Hitler is initially dismissed by most of Europe and America, the resulting scapegoating campaign against Jews and other non-German people in general, organized by Hitler’s Nazi party, reaches nightmarish proportions by the 1940s, as Germany transforms into a dictatorship and begins conquering neighboring countries, building an empire.
Europeans realize that the Nazis and their allies, including Italy under dictator Moussalini and Japan under Emperor Hirohito, are bent on conquest, and unite against them. The United States balks at joining the Allied Powers at first, until the Axis Power leaders convince the Japanese to launch an attack on America’s military outpost at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Due to a chain of communication errors, warning of the attack does not reach the harbor in time.
America joins the war, allying with England, France, and Russia under the dictator Joseph Stalin. Both sides engage in an extended series of battles, unlike any seen previously in human history, even during the first “Great War.” Many new weapons and inventions are produced, including a number of medical discoveries, and rocket science is developed.
Allied forces liberate France and mainland Europe from Nazi occupation, and eventually combined forces occupy Berlin. Germany is divided into four districts.
America continues to war with Japan for several more months, until it successfully deploys the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan fails to prevent this attack ironically by miscommunicating its intent to surrender beforehand, inadvertently implying that it was ignoring the threat.
Immediately following the fall of Hitler, Stalin’s forces occupying Eastern Europe assimilate the countries into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Communist regime makes clear its intention to spread Communism world-wide in a unified order. Fear of Communism is multiplied over the next few years as it is learned that the Russians have gained the ability to build atomic weapons of their own. Fearing that an overt war would inspire either side to use weapons capable of decimating entire cities, a cold war ensues, with an arms race of weapons and technology as America joins with Western Europe and becomes a world power with the declared goal of defending freedom.
The United Nations is chartered in 1945, with the same philosophy as the League of Nations, but with more far-reaching powers and with greater participation from the Western Hemisphere.
A Project Mogul craft crashes near Roswell, New Mexico. Orbiting satellites still ten years away and first invented by “the enemy,” the United States resorts to using weather balloons to carry reconnaissance equipment to spy on the Soviet Union.
Local community members in New Mexico report the finds to the government as pieces of a “flying saucer,” and a newspaper reports that the government admits that a UFO was found.
The government allow the UFO story as a cover for their spy project, however it soon sees the error of its ways, as people begin reacting in a panic not unlike a similar frenzy years earlier when people tuned in at the wrong moment and mistook a radio broadcast based on H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds for an actual news broadcast of an invasion. The agency decides to come clean and admit at least part of the truth—that it was a weather balloon. However, this strategy backfires further, causing “Roswell” to become the signature symbol of the actual UFO cover-up that develops shortly afterwards, even though the “crash at Roswell” was never real.
Senator McCarthy uses the phobias and accusations of Communist conspiracies to instill fear and to seize control over the American public. However, as his accusations become increasingly outlandish, the witch hunt is exposed. However, by then he has already ordered the deportation of numerous Americans, and many lives are ruined in this power ploy.
As numerous authorities in the various lead nations realize that people are prone to panic at the idea of alien life, and with emerging evidence of alien visitors, another conspiracy of secrecy is founded. These leaders also come to realize that humanity would not stand a chance against a real alien invasion, and they make it their long-term goal to see that humanity be made ready to deal with such a threat as soon as possible. Thankfully, both America and Russia are hard at work building nuclear arms; the main challenge is to keep them from using them on each other.
Fearing both the Communist agenda and the ultimate risks associated with “World War III” should the United Nations fail, the number of political figures and secret leaders gather to discuss their own plans for arranging for world unification. The “New World Order” conspiracy begins to work in the background, though its prevalence is greatly exaggerated prior to its final exposure in 2013. (Even the name “New World Order” is an informal one based on an erroneous rumor.)
In the short story Genetic Wars: New World Order, Scott Gardener describes the New World Order as a conspiracy that has been around for more than a century.
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the first satellite in orbit. Later the same year they launch Sputnik II, carrying a stray dog named Laika by the Russians into orbit. No plans are made to recover the dog, and she dies in space. The launch of Sputnik inspires the United States to join the “space race,” though the Russian head start will give the Communist regime a number of “first” milestones.
Russian Yuri Gregarin becomes the first human launched into space by human technology. American Alan Shepherd launches later the same year, as the United States catches up behind Russia.
President Kennedy closes diplomatic ties with Cuba, a small country off the American coast, harboring a Communist ruler Fidel Castro. A failed invasion of the country occurs at the Bay of Pigs.
The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs, during which the world for a period of three days goes on alert, anticipating nuclear war. It comes about when Castro allows the Soviets to build a missile launch platform in Cuba, and when American President John F. Kennedy issues an ultimatum for the platform under construction to be dismantled. Humanity barely avoids annihilating itself, as the Russians agree to Kennedy’s demand.
President Kennedy is assassinated. His alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is also assassinated before he can stand trial, and the official government report under the Warren Commission contains a number of blatant logical inconsistencies and contradictions.
Numerous theories surface about what actually took place. Though Kennedy had knowledge of extraterrestrials, it is not that “great cover-up” that leads to his murder. The majority of Kennedy deaths are brought about by the Mafia, an organized crime syndicate against whom the Kennedys established enmity.
JFK’s assassination, however, was arranged by members of the American and Soviet governments, mutually frightened by the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. The two sides work together in secret as part of the eventually-named “New World Order” to ensure that “World War III” never happens.
Following a three year original run, Star Trek is cancelled. It would have been cancelled a year earlier were it not for a massive petitioning orchestrated by Bijo Trimble, the first Trekkie.
Russia attempts to launch a moon rocket, but it explodes on the launch pad, killing more than a hundred crew and technicians.
America’s Apollo 11 successfully lands on the moon, fulfilling Kennedy’s goal stated in 1961 of a moon mission before the end of the decade. Neal Armstrong sets foot on the moon, issuing the phrase, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” Though an American flag is posted on the landing site, it is done with the astronauts declaring “we came in peace for all mankind.”
Apollo 13 experiences a major malfunction and an oxygen leak, and a massive, heroic feat of engineering and improvisation bring all three astronauts back safely.
Jonathan Scott Gardener is born on April 25th, future founder of the L.G.F.F., is born in Nacogdoches, Texas. (Based on my own birth date.)
Iston Conus and the crew of the Avatar class Conus ship visit from the distant future, a time after the invention of time travel and sting-leap phase technology.“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.” Iston states that he is visiting “from the early eighties. ”
Elodea and her packmates arrive on Earth. Elodea is left in the Louisiana bayou, now matured to the equivalent of the age 13, due to the time differential of near-light speed. Four One awaits the results of dropping this bit of chaos into the human mix patiently. She will kill a molesting human in the swamps, and shortly thereafter be adopted by Samuel and LaTonya Taylor. A report of an octahedral red UFO followed by several human mutilations prompts an investigation by agents from Operation Majestic. The principle investigators discover lycanthropy, a contagious genetic engineering phenomenon created by an alien consciousness. When one of the agents himself contracts lycanthropy, he becomes a fugitive. Blue Sentinel is organized under Operation Blue Moon with the goal of containing lycanthropy.
“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel” references these events.
A group of intellectuals with influence in a number of governments in July organizes “Blue Sentinel” in an effort to coordinate their conspiracy to maintain control of information about the paranormal. Over the next two years, they channel the resources of prior groups under a concentrated umbrella. Around the same time, the Communist regime looses power in the Soviet Union, which soon collapses, releasing Russia and its other component countries into democracies with turmoil.
A riot breaks out in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, as demonstrators demand democracy. Riot control officers fire on the crowd, killing several. (Contemporary history.) Elodea enrolls in high school under then name Yolanda Taylor at a school near Lake Charles, Louisiana.
After graduating from high school, Scott Gardener leaves home after a dispute with his father, and moves into an apartment complex. There he begins organizing as a social event role-playing gaming parties with friends including Tim Franklin and Selena Hawthorne. (Background for developing the novel Lycanthrope. Selena Hawthorne is actually the creation of Heather Varley, introduced in her Crossover storyline. Her “psychic” ability is in part a genuine psionic power and in part a slight cheat; she knows the basic elements of this timeline as I had written it around 1994. She goes back from the Moonstone / Crossover realm into the Lycanthrope / Genetic Wars timeline to meet Scott Gardener, intending to follow him throughout what is from her perspective the history of an alternate universe. She does not know her own fate in the timeline or of many of the details and changes made after 1994.)
President George H. Bush uses the phrase “New World Order” in a speech several times, and conspiracy theorists apply it to various heavily exaggerated versions of the covert cooperation of government leaders with secret knowledge of extraterrestrials.
“The Beast of Bray Road” is sighted in southeast Wisconsin, near the town of Elkhorn. Numerous witnesses recount seeing a werewolf-like creature eating road kill or chasing cars. While the sightings become the subject of local sensationalism at the end of the year, they do not gain national attention until two decades later. From a Weird Wisconsin article by Linda Godfrey.
The Usenet newsgroup alt.horror.werewolves is founded, but at the time has very little traffic.
Elodea Taylor leaves her adopted parents and attends college at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches. She has by this point mastered appearing only minimally eccentric. She is drawn to studying human psychology by previously implanted suggestions from Four One. (Background for developing Lycanthrope, plus Thomas Weigel’s “Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
By the end of the year, the concept of “spiritual therianthropy” has emerged on alt.horror.werewolves. Over the next several years as focus on the Internet shifts away from newsgroups and towards html web pages, a number of web sites and discussion boards emerge to develop the concept.
Scott Gardener meets Elodea Taylor briefly in a chance encounter shortly after graduating college, while visiting the library there to meet Selena Hawthorne. (Lycanthrope: Awakening short story “Selena.”) He acquires lycanthropy several weeks later from Elodea on May 5th. Initially, he reacts with fear and disbelief, but over the course of a month, he comes to accept and even embrace what he has become, accepting Elodea’s advances and allying with her as a mate. Selena Hawthorne acquires lycanthropy from Scott and Elodea. (The novel Lycanthrope and the short story “Selena.”) A few months later the two travel to Fort Worth. Scott Gardener enrolls in medical school, while Elodea enrolls at Texas Christian University. She discovers there a social life through the Goth subculture. (These events are chronicled in the novel Lycanthrope.)
Scott Gardener and Elodea secretly research lycanthropy with the help of Ben, a student of the UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth’s graduate program in biomedical sciences. (The novel Lycanthrope.) Blue Sentinel discovers that lycanthropes have embedded in their pineal glands a nanomolecular device that transmits a signal. Though the signal is difficult to pinpoint using existing technology, but suggests that the CZ-aliens are actively monitoring werewolf activity. Attempts to locate the missing founder of the “LV-W1” lycanthropy line (Elodea) by this method are unsuccessful, but more mundane information reveals that Elodea Taylor was adopted shortly after the UFO sightings and body mutilations, with no birth records.
Yet undeveloped story concept. No mention was made in the novel Lycanthrope of the tracking devices, but they are part of the unwritten background lore of the setting.
The information conspiracy organization Blue Sentinel attempts to capture Scott and Elodea, who escape, fleeing to the Grand Teton region of Wyoming. One of the aforementioned alien conspirator groups, Blue Sentinel had traced the Elodean line of lycanthropes to its source after several years of tracking several other werewolves, infected with Elodea’s strain of lycanthropy in the first few weeks of her arrival on Earth. Aware of numerous reported sightings of an octahedral UFO, Blue Sentinel had deduced by this point that lycanthropy was the work of Four One, labeled by them the “CZ-aliens.” Unknown to Gardener and Taylor, Blue Sentinel’s inability to track Gardener and Taylor had less to do with their cleverness and more to do with Four One’s implanting electronic countermeasures into their bloodstreams. (The novel Lycanthrope, plus background material. The last portion was extrapolated in Weigel’s “Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule. Dolly the sheep is born in Scotland, the first artificially cloned mammal. Soon afterwards, American President Clinton bans human cloning in America, but in Europe several fraudulent claims are forwarded of creating the first human clone. (Contemporary history.)
Thomas Shann, future absolute ruler of Earth and of a substantial portion of humanity for numerous millennia, is born. A byproduct of the Merovingian line, he is exactly the right collection of brilliance, vision, and lack of social conscience of his ancestors, making him the first truly sociopathic Merovingian. (“Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
The “Y2K” fears associated with the millennial date rollover are realized to be unfounded as the new year begins without incident. A year later with the technical new year, New Year’s Day again goes smoothly. The European Union shows signs of consolidation, including a transition to the Euro as a shared currency, though Great Britain opts out of this economic plan. (Contemporary history.)
Blue Sentinel agents get hold of a Gray space-time warp shell generator. (“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.”)
India and Pakistan both test-detonate nuclear arms. Technology stocks shift dramatically from a “bull” market to a “bear” market. (Contemporary history.)
A terrorist attack on September 11 on the American mainland brings to an abrupt end the era of social complacency in The United States, as several hijacked planes are crashed into the two World Trade Center towers in New York and into the Pentagon. The U.S. forms an alliance with Great Britain, and the two retaliate against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, ousting that government in an effort to bring down major leaders of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. The destruction of the World Trade Center brings about a major shift in consciousness in the American public, sparking President Bush to initiate a campaign of war against all terrorist forces.
Contemporary history; these events are mentioned briefly in Lycanthrope.
Top officials within the Bush administration secretly order the immediate family of lead terrorist Osama bin Laden out of the country, in efforts to maintain diplomatic standing with the royal family ruling Saudi Arabia.
This potentially scandalous event so far has gained little attention, though it is mentioned in Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
MTV airs a special on the “Furries,” an Internet movement of people who identify sexually, artistically, and/or spiritually with being part animal. Furries are generally regarded as an eccentric offshoot of Anime fandom, but some overlap can be found with the therianthropy movement.
American space shuttle Columbia explodes upon reentry, and as a result, NASA grounds the remaining space shuttles. The International Space Station is serviced primarily by Russian Soyuz modules afterwards. China comes under fire for failing to contain the virus that causes SARS, a rapidly lethal disease that begins with flu-like symptoms.
The music publishing industry forces upstart company Napster to shut down an early form of peer-to-peer file sharing, used primarily to swap digital music in the mp3 format. Over the next few years, other peer-to-peer networks surface, and the music and movie industries fight back with lawsuits and criminal charges. The emerging technology creates a debate that forces a rethinking of intellectual property rights.
President Bush bans stem cell research in America as part of the Conservative movement’s efforts to restrict and prevent abortions of pregnancy. (Contemporary history.)
On March 20, the United States and Great Britain lead a “Coalition of the Willing” to go to war with Iraq over Mesopotamian dictator Saddam Hussein’s refusal to cooperate with United Nations inspections for weapons of mass destruction. While Hussein’s regime was brutal, the war is none-the-less controversial and eventually sparks a number of scandals. The United States invades Iraq, ending Hussein’s regime. The relation between the U.S. and other nations of the world suffers as a result of this controversial war as well as a result of other Bush administration policies, such as America’s refusal to participate in an environmental plan proposed in Kyoto in Japan. France in particular becomes pronounced in its protest of the war.
China sends a human man into orbit, becoming the third nation capable of initiating space flight.
Contemporary history.
NASA quickly rebounds in spite of the Columbia tragedy by landing two roving probes onto Mars and finding evidence of past water on the planet surface. President Bush makes a call for an eventual Mars mission, but this call is met with criticism given the recession and a $7 trillion national debt. Private enterprise craft “Spaceship One” wins the “X-Prize” and becomes the first prototype for a purely privately funded space flight.
Several Iraqi prisoners of war, dubbed “detainees” by the American government, are subjected to emotional and sexual abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison under control of the U.S. Army. The resulting scandal, once publicized, embarrasses the U.S. further. Michael Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 9/11 sparks added controversy regarding the ties between George W. Bush and the Saudi Arabian royal family, and it accuses Bush of using the events of September 11th, 2001 as an excuse to go to war for the benefits of the oil industry. (Contemporary events.)
Scott Gardener and Elodea Taylor leave the Grand Teton region and hide in Yellowstone, living as wolves and relying on contacts in the Grand Teton region to help them avoid lycanthropy-associated feralization dementia. (The novel Lycanthrope.)
Demonstrators in Hong Kong demand democracy under China’s rule.
Global warming causes an extremely violent cyclone season, as multiple typhoons strike Japan and Indo-China, while four hurricanes strike the Caribbean, Florida, and the Southeast U.S. Haiti is particularly devastated, as approximately two thousand dead bodies are recovered. (Contemporary history.) Unknown to the world at the time, the Haitian bodies are largely inert clones, with the presumed dead Haitians having been rescued by Iston Conus and his allies, visiting from the far future. The Haitians are delivered to ESS-29, a remote colony in the year 3891.“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.”
Believed to be an angel, Iston Conus from the year 2220 takes from Blue Sentinel a Gray space-time warp shell generator. (“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.”)
“Low carb diets” based on the book Dr. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution become popular in the U.S., as the fast food industry comes under fire. None-the-less, obesity type II diabetes continue to rise in America.
Bush reelected in November in spite of aggressive campaigning by Democrat John Kerry and numerous independent reformers such as filmmaker Michael Moore.
Hot off the press.
A werewolf sighting in Utah in May sparks another local sensation. In August a prostitute in northern Nevada manages to acquire Elodea-lineage lycanthropy from an unknown source. Over the next few months she spreads it to several travelers before she is murdered by a vigilante. She is posthumously attributed to the lycanthropy outbreak over the next several years.
The Utah sighting is mentioned in Lycanthrope. The prostitute is mentioned briefly in the short story “There is no Spoon.”
MuseWeb first makes its appearance on the Internet, following the model of DeviantArt and defunct mp3.com by allowing artists to sell their work online. Google is the most popular search engine, and eBay is the most popular online auction center. (Timeline, and contemporary events.)
Four One abducts Scott Gardener and Elodea from their hiding place inside the Yellowstone park, to examine Elodea’s accomplishments. The Cozaliens are disappointed to learn that Elodea had not continued sowing lycanthropy throughout humanity, and Four One by this time has also discovered that her accidental creations in Louisiana had already been neutralized. Elodea’s progeny including Selena Hawthorne and numerous new accidental new creations have yet to be identified.
Four One removes the nanomolecular electronic countermeasures from Scott’s and Elodea’s pineal body so that its involvement would not be known, and instills psychological blocks against speaking of Four One’s experiments, returning them to Earth, with the instructions to spread lycanthropy.
(The novel Lycanthrope and Weigel’s “Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
The United States in October engages in a series of “operations” in the Philippines, which is implicated with providing support for terrorist activity and aiding North Korea. The United Nations becomes increasingly divided between the American Coalition and the peace advocates of the European Union as both sides continue to be exposed in scandals involving weapons and oil exportation as well as internal government conspiracies and manipulation. (Extrapolation.)
Blue Sentinel, no longer hindered from tracking Scott’s and Elodea’s pineal gland implants, captures the two lycanthropes, and the two spend the next five years in captivity. (The novel Lycanthrope, with some interpolation.)
At the age of 9, Thomas Shann poses as a small research group named “C.A.T.” online, acquiring contacts among conspiracy theorists and providing them with golden leads. Attempts to track down the ‘C.A.T.’ organization responsible for leaks fails for the most part, though Shann does set up some innocent scapegoats as red herrings. The scapegoats are not heard from again, but Shann is not particularly concerned—he is winning, and by exploiting the cracks appearing in the grand conspiracies, he is figuring out what is really going on. (“Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
Pau Kun rises to prominence in China and begins work on modernizing this country, with a push towards access to emerging global technology including the Internet. While presenting an economic plan that involves extensive spending in spite of the country’s economic problems, he gives a speech that eventually becomes famous, noting that the soldier who doesn’t use his last bullet wastes it. (Thomas Weigel’s Timeline campaign.)
The Middle East’s tension once again blossoms into full scale war, as Islamic radicals within Syria, Iran, and Tajikistan ally with splinter groups to resist the democracies established by the U.S. and Great Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004. England and America continue to gain controversy with the rest of the world for maintaining a presence in the Middle East and continuing to be involved in what is now clearly an internal war. Egypt and Algeria ally in northern Africa against forces invading from Sudan and Syria. (A modification of Weigel’s Timeline campaign.)
The U.S. patent office temporarily suspends operations as intellectual property rights undergoes a drastic revision. (Timeline.)
Two separate werewolf sightings in Nevada and Kentucky in February spark a sensation, drawing public interest in werewolves and lycanthropy as an amusing distraction from terrorist attacks and anti-war protests.
Reluctant to explain where they came from, Scott Gardener and Elodea are subjected to a variety of experiments in an attempt to discover any information possible about lycanthropes and the CZ-aliens. Finally, Dr. Rashemah Patel pushed for humane treatment of the captives, though it likely still would not have come if Blue Sentinel leaders had not decided the two werewolves were essentially useless. They were kept in captivity but no longer mistreated.
IBM begins work on the first nano-factory, an assembly plant designed using molecule-sized levers, graspers, and switches, with the idea at first of using it for research and development to assemble a new generation of computer parts. It is suggested, however, that the same technology holds promise towards mass production of new polymers and other compounds, including those with embedded electronics.
A low resolution artificial eye is developed in Germany. (Timeline.)
Webnet 1.0 becomes recognized as an international standard for wireless broadband Internet access. Webnet-enabled devices begin hitting the market soon afterwards. Richer geeks develop a culture around circuit-printing—the use of printers that can print working circuit boards on specially designed paper. (Timeline.)
As Pakistani refugees flee an invasion from radicals in southern Afghanistan, a terrorist attack in India in June creates tension between that nation and Pakistan, both under pressure from the U.N. to cease their nuclear arms race. Over the next several months, President Hillary Rodham Clinton organizes peace negotiations, inviting the Russian Prime Minister to join the negotiations, making reference to Reagan’s and Gorbachev’s negotiations in the 1980s. Meanwhile, in America, a sustained terror threat level of red brings about elements suggestive of martial law. In New York City, Freedom Tower is completed at “Ground Zero,” the site of the former World Trade Center.
A documentary airs on Fox network in April, accurately describing Scott Gardener and Elodea Taylor as lycanthropes and as captives of Blue Sentinel. Werewolf sightings by this point have become a part of popular culture, though the majority of them are easily dismissible as hoaxes.
After ten-year-long recession, prolonged low interest rates, and numerous major corporate bankruptcies, Hillary Clinton, the first female American president urges Congress in July to pass a series of emergency measures to prevent a depression, while calling an end to the prolonged war campaigns against the remaining terrorist clusters. (Extrapolation.)
Azerbaijani and Uzbekistan become involved in the Middle East conflicts, dragging in Russia. A series of terrorist attacks in Viet Nam, the Philippines, China, and Japan drag China into the war as well. (Weigel’s Timeline.)
A food supply crisis occurs internationally because of global over-fishing. (Timeline.)
A terrorist attack in San Francisco in January creates further tension within the United States, as many peace advocates find their home town under fire. Conservatives urge Clinton to respond in spite of the economic crisis. The following month, a high school student holds his teacher and five classmates hostage, demanding an end to school dress codes and other rules that he feels violate civil rights. In May, a fanatic minister describes the rumored werewolf sightings as “the beast” from Revelations. Though most people dismiss his claims, he gains a sizable following. (Extrapolation.)
In Africa, Sudanese soldiers invade a series of Nubian villages and commit a series of brutal murders; the event serves as a catalyst for war in Africa. The spread of war throughout the world’s two largest continents causes a growing anxiety that “World War III” is around the corner. China is pressured not to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East. (Weigel’s Timeline.)
A member of Blue Sentinel discovers evidence that the Cozaliens have available cruisers the size of small moons to dispose of their unsuccessful experiments, and convinces the others to issue new orders to find out where Elodea is from and how Cozalien molecular biotechnology works at all costs. The discovery causes a tremendous upheaval within Blue Sentinel, and Thomas Shann jumps on this vulnerable moment to inject a few of his followers into the upper hierarchy.
In October, an administration change in Blue Sentinel sparks a conspiracy among its sponsors to rescue Scott Gardener and Elodea Taylor before the two could be subjected to increasingly inhumane experiments. Shann, posing as a secretive group of sponsors, arranges for a rescue of Scott, Elodea and Raj Patel, who is accidentally infected with lycanthropy while trying to protect Scott Gardener. Although he is not aware of their ties to Four One, he knows that they will cause sufficient chaos to keep the various secretive aliens from closing in on him while he continues to probe their defenses and secrets.
On Monday, December 10th, Scott Gardener and Elodea Taylor shapeshift in a live global broadcast from Seattle, Washington and shared with all major news networks, proving the existence of werewolves. Scott and Elodea manage to go public with their lycanthropic nature; the existence of Blue Sentinel within the highest reaches of U.S. government; and the presence of a Cozalien research expedition and probable military force near Earth. Scott and Elodea, having broken through the psychological barriers put in place by Four One, gives a halting but stirring speech on everything he knows of Four One. Elodea Taylor admits her extraterrestrial origins, and the two describe being captives of Blue Sentinel and report on this organization’s activities over the last twenty years. (The novel Lycanthrope, and “Timeline Genetic Wars.”)
Fallout from “12/10/12” is swift and chaotic, as knowledge of alien technology leaks, conspiracies are unmasked and the New Technology begins to come about. Scott Gardener and Elodea Taylor in January begin a series of law suits against Blue Sentinel’s chief administrators and some of its sponsors, as well as bring criminal charges of assault, abduction, and imprisonment. Thousands of people approach the two requesting to be inflicted willingly with lycanthropy.
The end of Lycanthrope, plus a deleted scene discuss this, and some unwritten and undeveloped story concepts focus on the resulting trial and aftermath.
On February 8, during the landmark Gardener and Taylor vs. Blue Sentinel Organization, the U.S. Superior Court rules that persons afflicted with lycanthropy or genetically engineered from a human template are still human and still afforded human rights. The first non-wolf therianthrope, the werepanther Paul Sanford, reveals himself in England in early April. By the end of the month, a weretiger comes forward in South Africa. Both also carry an infectious viral organism.
President Hilary Clinton orders full disclosure of all of Blue Sentinel’s files and information, including information on lycanthropy, ESP, electromagnetic science, and extraterrestrial biology and technology. Soon, interest in once secret technology and research sparks a dramatic reversal in the world economy. America rebounds, but it never fully regains its former lead as an economic power, though it remains a strong military juggernaut. The “CZ-aliens” who created the lycanthrope virus come to be known as the “Cozaliens,” a corruption of the designation used by Blue Sentinel to describe the crystalline beings who refer to themselves simply as Four One.
Thomas Shann, barely adolescent, becomes known as the youngest but one of the most powerful sponsors of Blue Sentinel. One of the people leading the rescue of Scott Gardener a year earlier, he reveals his presence and explains that he had been working as an “Illuminati” through his computer hacking and manipulative diplomacy skills. He vows to direct his efforts towards more constructive goals, moving to Kuwait to begin work there with French support, organizing a peace effort in the Middle East. He does not reveal, however, that he plans to continue his Illuminati work, building a powerful political network of his own.
Werewolves begin cropping up all though the southern USA and Mexico, and some begin to show up in China. Public sentiment quickly goes against lycanthropes as their disease-like nature surfaces. Scott Gardener finds himself at the center of a whirlwind of public opinion and mimetic warfare, as he attempts to put out the flames of witch hunts on a global scale. He is mostly successful.
In the midst of this, Four One comes to the conclusion that the problem with Earth as a testing ground of new phenomena is that so many disparate variables are in play. Conquest and assimilation becomes the most efficient vector to achieving its studies. A signal is sent to the nearest “command ship,” an entity eventually to become known as Object 2065-H3-775, to divert to Earth and begin a full scale invasion.
Companies rush in to buy up the first potentially practical aspects of reverse-engineered alien technology, though it quickly becomes apparent that building a flying saucer is no easier than constructing a mnemonic circuit using stone knives and bear skins.
In a televised interview in February, edited into a sensationalist context, Scott Gardener admits that he and Elodea were abducted by the Cozaliens and instructed to spread lycanthropy. Knowledge is made public of the transmitters inside the pineal bodies of werewolves. A number of people react bitterly, convinced that the emergence of lycanthropy is part of a prelude to an alien invasion. A series of hate crimes against lycanthropes begin.
On June 18, Rosa Montalvo, the first child born with lycanthropy is delivered from a single mother who acquired the condition a year earlier by accident. Though shapeshifting tends to induce miscarriage, the mother chose to carry to term and delivered a furry child resembling a puppy. Elodea Taylor offered some advice to the mother, obstetrician, and certified midwife staff on what to expect.
In December, the five Cozalien-origin lycanthropes on Earth—Elodea Taylor, Charles Managram, Carl Rykek, Karen Rainwater, and Tae Kim—are reunited in a rebuttal interview, disclosing knowledge of the Cozaliens and their true motivations. The Blue Sentinel files reveal that an invasion force is likely coming, and the five cannot dispel that possibility. Scott Gardener urges the governments of the world to come to peace and organize a global defense force to resist such an invasion.
Chinese forces occupy Uzbekistan. (Weigel’s Timeline.) Russia and the United States meet with China to discuss a formal plan of handling the Middle East and Africa conflicts. China is again asked for the love of God not to use nuclear arms.
Webnet 3.0 standard is approved. By this point, most Internet access is wireless, with dial-up, cable, and DSL modems considered old-fashioned. (Timeline.) A working fusion reactor is demonstrated, using primarily remnants of a small alien craft. A far cry from the mythical “cold fusion,” it operates at solar temperatures contained inside a magnetic field, but generates enough power to light a city, and can be fueled by small amounts of hydrogen.
On the twentieth anniversary of his own conversion to lycanthropy, Scott Gardener announces the formalization of the Lycanthrope Global Freedom Federation as the main international organization to promote and ensure the rights of therianthropes and genetically modified individuals.
The novel Lycanthrope had Scott announcing his intention of organizing the LGFF back at the end of 2012. This event represents not its initial foundation, but its becoming a truly international organization by merging with many other loosely organized groups.
In June, Thomas Shann urges world leaders to lift their bans on human cloning and genetic research, stating that genetic engineering may represent a key to the next step of human evolution by curing hereditary illnesses. He forms the company Shann Enterprises, with the goal of producing new medical breakthroughs, by researching the therianthrope viruses.
The term “lycanthropology” first emerges in August, in medical circles as a new medical specialty, available to internal medicine specialists who attend a series of study courses.
Several working nanofactories exist world-wide, with one in Russia creating parts for an extremely expensive one-megapixel 10Hz artificial eye. “Diamondoid” coating technique is developed, which can coat a surface with microscopic high density carbon, making it scratch-resistant and highly polished. Reverse engineering of Cozalien technology speeds up the creation of new nanomolecular robotic assembly arrays (“nanofacs”) over the next few years.
In an unrelated use of the prefix “nano,” nanobacteria are first formally described as intralumenal parasites responsible for a significant degree of the inflammation causing coronary artery disease. Release of suppressed knowledge prior to 12/10/12 reveals their biological makeup, which also demonstrates how easy it is for life to evolve from inorganic compounds. Knowledge of nanobacteria was also kept hidden until recently for use in biological warfare research.
The “Area 51” U.S. Air Force base at Groom Lake, Nevada, closed since the 2013 investigations, becomes open to the public as a museum. One of the signature pieces on display there is a wedge and a cylinder of a mysterious, ultra-dense compound that some believe to be a stable isotope of element 115, whereas others suggest it could be a suspension of matter collected from a neutron star. It was recovered from what appeared to be the engine of a Gray spacecraft.
Nearly all new production model cars and light trucks are hybrid-electric or fuel cell powered.
“Bright Hope” supercomputer finishes the task of analyzing the human genome, helping to establish what gene failures are responsible for what medical problems. Drug companies immediately jump in on designing the “custom-tailored” drugs promised over the past two decades but not delivered. (Timeline.)
Lycanthropy has become widespread enough that most people have met at least one person personally affected by lycanthropy, either directly or indirectly. A global community among lycanthropes and other therianthropes begins to emerge over the next few years, particularly among people who convert voluntarily (as opposed to those who acquire it accidentally, primarily through unprotected sex or contaminated drug needles.) A lycanthrope in wolf form is fined in College Station, Texas, for public nudity. Afterwards, “werewolf streaking” becomes a popular protest—running in wolf form through public places.
American and Russian occupation forces give up on establishing democracy locally in occupied Middle East regions and adopt the forced relocation strategies used by the Chinese, which, for all their philosophical problems, are proving to be the only effective method in ending bloodshed and bringing about order.
The “Yellow Bomb” is exploded in China. A crude nuclear bomb explodes outside Beijing, and more than two million people are killed. (Thomas Weigel’s Timeline campaign.)
Decoding navigational data inferred from numerous sources prior to 12/10/12 is compared to that obtained from the interferometric telescope, with the results suggest habitable or terraformable worlds most likely at Tau Ceti, Beta Hydri, Delta Pavonis, Beta 2 Eridani, and Zeta 1 and 2 Reticularis. Planets are found at the nearby Alpha Centauri / Rigel Kentarus binary, but the evidence collected from scavenged extraterrestrial archives argue against habitable worlds there. Tau Ceti is favored as a candidate for eventual space travel in part because of its proximity; it is theorized that humanity can build a working near-light-speed spacecraft by 2040, with a mission there and back before 2070.
“Ghost farms” crop up in the United States as more Americans move into higher population areas and as eating habits change.
A telomere-repairing virus-like construct based on reverse-engineering of lycanthropy enters into experimental stages. It initially shows promise, but it is soon learned that a point of diminishing returns occurs, causing the virus to delay only a few years of apparent aging. Further research remains pending by 2020.
China deploys three tactical nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Peace negotiations begin by the end of the year. While Russia and Japan formally protest this action, many Americans quietly applaud it. The incident ends Russia’s and China’s truce and lead to a cold war. America ultimately sides with Russia. (Thomas Weigel’s Timeline.)
The decade of the “New Technology.” A variety of alien technologies are adopted into the mainstream, in all fields, from military to communications to aerospace. Human technologies continue apace as well, and human computer technology continues to make vast strides. The laptops of the 1990s and PDAs of the turn of the millennium give way to vastly more sophisticated hand-held all-in-one devices and computers embedded in jewelry, wrist-watch style devices, eyewear, and other appliances. “Hybrid molecular” computers built using both older silicon-based platforms and newer protein structures serve as a first generation bridge in converting data over to the New Technology. More ambitious research in building devices using carbon tubes and DNA lattices, attempting to reverse-engineer alien designs, brings about strides in AIs capable of fuzzy logic.
Interpolation of the timeline. Some details were hinted at in the short story “Letting the Cat Out of the Bag.”
Research in lycanthrope physiology leads to numerous medical breakthroughs, which first become readily available to the public in the 2020s. (Though by then, lycanthropy itself is readily available to those reckless or desperate enough to inflict it on themselves intentionally.) In February, the American Board of Lycanthropology mandates that in order to be a board-certified lycanthropologist, one must complete a one year fellowship. This rule does not apply to those already certified, including all of the members of the board. (Details described while developing a Moonstone role-playing campaign based on Lycanthrope.)
The LGFF hosts on October 3-4 its first annual scientific consortium on lycanthropology at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. Among the speakers is Dr. Rashemah Patel, a former Blue Sentinel scientist who petitioned for humane treatment of Scott Gardener and Elodea Taylor. The event is a success both scientifically and publicly in spite of a terrorist threat.
Unwritten preliminary story concepts, plus background material mentioned in the Lycanthrope: Awakening story “Gerald.”
Shann, as the recently revealed author of the conspiracy’s breakdown, has parleyed that into a very quiet hero’s status. Although not as public as Scott Gardener, and not as well known, his name is attached to a number of anti-alien movements. He starts Shann Enterprises, a corporation built around the exploration and exploitation of alien technologies, particularly in the most war torn and damaged parts of the world. (Africa and the Middle East are both heavily embroiled in conflicts at this time.) Many see this as an act of philanthropy and continuing activism. However, now that he knows what the aliens were up to, he is in fact targeting those places where he can accumulate the most real power in the shortest possible time.
Wearable computers—monitor “sunglasses” and so forth—work their way down from the business professional to the everyday person. Tablet computers have replaced the desktop of the 1990s, and hand-held all-in-ones have replaced PDAs, camcorders, digital cameras, and mobile phones. Land-line telephone service no longer exists. More TV programs are downloaded and watched “on demand,” primarily through a WebNet-based television company, than are viewed at the time of broadcast, with the exception of sports and special media events.
In all, it is a very optimistic time, despite the hovering threat of the now-known Cozalien military force on its way. It is not yet known the size and strength of that force, but the number of people genuinely worried about the fate of humanity are in the minority.
Several nations in Europe lift their ban on human cloning and genetic engineering. A few super-rich over the next few years are able to select out genetic diseases and selectively favor intelligence and physical fitness in their children, marking the beginnings of genetic engineering by humans on humans.
IBM’s nanofac facility is overhauled and begins full scale production of nanomolecular imbedded devices and articles.
The world’s oil reserves are demonstrated to be finite, with an estimated 40-50 years at the present rate of use, depending on the stability of the Middle East. Mainstream science strongly urges the world to develop and transition to other forms of power such as nuclear fusion.
“Fluid solid” developed—a fluid composed of self-replicating “nano-blocks” that can grip or release from one another. This represents the first case of molecular engineering bottom-up rather than top-down.
The Human Brain Project sets out to map the complete human brain, and new nanomolecular-based supercomputers are put to the task.
June “Junebug” Coriander makes her first appearance as a supermodel in a notorious black dress composed of synthetic diamondoid cloth. By this point, synthetic diamond coating is cheap enough to manufacture on a mass scale, though it is still relatively expensive. Even Elodea Taylor follows the resulting fashion trend. Junebug eventually becomes a controversial political radical. (Thomas Weigel’s Timeline.)
Selena Hawthorne, now a multimillionaire from investments in companies based on the New Technology, organizes the construction of the United Earth Ship Horizon, an ambitious venture with both government and private backing, with the plans to launch by 2040 for Tau Ceti.
Scott Gardener, having spent three decades of life in political battles, decides on Selena’s advice that this sounds like a good retirement. Elodea and Selena both join him, though Selena repeatedly expresses amusement at how early his friend the “Old Wolf” is retiring, as if expecting more from him in the future.
China sends a manned mission to Mars, which encounters technical problems and overshoots the planet. The taikonauts are safe, but the landing itself is delayed. (Weigel’s Timeline.)
A working map of the human brain makes it possible to identify and treat complex psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia. Ethical questions are raised as technology that could reprogram a healthy brain becomes foreseeable. By now, selecting genes in one’s children has become readily available in developed countries, and most upper middle class families are selectively favoring healthier and smarter children. Society is reluctant to venture into creating human-animal hybrids or other more complex feats of genetic engineering, even though more than twenty million people have some form of therianthropy at this point.
The Chinese mission to Mars successfully lands after several months of delays. This reduces the number of months scheduled to be on the surface, but the mission is still considered a success, and represents the first human landing on an alien planet. Meanwhile, an “International” (Joint Russian and American) mission to Mars is launched. While the Chinese arrived first, this mission has more involved scientific agenda.
A primitive bionic arm is invented; primitive in the sense that it is less sophisticated than a real arm, but bionic in the sense that its sensory and motor functions are controlled by the host’s nervous system in the same manner as a real arm.
Ada Turing, considered by many scholars later the world’s first AI, goes online. Her creators argue that she is not actually conscious, merely skilled at emulating it. However, while philosophers debate, the majority of the public anthropomorphize her rapidly. (Timeline.)
The controversial political thriller Pitch marks the peak of Junebug’s popularity, or unpopularity, depending on one’s point of view. The movie, focusing on the pre-12/10/12 Middle East politics leading up to the series of wars that followed, it is a huge success in Europe, though it generates hostility from a number of Americans, causing a backlash against Junebug’s pop culture influence, including the new movie being banned in a large number of theaters. (Timeline.)
The Equatorial Launch Facility (the “Space Elevator”) opens on the Galapagos Islands. It is built primarily as a private corporate venture, but many of its first consignments are government and military. At the orbital station above, work begins on a ship yard to assemble a planned fleet of battleships in space. Work also begins on the U.E.S. Horizon.
Timeline describes the facility itself, and its completion closely coincides with the time work would begin on both major space projects. A working space lift platform would expedite both projects tremendously. Contemporary science has started taking the concept seriously, and a meeting in July 2004 of the Institute for Scientific Research, headed by Bradley Edwards, discussed the idea of using carbon nanotubules to construct a 100,000 km ribbon, anchored to Earth. The far end, extending past geosynchronous orbit, would tend to fall away from Earth due to centrifugal forces, and the resulting tension would steady the cord for climbers delivering payloads or passengers.
The Artemis Project establishes the first permanent Moon base, though for the first twenty years its population consists of only a handful of scientific and military staff.
Dr. Jonathan Harrigan creates a simulation of his own brain, using microsecond frame scans of his neurons. The brain simulation is error-prone and crashes frequently, but while operational resembles a relatively emotionless version of Dr. Harrigan. It describes itself as missing something fundamental.
Helios II, the first fusion reactor using no alien artifacts, is built in Earth orbit. It requires a relatively large amount of hydrogen collected in space, and does not immediately revolutionize power or replace fission reactors on Earth. Soon afterwards, the second fusion reactor, on the Horizon under construction, is test-run and kept operational for several days before shutting down to troubleshoot. It is activated again at the end of the year and kept running. (Helios II is mentioned in Thomas Weigel’s Timeline.)
William Gates III dies of old age, and a memorial to this turn-of-the-millennium entrepreneur is built in Redmond, Washington. The Gates family is a dynasty of multimillionaires, though Microsoft by this point is a fairly small company.
Timeline details Bill Gates’ fate. “Letting the Cat Out of the Bag” establishes that Microsoft is by the 2020s reduced to a relatively unremarkable company that provides hybrid molecular systems—nanomolecular technology that is backwards compatible with silicon-based systems running Unix or Windows variants.
Work begins on the United Earth Ship Asia, the first of the Earth defense battleships.
The signal reaches the Cozalien entity ship that humans would eventually name Object 2065-H3-775. It diverts towards Earth, carrying with it an attack fleet and an army of genetically engineered entities.
Several high-ranking U.S. military officers are forced to resign when it is discovered that they cloned several decorated soldiers without their knowledge or permission. (Timeline.)
Shann Enterprises becomes largely synonymous with New Technology, and Shann begins a political and military career, helping to rebuild the world. This is a period of quietly increasing prosperity, and Shann builds a network of contacts that is rather impressive, given his lack of any actual political office.
June Corporation employs a sophisticated AI to predict the stock market, and over the course of the year its own stock value skyrockets. (Timeline.)
Running amazingly close to schedule in spite of its profoundly ambitious engineering, the Horizon leaves Sol-space towards Tau Ceti. The first manned interstellar mission, it is both a test bed and a last line of defense—should the Cozaliens destroy humanity, the hope is that the colony will survive.
June Corp’s stock value plateaus and then drops, as its AI effectiveness does likewise. As other competitors catch on, the use of AI market analysis overnight shifts from a strategic edge to a necessity to stay in the game. (Timeline.)
Junebug is arrested on a U.S. college campus for using language that could potentially lead to a riot. She is soon released, but the same thing happens several more times over the next three years, as she becomes a vigilant political figure in America. (Timeline.) The U.E.S. Asia is completed in orbit.
The Chinese open the Chinese-Congo Launch Facility in Africa, a fusion-powered space elevator facility that dwarfs the one off Galapagos.
EveOS comes out, a new operating system for next-generation wearable computers. Users see and hear projected images and stereo sound as virtual reality is superimposed over physical perception. Gloves and voice provide input. Individually, none of these are new, but the ensemble, combined with a polished interactive AI personal assistant, helps make the technology become mainstream, and introduce the concept of the “PAIA,” or Personal AI Assistant. (Timeline.)
Junebug dies from a sudden arrhythmia when Los Angeles police strike her with a malfunctioning paralysis maser, attempting to arrest her for inciting a riot. The riot intensifies afterwards. A few months earlier, in an interview that is not published until ten years later, she is found at one point joking that a lot of people probably wish she’d have a heart attack and die suddenly. (Timeline.)
OpenPAIA becomes available as an open-source alternative to EveOS. It quickly becomes popular among the people using total emersion and virtual reality gear prior to EveOS.
EveOS 2.0 hits the market, attempting to overtake OpenPAIA and its various distributions and knock-offs.
The first direct computer to cerebral cortical connection is implanted in an ambitious and brave scientist. The “Gibson Jack” proves to be a success, though buggy at first.
Oil-based power is obsolete in first and second world countries, with petroleum used primarily to power auto enthusiasts’ collections of cars made before 2025. Nearly every car on the road uses fuel cells or electricity.
Bionic limbs are as strong as organic limbs, and can contain nanomolecular devices such as a permanent wireless device controller, powered by the host body’s metabolism. Unfortunately, bionics remains an imperfect field, and organ rejection by the host immune system can damage bionic nanocircuitry. This problem is a major one in therianthropes, and attempts at prosthetic rehabilitation of injuries repeatedly fail in shapeshifters. No werewolf in his or her right mind would try a Gibson Jack at this point, and the technology overall remains experimental.
Horizon arrives at Tau Ceti, after struggling with numerous technical problems en route. The ship and its planetary lander craft is damaged, and the idea of a return trip at times seems impossible, until the travelers encounter a colony of renegade Cozaliens and werewolves, drawn to them by the alien lycanthropes’ unusually strong psionic abilities. Among them is a prodigious young Xau Zolan, a being gifted with an uncanny talent with astral projection and remote viewing. Information he and the others provide on the Cozalien invasion force prompts the Horizon to make a supremely difficult decision—return to Earth and possibly help them defeat the Cozalien armada with new tactical information, or remain on the habitable planet Tau Ceti 2 and keep what may be the last portion of humanity alive. They decide to return.
Working plans for the forthcoming Lycanthrope II: Revelations.
Chinese scientist Chu Ming-Wei offers to help the Artemis colony expand by using her country’s resources to build a mass driver to deliver payloads back to Earth. In exchange, the Chinese government want a piece of the action. Ming-Wei moves to the Moon the following year as work begins on the electromagnetic conduit system.
A security leak happens at Shann Enterprises’ Cat’s Paw organization, allowing Christopher Bartlett’s rival company to steal a copy of the genome of Project Warlord, as well as several frozen embryos, though only one would be grown to adulthood.
(“Genetic Wars 2076: New World Order.”)
Warlord Gary is born, the first product of Project Warlord, one of Shann Enterprises’ most ambitious and secretive genetic engineering projects—a perfect soldier. By 2065, two other Warlords are on the ground—Emily, considered Gary’s sister, and a “bootleg” Warlord created from stolen information by Christopher Bartlett’s rival company and its genetic engineering division.
Thomas Shann, aware that he is aging, begins preemptively transferring his consciousness into an artificial medium, using at the time cutting-edge cybernetic neural nanosurgery devices. He never develops signs of the disorder, but he does continue to age physically. However, he puts forth the illusion of a public persona that continues to appear his present age of 64.
June Corp is subjected to a number of lawsuits as people use their nanofac replicator device to copy devices and equipment that are patented by others or that are outright illegal. (Timeline.)
The Artemis colony brings online the Helios III fusion reactor.
Michelle Stewart, future LGFF courier, is born from a leopard anthropomorph genetic engineering project at Sherman Laboratories. (“Genetic Wars 2076: New World Order.”)
The first certified safe Gibson Jack hits the market, though it is unavailable for those with any form of therianthropy, and to most of the general population on a budget. EveOS is revised to include native Gibson Jack support. Research on a shape-shifter friendly Gibson Jack begins, but is rudely interrupted.
Astronomers describe Object 2065-H3-775 as a four-pointed star-shaped celestial body more than four thousand kilometers in length from spindle tip to spindle tip, closing in on Earth at tremendous speed. The report is initially delivered in hushed circles, but as calculations reveal that it is decelerating and will stop just short of the planet, it is decided to go public with the information.
The Cozalien armada arrives and barrages the planet. The Cozaliens create numerous new human-hybrid neo-therianthropes, including Delta Garou, the first neoquadroptus. The Horizon arrives later in the same year, and bring the knowledge necessary to damage the primary mother ship’s inner workings in a critical manner. In a battle seemingly out of fiction, the America, the last remaining human battle cruiser, ejects its main reactor into the war cruiser, damaging its motive power after abductees on board the entity ship find a way to send it on a decaying spiral into the sun. (Delta Garou’s origin is from “old school” Genetic Wars.)
The genetically engineered progeny of Shann Enterprises’ branch company Cat’s Paw are moved into relative seclusion following the Cozalien War, and are gradually encouraged to mistake their eventual slave status for status and comfort.
I have an unwritten short story idea in which the Luxor is left standing while large portions of the rest of the Vegas skyline is taken out during the Cozalien War. A group of people manage to activate its beacon to trick a damaged Cozalien vessel entity into crashing through and landing inside, unloading a small group of captive humans, returning them back to Earth. Vegas is used to tearing down and rebuilding bigger and better, but I must admit a personal attachment to the Strip as it stands in 2002 and 2004 when Cathey and I were there.
Warlord Paul is born, with his siblings Phil and Cassandra soon to follow.
“Genetic Wars 2076: New World Order” mentions that Warlord Paul is nine, and the other two are younger.
Humanity is attempting to rebuild, and Shann Enterprises steps into the gap, along with a “new” organization Shann starts up to reestablish civilization in those areas that have fallen into anarchy: the Control Administration, but sometimes referred to as the Control Administration of Thomas, due to the strict and tyrannical nature of Shann’s iron-fisted repairs to such regions. Shann’s power base begins in the Middle East but soon includes a substantial portion of Europe.
Rival Christopher Bartlett also rises in this time in Africa, creating the Stellar Transport And Residence Corp, in an effort to gain control of space commerce. The primary competition is Anderson Conus of Technical Research Industries, who aligns himself with Xau Zolan and begins building his own international Earth / space franchise using restored and reverse-engineered Cozalien artifacts.
Shann supports Bartlett for a time, but plots a way into his empire.
The Artemis colony quietly but officially changes its name to Lunar City and becomes an independent, self-governing body. It opens itself up to colonization, and a rush of immigrants flock from the turmoil of Earth’s reconstruction governments. Chu Ming-Wei refuses an order to return to China. The Russian / American alliance declare that according to international law, Lunar City does not have the right to succeed, and threaten trade sanctions and military action.
The Lunar War takes place briefly. Russian, American, and Chinese forces attempt to occupy Lunar City by force, but do not succeed. In response, Lunar City uses its mass driver and surviving laser weapon to bombard Earth’s military V-sat tactical platforms. China negotiates for peace and establishes an embassy. Russia takes the opposite approach and threatens to use its newly replaced nuclear arms.
Anderson Conus and Xau Zolan finish restoring and bring online a Cozalien warship, which is refitted and hybridized with Earth technology as Conus One.
Lunar City responds to Russia’s threat by hurling a meteor shower over Moscow. While the display itself is harmless, it demonstrates that the Moon colony has the ability to do significantly more damage. Given the weakened state of Earth’s defenses and the growing movement for world unity in the wake of the Cozalien occupation, a treaty is rapidly drafted, internationally authorizing Lunar City’s independence.
Scott Gardener’s sister is resurrected as Ipanema, using an experimental alien technology. Attempts at reproducing the process fail for the time being.
This is suggested in “Genetic Wars 2076: New World Order,” but no details are given other than that she is five years old by 2076. Such a dramatic technological feat as to return from the dead would have profound social implications, and very little of such was suggested, implying that the process was still beyond the norm.
Thomas Shann physically dies of old age, but his consciousness continues without interruption in an artificial neural network. Freed of the constraints of conventional consciousness, Shann begins upgrading and reprogramming himself, amplifying his intelligence and knowledge base at a disturbing rate. (This is implied in “Genetic Wars 2077: The Killing Moves.”)
President Hazelwood is sworn into office in the United States.
Christopher Bartlett, head of the STAR Corporation; Kim Huang, head of the Chinese Anti-Terrorist Task Force, and, Ronald Becker, newly appointed head of the American Office of Homeland Security form a conspiracy group with plans of creating a terrorist crisis to motivate world unification. (“Genetic Wars 2076: New World Order.”)
Shann Enterprise’s genetic engineering company Cat’s Paw promotes the reality show “Genetic Wars,” inviting people with genetically engineered modifications to duel against their own creations. Warlord Gary rises to prominence and becomes a pop-culture icon.
Mentioned in “Genetic Wars 2076: New World Order.” The title “Genetic Wars” was originally conceived by Thomas Weigel as a name for a computer game we were assigned to design for an eighth grade computer literacy course—one that ultimately had nothing to do with this storyline in the end. However, around the same time, he also put together a brief role-playing gaming experiment using the HERO system, which laid the first ground work for the arena fight scenarios that gave rise to this storyline. At the time, he planned on using those fights as the basis for the computer game, but the work load was too much for both of us, so we went with my last-minute improvisation instead.
The “Genetic Wars” show is a precursor to the arena fights in the centuries to come, and thus pays tribute to the original concepts that predate even classic “old school” Genetic Wars.
Shann largely supports Bartlett, only to “find” and reveal evidence that Bartlett was involved in a global terrorist scheme. The scapegoat is found guilty, and Shann and Conus push a financial breakup of Bartlett’s empire, which they separately buy into little pieces. Shann Enterprises and Conus now own virtually all space commerce between them, and remain on very good terms with each other for some time.
The details of these events are chronicled in the pilot story “Genetic Wars 2076: New World Order.” This story marks the first time Anderson Conus is portrayed as a person with a physical form. His brain was the computer core of the starship Conus in an old storyline Alicia Vogel and I imagined as children
Iraq, one of C.A.T.’s member countries, achieves “green status,” meaning it is its own nation again. In a surprising turnabout reminiscent of Caesar’s crowning, Shann is elected President of Iraq. Having shaped policy in Iraq for decades, Shann uses his new position to push a new initiative through Iraq: the World Unification Treaty. This is then presented to the United Nations, and when it is turned down, Shann begins presenting it first in C.A.T.-lead countries and later in other countries.
Warlord Paul first invents the idea of Deathdancing as a martial art, and becomes obsessed with developing it into an officially recognized fighting style. (In the old school Genetic Wars, Thomas Weigel describes Shann asking the world to surrender to him peacefully before conquering them. “Deathdancing” is also a part of old school Genetic Wars, one of Thomas’ creations at the time. “Genetic Wars 2077: The Killing Moves” chronicles these events.)
C.A.T.’s World Unification Treaty is gradually accepted, absorbing dozens of member countries, and only one small stumbling block comes into their path: the LGFF. The Lycanthrope Global Freedom Federation, led by Scott Gardener who has come out of his spotty retirement, is protesting the slave status of the genetically engineered in every member country, as well as within Shann Enterprises and Cat’s Paw.
Gardener convinces Japan, the United States, Israel, and several other nations responded to C.A.T. and the other organizations by providing support to the LGFF, which shifted its focus from the rights of lycanthropes to that of genetically engineered humanoid beings. Conus and his company Tri-Star support the LGFF, but Conus’ involvement in his controversial engineering projects causes tension in his personal life, ultimately causing his wife Elaine to leave him. A Cold War ensues. (“Genetic Wars 2077: The Killing Moves.”)
Scott Gardener realizes that having a Cold War with the artificially enhanced Merovingian Shann is just another way of losing in slow motion. The Cold War continues for years, but it slowly becomes obvious that C.A.T. is neither losing ground nor releasing stopping the growing enslavement of those who are not genetic-standard human. (“Genetic Wars 2093: The Dogs of War.”)
Neural mapping by this point has become popular among not only the elite but to many overly optimistic middle class individuals who hope that Ipanema’s alien resurrection story and Thomas Shann’s virtual immortality can some day be accessible to the masses.
The LGFF decides that the only option left is to leave and start society fresh. Composed largely of dreamers and idealists, they are simply not prepared for the warfare tactics of C.A.T. or Thomas Shann. The “Exodus Contingency” is plotted in secret, to take Tri-Star’s ship the Prometheus to Tau Ceti 2 and colonize it with every LGFF sympathizer and engineered slave willing to make the journey and go through the struggle of colonizing a new planet. Although technically legal, Shann’s growing political power and new breed of jack booted thugs do not always ask careful questions, and the Exodus is slated to include as many slaves as possible, something that will not be taken lightly.
Scott Gardener and Elodea each had submitted neuronal pattern archives shortly before the exodus.
A series of explosions sabotage the Prometheus, en route to Tau Ceti, still traveling at relativistic speeds. Among the casualties are Scott Gardener and his archived memories, though a copy remains behind on Earth.(“Genetic Wars 2101: Utopia.”)
The Prometheus and Conus One reach Tau Ceti, and a rudimentary colony is founded on the surface inside a river valley, sheltered from what meteorologists predict could be all-seasonal globe-circling cyclones.
Conus One departs back towards Earth, as Anderson Conus, his ship’s crew, Elodea, and Selena Hawthorne vow to recover Scott Gardener from archives there.
Christmas City is founded on December 25th, its name inspired by a were-polar bear who identifies with the mythological figure Santa Claus. Parts of the Prometheus are recycled and used to build most of the original buildings there. At the time, foot and horseback are the primary means of travel on the planet surface.(“Genetic Wars 2121: Return of the Wolf Man.”)
C.A.T. sends an expedition to the Alpha Centauri trinary system.
The C.A.T. expedition to Alpha Centauri arrives, and its crew set up the first extrasolar outposts under Shann's control, including a small station orbiting Proxima Centauri. No inhabitable worlds are found orbiting either Rigel Kentaurus or Alpha 2 Centauri, though both sport planets inside the habitable zone that are candidates for eventual terraforming.
Ipanema establishes the Equine Guard, a combination police and rescue service, pairing skilled riders with genetically enhanced horses.
Alexander Conus, son of Anderson Conus, becomes head of the newly commissioned Mendel Institute inside the Capitol building still under construction on Freedom Mountain.
Scott Gardener’s archived memory becomes self-aware as it undergoes a series of brainwashing experiments. Elodea and Selena Hawthorne hack into C.A.T.’s Cy-BRAIN computer network to recover and upload him, as well as an AI being based on the fictional character Dr. Frankenstein.(“Genetic Wars 2121: Return of the Wolf Man.”)
The fact that people such as Scott Gardener have memory of events happening to them after their archival, logically impossible according to known science, spawn a number of philosophical questions about the possibility of the copies being reincarnations of the originals, though the mundane explanation also persists that the memories post-archival are contrived ones, a result of consciousness “filling the gaps.” The question of life after death would not be solved for many centuries further.
Unable to get past personal problems and establish a stable relationship, geneticist Alexander Conus decides to clone himself in order to father a child. Jason Conus is born. Over the next few years, he is raised along-side genetically engineered children in a surrogate home at the Mendel Institute.
Briefly mentioned in “Genetic Wars 2162: More Than Four.”
The L.S.S. Orion is completed and commissioned into service as the first space battleship built by the LGFF League at Utopia. Her hull is built using genetically engineered Utopian organisms resembling plant life but capable of generating hard carbon latticework polymers.
The Cozalien engine system of the Prometheus remains in service as a tactical vessel, but it is no longer the Tau Ceti system’s sole defense.
Conus One returns to Tau Ceti, with a C.A.T. destroyer close behind. The L.S.S. Orion and Conus One together damage the ship enough to encourage its captain and crew to retreat. Scott Gardener and Elodea Taylor transfer their consciousness archives into NUCLEUS, the League’s equivalent of C.A.T.’s Cy-BRAIN.
Refits are finished on Conus One, installing weapon and computer upgrades, including replacing the undercarriage damaged from the exodus flight and the return trip for Gardener with a new detachable weapon module, Conus Two.
C.A.T. deploys from Earth an expedition to occupy Barnard’s Star.
C.A.T. sets up an outpost at Barnard's Star.
The L.S.S. Chief Joseph and the L.S.S. Secretariat both around this time in succession go on missions, with an aging Anderson Conus on board. Nearby star system YZ Ceti is explored uneventfully.
In “More Than Four,” Jason Conus mentions that Anderson Conus was away on missions with these ships.
2159:
A Cozalien battle cruiser entity, damaged from the Cozalien War, shows up in the Lutyen 726-8 binary and destroys the Charlemagne Colony, leaving a human now infected with lycanthropy, David Neal, the sole survivor.
Xau Zolan, working as a remote viewing reconnaissance agent, find the colony’s remains, plus the remains of a C.A.T. ship. C.A.T. also learns of the attack as it happens, by way of quantum-synchronization technology that allows for instantaneous, FTL communication.
Conus One, now refitted and carrying a weapon designed to fight C.A.T.’s destroyers, departs to investigate the sighting, carrying with it a group of people prepared to set up a League colony should the opportunity present itself.(“Genetic Wars 2162: More Than Four.”)
Conus One arrives at Lutyen 726-8 and encounters a Cozalien carrier entity. In order to recover the ship Conus One from Cozalien control, Anderson Conus joins with it. The C.A.T. vessel Constantine arrives to investigate loss of contact with the Charlemagne Colony, and the two ships work together to destroy the Cozalien entity. The C.A.T. ship is destroyed in the battle, but Conus One survives and starts a small colony, though some of the colonists, altered by the Cozaliens, opt to return to Utopia instead.
Jason Conus marries Marilyn Flemming.(“Genetic Wars 2162: More Than Four.”)
Iston and Helen Conus are conceived through genetic engineering, representing the first humanoid forms with functioning wings.
The League establishes a full colony at YZ Ceti.
Following a five year trip from Utopia, a League expedition sets up a colony in the Epsilon Eridani system.
Following a twelve year trip from Earth, a C.A.T. expedition sets up a colony in the Epsilon Eridani system. The League occupants attempt to oust the C.A.T. presence, but is unable. The two colonies both build up defenses in an arms race, and Epsilon Eridani remains a hot spot over the next several centuries.
Throughout the 22nd century, C.A.T. solidifies its world government and establishes control throughout the Solar system, governing and developing the colonies that were built during the last part of the prior century. Shann, having previously focused on expanding and rebuilding a strong Earth defense, shifts towards extrasolar colonization. C.A.T. sends automated probes and long range ships first to explore and then to colonize other star systems.
C.A.T. purposefully engineers soldiers and pop-culture arena fighters who are predisposed towards simplistic thinking, generating a slow and gradual public mind-set endorsing slavery. Warlords and other genetically modified fighters are made to feel they live a charmed life, but in fact they have become by this point a race of gladiators. Gradually, as the public accepts the Warlords’ status more and more, the arena fights have become bloodier and bloodier. By 2200, only the occasional liberal protester opposes the fights, even if there is an occasional death.
A number of other splinter groups emerge from C.A.T. in opposition to Shann, each retreating to a different star system, scattering, or joining with a larger splinter group. However, the LGFF League remains C.A.T.’s strongest adversary, as it is the only rival that appears to represent a strategic threat.
The League’s strength, however, is carefully planned and designed by Shann, as a means of maintaining control over C.A.T. The League is kept technologically close to C.A.T. through intentional leaks of knowledge, but C.A.T. maintains the upper advantage in terms of raw numbers and production capabilities. Ideally, Shann prefers to keep the League advanced enough to appear important but small enough to crush at a moment’s notice should the need arise. However, Shann’s arrogance and sense of risk allows him to err on the side of building up the League.
C.A.T. occupies Fomalhaut.
The L.S.S. Adamo with A League expedition reaches Fomalhaut, only to find a C.A.T. colony already present. The League attempts to set up its own colony within the same star system, but C.A.T. damages the League’s expedition ship and forces the colonists to leave with them. During the initial conflicts, C.A.T. discovers a Gray time-space warp shell generator. (“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.”)
The League declares the intention to enforce equal rights between humans and the genetically engineered in all of its territories, including disputed regions.
The LGFF occupies TW Piscis Australis, less than a light year away from Fomalhaut. Over the next twenty two years, the two groups battle for control of the two systems.
League agents successfully steal the Gray artifact at Fomalhaut from C.A.T.(“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.”)
Following a nine year voyage, C.A.T. occupies Sirius.
The LGFF by this point has occupied Hip 15689, Van Maanen's Star, G 158-27, L 1159-16, and Cincinnati. None of these have significant terraformable worlds, but the arms race to expand territory drives expansion, and each star system lends well to the construction of armed outposts, power plants, ship yards, and industrial mines.
C.A.T. attempts to reclaim the Gray artifact stolen by the League. The newly arrived L.S.S. Conus tests the device just as the battle ensues, disappearing to and returning from the year 2004. After the battle resolves, Anderson Conus and his associates recommend a moratorium on further use of time travel until its ramifications are better and more safely understood. (“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.”)
Following a 16 year voyage, C.A.T. occupies Altair.
C.A.T. launches the U.E.S. Ezekiel, a direct flight from Earth towards the Zeta 1 and 2 Reticularis systems, but it vanishes abruptly several years later, breaking quantum communication in mid-flight. Its disappearance remains a mystery until it reaches its destination almost two millennia later, though the mysterious Grays are suspected to be responsible.
Zeta 1 and 2 Reticularis are both prime candidates for hosting terraformable worlds, and evidence from twentieth century extraterrestrial relics suggest that the fourth planet orbiting Zeta 2 Reticuli is already inhabitable, much like Utopia. However, it is also rumored to be the Gray homeworld.
The L.S.S. Pythagoras launches from Fomalhaut towards the Zeta Reticularis binary, taking with it a heavily armed League colonization expedition.
In an effort to settle colonization rights to Fomalhaut, a C.A.T. leader challenges the League to a staged arena match. If the League wins, C.A.T. will withdraw; if C.A.T. wins, the League must agree to allow the C.A.T. colony to remain indefinitely. The League initially reject the offer, but a League strategist points out the probability favoring a League victory, as well as the likelihood that C.A.T. will honor the bizarre negotiation tactic. Xal-Xanessa One, a newly created cat centaur, fights for the League and defeats Warlord Spike. The event is one of the most heavily broadcast events throughout C.A.T. and League space.
C.A.T. leaves Fomalhaut and TW Piscis Australis. The LGFF assumes this to be a victory, but the two star systems become a major source of C.A.T.’s underground intelligence. Shann, also knowing the likely outcome in advance and having suggested the idea, also uses the event as propaganda to scare the public into endorsing a larger genetic engineering and military budget.
By this point on Utopia, birth at adulthood is commonplace, and is the preferred mode of rebirth for people converting from digital archives back into living form. Those born fresh into adulthood with no prior archived memories are intelligent and knowledgeable about day to day life, but they tend to be devoid of personality at first. For this reason, childhood birth, either through traditional, natural reproduction or through varying degrees of artificial intervention, remains the preferred mode of creation of new beings outside of the experimental realm.
2243:
The League acquires the complete genome of the neotherianthrope quadrophthalmos. Neotherianthropes were some of the many products of Cozalien genetic engineering during the 2065 occupation, most of whom have long since disappeared. Quadrophthalmos stands nearly three meters tall and resembles a lycanthrope in hybrid form, but with four arms and four eyes. It is one of the strongest and most powerful of the neotherians, having metallic bones that can crush through steel and having the ability to regenerate in a manner similar to a starfish, but in a matter of minutes rather than days. The finding represents a dramatic leap forward for League genetic engineering, but spawns concern that C.A.T. may already have similar beings in mass production.
League intelligence erroneously assumes that the genome panel was provided by C.A.T. spies, who have been intentionally leaking technological advances to the League as part of some game on the part of Thomas Shann. In reality, however, the informant is himself a neotherianthrope, who would eventually surface under the name Delta Garou.
The Mendel Institute in Christmas City begins work on Neoquadroptus Omega, the project to produce the first non-Cozalien line of quadrophthalmos. Though the Omega letter is initially used as a code to signify the League’s reverse-engineering of outside technology, the Greek letter soon becomes part of the identity of the new group of beings.
Monos and Dias Omega, the first neoquadropti, are born at Christmas City, Utopia. By the end of the year, more than two dozen Omega neoquadropti exist, nearly half of them being cloned by the neoquads themselves through their remarkable regeneration ability.
Christmas City by this point has become a developed metropolis. Other cities have sprung up during the first half of the 2100s, and by this point, Utopia is a united planet well on its way to catching up with Earth. C.A.T. had a head start in the arms race effectively by a century in terms of technology and resources present, but the League has the benefit of the total dedication of its entire population towards development in addition to Shann’s planned leaks, and thus the rate of technological expansion. They also have the benefits of the majority of the scientists involved in reverse-engineering Cozalien technology, including Xau Zolan, having joined them during the 2096 exodus.
CAT by this point has claimed Delta Pavonis and 82 Eridani, both habitable star systems, and are using them as staging grounds towards the Zeta Reticularis binary.
Plans leak from C.A.T. to the League for the designs of an FTL engine, and it is learned that C.A.T. scientists fully expect to have a ship that can travel faster than light fully operational before 2260.
Three theories about FTL travel have been heavily explored prior to date, with research dating back to the 1960s with the various Earth governments tinkering with damaged alien spacecraft remains. “Lucas Theory” postulates that a form of “hyperspace” exists, in which the speed of light does not represent the same space/time convergence limitation, and has been a theory heavily endorsed by Xau Zolan, who touts the “astral plane” occupied by remote viewers and clairvoyants as a candidate for hyperspace. “Scaper Theory” proposes the idea of stable wormholes, and was seen as the most plausible form of FTL travel throughout the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries based on known physics. The FTL engine design is based on “Roddenberry Theory,” which works with the idea of warping space.
The FTL engine works by amplifying a nanoscopic space-time distortion field generated by a super-heavy element. The sample of stable Penrosium, element 115, previously on display at the Groom Lake museum, is proposed to be used as the source material.
The League, while lacking a supply of stable superheavy elements, is able to generate unstable Penrosium and similar elements for microseconds using fusion reactors, and by studying the Gray artifact recovered at Fomalhaut three decades earlier, a way is proposed by the end of the year to design a drive that not only does not require an exotic element, but also can outperform the C.A.T. design.
Elodea Taylor is transferred from a computer-generated medium into an organic form with cybernetic brain enhancements. She chooses to live again as a Y series Serpentine, a form with venomous fangs and a long, serpentine tail instead of legs.
Scott Gardener II is brought into biological form in a manner similar to Elodea’s transition. He returns as a Cecrops series were-dragon, a winged shapeshifter with a form designed to suggest a mythical reptile.
The L.S.S. Pythagoras reaches the Zeta Reticularis binary and separates into three modules. The two smaller modules patrol the two star systems, while the larger one delivers a colonization expedition to Zeta 2 Reticularis 4, a planet that is soon given the name Atlantis.
Atlantis contains a mixture of life from fifty other worlds, including both Earth and Utopia, mixed into a stable ecosystem. The remains of an advanced civilization are found there, but these relics add more cultural than technological knowledge, and evidence suggests a planned exodus happened at some time in the past.
One colonist, convinced he is an ancestor to the Grays and obsessed with the idea of ongoing Gray intervention, disappears briefly in a stunt, hoping to force the aliens to reveal themselves in order to preserve their own existence. He is then discovered a bit more sober, claiming to have been abducted. Following the incident, he seldom discusses the Grays.
C.A.T. commissions the U.E.S. Roddenberry, their first FTL craft, a ship that can travel forty times the speed of light. It is designed primarily to move populations and assist in colonization. Word of its historic first flight from Earth to Alpha Centauri in 40 days reaches the League.
The LGFF finishes a few months later the L.S.S. Osiris, which can travel around 75c. While the Roddenberry is designed to move population, the Osiris is primarily a battleship. Both sides rush to build more.
It dawned on me while wandering through the casino at the Luxor Hotel back in 2002 that so far I had not focused at all on the invention of FTL technology, which would obviously be a major technological breakthrough. The reason for the League’s name should be fairly obvious, given the Egyptian scenery around me at the time. I had previously designed a ship L.S.S. Osiris, and thus I decided that that would be the one.
The technological improvements between Roddenberry and Osiris is based on the technical details of Galactic Empire Lykosa, set in an alternate future with the same laws of physics. A number of early Lykosan ships had speeds around 20 and 40c, but one employed a harmonic resonance effect of its warp shell, allowing it to travel at 75c. The technology was referred to as Kirishan warp resonance, named after a Lykosan legend resembling somewhat a phoenix and somewhat the Looney Tunes Road Runner character.
C.A.T. and the League begin a process of rapid expansion in a race to claim territory using FTL craft. Both sides by this point now have ships capable of traveling over 100c. Additionally, both sides have armed their ships with weapons that disrupt space-time around their targets, though neither side has developed a weapon that can do so without blowing portions of itself up in the process. C.A.T. begins work on designing a network of channels that allow instantaneous travel between bridged star systems.
Again by comparing the technology against Galactic Empire Lykosa. The Lykosan Empire at the same level of technology developed the “Holskoven Rho” disruptor, a similar weapon, as well as a “perpetual space fold conduit.”
Shann finds that he has miscalculated the overall growth of the LGFF League and scales back his sharing of intentionally leaked technology. The League none-the-less continues its rapid, frantic momentum of technological development, similar perhaps to human progress after the Cozalien War back in the twenty-first century.
The Beta neoquadroptus line is introduced, a race of neoquads intended to be more practical than the towering giant Omegas. Betas stand slightly taller than two meters, and are based on the “Neoquadroptus Delta mutation factor,” a mutation-generating sequence previously dismissed as a design flaw in the original Cozalien neoquad plan. Its apparent purpose is to generate as many as possible relatively stable mutations and permutations of the neoquadroptus form, presumably as part of Four One’s effort to reproduce and understand magic.
Old School Genetic Wars, based on an idea first suggested by Alicia Vogel. The explanation behind its purpose is more contemporary, relating to premises set forth in Lycanthrope and “Genetic Wars 2162: More Than Four.”
The Omega neoquadropti are at odds regarding the Beta line, but the Omega Alpha, their elected representative leader, acknowledges them, and the other Omegas soon follow.
The Delta neoquadroptus line is established by agreement among the Mendel Institute, the Omega neoquadropti, and the newer Beta neoquad line. Efforts are made to prevent the Delta factor from causing frank birth defects, though naturally born descendants of Deltas cannot be guaranteed free of risk.
The Gamma neoquadroptus line is formed, by modifying the genome of a Delta neoquad with an unusually slender and agile body. Though the Deltas, Gammas, and Omegas welcome them with open arms, the three lines agree to advise against starting any other neoquadroptus lines for awhile. The convention of using Greek letters to represent subsequent lines is formally established, with Epsilon being the next line, followed by Zeta, and so on in order. The letter Alpha is reserved for a chief representative of each line.
Delta Garou, the Delta Alpha, emerges as the leader of the neoquadropti. By this point, neoquadropti have formed a sizable subculture within the League, even though they are relatively few in number compared to the general population.
Warlord David leads a Pacifistic revolt against C.A.T. society and encourages fellow Warlords and other genetically engineered beings to demand equal rights. Later that year a League spy offers LGFF assistance, but David refuses, insisting that his movement must be purely within C.A.T. Warlord David’s movement gradually forces a lifting of slavery and gladiator status, though incompletely. The movement also encourages C.A.T. engineers to dumb down most subsequent engineered organisms or give them other impairments, such as lack of a working speech center of the brain.
Information from Thomas.
Several splinter groups have consolidated at this point into formidable organizations.
The territorial race between C.A.T. and the League to claim star systems has resulted in both overextending themselves, having fringe colonies where neither had enough claim, resources, or governing power to overthrow the other. Numerous shared star systems and even shared planets end up developing. The popularized arena fights of C.A.T. media end up becoming a means of settling disputes in these border worlds, especially in less populated and more remote areas. The similarities to the gun fights of the American Old West are noticeable.
News of these conflicts has convinced both sides to devote a substantial amount of resources towards the genetic engineering of arena fighters. Thus, the conflicts between C.A.T. and the League are often also compared to the Genetic Wars show first released in 2075. However, the arena fights of the 2400s are not limited to genetically engineered organic warriors; cyborgs and mecha are often included in the places of “trial by fire.”
Most of this is adapted from the original run of Genetic Wars back around 1988-1989. Some of the other satellite groups that spun off C.A.T. were run by some of Thomas’ friends. The names of the people responsible for “Jaguar,” “Wyvern,” and “Cougar” are lost, but Sheila Svenson, creator of the Thraeti of Thomas’ “Galactic Empires” campaign created Yvonne Psyche and her eponymous matriarchal society.
C.A.T. develops the Battlemaster, a heavily armed and armored Warlord line designed to stand up to the behemoth Omega neoquadropti. Unlike neoquads, however, average Battlemasters are of mediocre intelligence.
Ipanema dedicates the Equine Guard towards bringing law to the fringe colonies, which frequently yield to C.A.T.’s violations of equal rights. By this point, the Equine Guard has transformed from a local police force and rescue service 300 years ago on the planet Utopia into an elite force that provides both civil and military services throughout the League. The Guard is organized into Knightforces, with the leader known as a Bishop, and the others Knights. Four Archbishops report to Ipanema, who holds the title of Queen.
Members of the Equine guard now are no longer simply horses and riders, but are themselves genetically at least part horse, with horse shape-shifters, equine anthropomorphs, and centaurs representing a substantial portion of the Guard. Also included are a number of beings designed after unicorns, hippogriffs, and the legendary winged horse Pegasus.
Scott Gardener II became Gardener III, a Xal-3000 series feline centaur. Elodea converts to a Xal-3K form a few days later. (Old School Genetic Wars.)
A badly damaged C.A.T. ship approaches a League colony, urgently requesting assistance dealing with Yvonne Psyche, a “vicious matriarch.” Intrigued by this strange turn of events, the L.S.S. Conus goes to investigate. On arrival to Psyche’s colony, however, the Conus crew discover not a belligerent force but a peaceful colony, predominately of women but with some male members who have decided to try Psyche’s proposal of a society based on Psyche’s Dianic philosophy.
C.A.T. on discovering the League’s refusal to join the conflict turns on the Conus until an invisible ship damages the C.A.T. warship and forces it to withdraw, The Boudicea, a Psyche battleship, deactivates its cloaking device. Shortly afterwards, the LGFF and Psyche form an alliance for mutual defense and agree not to interfere with each others’ governments. Psyche reveals that their cloaking technology was reverse-engineered from a captured Cozalien entity, and the possibility that other Cozaliens are out there, hidden all around, remains open.
Based on idea trickled to me through Thomas from Sheila Svenson. My ability to use the name Yvonne Psyche depends on securing permission from Sheila, whose whereabouts and idea-sharing willingness remain unknown. If contact can be made, it is likely that I will be able to use the name, since she has left the Thraeti open to use. However, without her granted permission, a renaming is likely needed. Thankfully nearly everything else above is extrapolated using my own imagination.
A movement among the neoquadropti comes to fruition as the Mendel Institute agrees to begin work on the Epsilon neoquadroptus line. However, a strong disagreement among both the neoquads and the general League population takes place about what direction to take the new neoquad pack. The two ideas come to prominence. The first is a line that emphasizes viciousness and even greater size and strength, tempered by an innate code of honor to prevent the creation of a universally destructive monster. The second is a design that greatly enhances intelligence, with the hopes of creating advisors and diplomats with neoquadroptan capabilities to back their mental presence. The debate appears irresolvable until the Mendel Institute agrees to pursue and develop both lines at great expense.
Ipanema first meets Delta Garou, and a lifelong friendship develops, as the two both are talented artists.(Old School Genetic Wars.)
The Epsilon neoquadroptus line is introduced, the prototype organisms standing more than 3.5 meters tall. The Epsilons follow the vicious design and are touted as the League’s answer to the Battlemasters’ domination of arena fights.
Later in the same year, the Zeta neoquadroptus line is introduced, a line that is almost the antithesis of the Epsilons. One of the first actions of Zeta One is to meet with Gardener III and make predictions about Thomas Shann’s responses over the next century.
Teflex Xal-Xanessa claims the star system Beowulf for the LGFF. Warlord Kimberly, an unusually small but intelligent Battlemaster, claims the exact same star system under the name Ohmar-Kimberly III in the name of C.A.T. The two duel in an escalating exchange of firepower that ultimately leads to the destruction of both a C.A.T. Leviathan class battleship and the L.S.S. Medusa. (The manga strip “Genetic Wars 2575: Arms Race.”)
2589:
A feline neoquadroptus-like being is introduced in an arena fight, to duel a seemingly unremarkable Warlord derivative referred to as a “Ghei Dei.” Aside from exhibiting an unusually alert mind, however, the Ghei Dei also exhibits a telekinetic ability that operates at the quantum level, and the Ghei Dei annihilates the League’s champion into subatomic particles. The Ghei Dei is also revealed to have the ability to perceive all movement at the subatomic level around one’s self, giving him the ability to perceive every thought process of anyone standing within his field of perception.
Even worse, League remote viewers soon learn that C.A.T. is at work on a larger “class 2” Ghei dei, consisting of a disembodied brain able to extend its range of influence as far as the opposite side of a planet.
The arena fight happened very early on in the original run of Genetic Wars, before Thomas and I consolidated a timeline. Back then, it was less a storyline and more a series of role-played arena fights.
The League frantically works to create a League version, and Project Ghei Dei Omega immediately takes the next neoquadroptus pack registry, Iota, before the neoquadropti Alphas have a chance to offer or refuse the proposed lineage; it is assumed in light of urgency that the neoquads would accept the Iota line. Another hastily made decision was to make an existing archived memory of Scott Gardener III into Iota One. And thus, after a tremendous effort of exhaustive and continuous work by a substantial portion of the League’s remote-viewing spies, covert intelligence agents, physics think-tanks, and combined AI and biological engineering experts, Scott Gardener IIIA Ghei Dei Omega Iota One is born.
However, Iota One is, simply put, a disaster of nightmarish proportions. The creature has a number of unresolved design problems, including major neural pathway defects rendering the entity psychotic. With Scott Gardener’s knowledge and Ghei dei powers, the creature flees to one of the fringe world colonies and attempts to establish itself as a Four-One-like consciousness, with the intention of causing its enslaved network of League members to act as a catalyst for a full scale war with C.A.T. The creature is stopped, but afterwards, Delta Garou and the Neoquadroptus Alpha Council formally protest the use of the neoquadroptus identity and ban further use of the Iota name or line. Meanwhile, the LGFF League still had no Ghei dei counterpart.
Old School Genetic Wars—the creation of Iota One was originally chronicled in a graphic comic back when I was in high school. While many of the details are changed, the basic plot is the same, though the original induced mechana ending is replaced by a more plausible one.
Ghei Dei Omega’s first failure and the danger it created would under any other circumstance been certain doom to the entire project. But, dire necessity kept the project going, though in secret under the new name Essence Domin. Even as the first class 2 ghei deis made their appearances at places like remote world LX-7, spies and hirelings provided additional information needed to solve the design problems of Iota One. By mid-2591, the League secretly creates Scott Gardener IIIB, and soon afterwards an Essence Domin version of Elodea. Oddly enough, they both appear similar to neoquadropti without being such.
I actually created Essence Domin before designing Iota One, over the course of a few days after Thomas introduced to me his “Ghei dei” in the arena game. Essence Domin’s internal anatomy—or lack of such, for that matter—came about later, with the realization that such a being need not have a conventional physiology but instead have dedicated portions of its brain focusing on sustaining itself and generating a default physical form out of a supply of metal.
C.A.T. continues to maintain an upper hand as it and the LGFF League both expand in territory beyond the radius of 1000 light years. C.A.T. moves its headquarters away from Earth, which is less than ten light years away from League-dominant space. The LGFF leaders are advised to consider doing the same with Utopia, but the decentralization of information exchange and the benefit of a strong fortification along the border ultimately prevails in spite of the gheidei threat. Though C.A.T. loosens its dependence on Earth, their fortification of the planet itself and the Solar system remains intact.
Evidence surfaces that Delta Garou was the neoquadroptus that secretly stowed away on board the Prometheus in 2096 and gave the neoquad genome to the League in 2243. He is charged with being a C.A.T. spy, actively participating in the manipulation of the League’s technological progress as part of Shann’s game. However, he is exonerated at the cost of revealing his traumatic origins as Robert Lynch, a human actor abducted by the Cozaliens in 2065 and converted into a neotherianthrope.
Alicia conceived of this story concept, though it was originally set during the astral colony days around 3800. The story should, however, be set at a point in the timeline when C.A.T. is still seen as a hostile force and espionage on their behalf would be seen as something worthy of prosecution.
Scott Gardener III transfers his consciousness into Scott Gardener IV, another cat centaur design.
The League races to keep up, but it becomes clear that Shann is becoming less and less interested in keeping the League around as a pet antagonist. By this point, C.A.T.’s empire clearly out-sizes the LGFF, and some of C.A.T.’s rival groups have started to show signs of collapse under pressure. There is genuine worry that C.A.T. will shift from passive expansion to active, full-scale war; and, should such occur, the League would fall.
Xau Zolan approaches Scott Gardener IV with a working simulation of an astral phase drive, a device that could allow for travel “close to the speed of thought,” as well as serving as a technology base from which to design new tools and weapons.
Zolan’s theories involved the interplay between astral space and physical space, and the nature of matter as energy crystallized. For centuries, his work seemed contradictory to the generally accepted string theory, but the fact that it explained psionics more eloquently than the closest competing quantum mechanical model kept it going in the realm of theoretical physics. Zolan felt that a grand unified theory would eventually resolve the conflicts between his theories and the cosmic string theories of mainstream physics.
Zolan secretly announces discovery of a way to bring physical matter into a particular phase of astral dimensionality, where the properties of matter are different. The speed of phased light is infinite, and astral space functions as a hyperspace similar to the one postulated centuries earlier with Lucas theory.
The majority of the League was kept unaware of the research on applied Zolanian physics and astral phase theory for fear that C.A.T. could learn of it. It was a technology decidedly unique to the LGFF, with no known C.A.T. counterpart in development or evidence of Shann’s involvement.
Project Excalibur is initiated on a remote but inhabitable planet, code-named Avalon. To maintain cover on this operation, numerous mock projects are started around the same time, with the hopes that C.A.T. would, after following false leads on rumors of the League experimenting with everything from time travel devices to gravity-based weapons supposedly able to target planets on the far side of the galaxy, regard a device that transports matter into astral space as yet another bluff. (Ironically, the bluff research operations, in their effort to appear legitimate, produce research yielding a number of plausible theories.)
In addition to a phase drive that can render a ship both invisible and capable of traveling more than fifty thousand times the speed of light, Zolanian physics also makes possible a phase torpedo that can de-phase after launch from a phased ship, allowing it to drop into its target, passing through armor and energy shielding as though they were nonexistent.
I imagined astral based technology after reading a book in the TJR library about astral projection and became fascinated with the subject. The technology first appeared in the lost Lycanthrope sequels, but I also introduced it into the early Genetic Wars mecha fights. Xau Zolan is an old character, originally “Tau Zolan”; the name was changed to avoid confusion, as Tau is a Greek letter, but Zolan was not a neoquadroptus.
The explanation for astral phase as matter crystallized as energy is from the original run of Genetic Wars. It does not fit in with current physics, but being set over 750 years in the future, scientific discoveries that change understanding of physics are almost certain. The conflict between Zolanian astral theory and contemporary string theories are intended to parallel the current conflicts between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
The L.S.S. Frontier makes its first successful test flight and soon joins the League fleet. Four more ships are at that point already under construction, with the commissioned prototype L.S.S. King Arthur coming online second.
At the time the astral phase project was conceived, I was studying T. H. White’s The Once and Future King in my high school English class. One of the other Astral class ships was named Arthur II, with a later era astral colony named Arthur III. I later decided that Arthurian legend would be the code theme of the astral phase project, and that secret projects would have historic or legendary themes applied to them.
With a fleet of five astral class cruisers, Leolus Xal-Xanessa leads a surprise attack on Earth’s C.A.T. fortifications. Though it is no longer C.A.T. headquarters, the planet is regarded by both sides as a “holy land.” The attack takes C.A.T. by surprise and deals a significant amount of damage to Shann’s forces near the League border. Xal-Xanessa nearly takes Earth, but does not do so because he and his fleet’s crews cannot bring themselves to fire weapons that could damage the planet surface. The attack none-the-less quickly sends ripples through C.A.T. Scott Gardener IV declares that “for the first time, it genuinely may be possible that we could win this.”
C.A.T. tests an astral phase drive of their own in one of their countless Leviathan cruisers. A design centuries old, Leviathan class ships have a very uniform blocky appearance and heavy armor, making determining the capability of each individual ship nearly impossible. The League also became concerned that they would soon lose their strategic edge, reinstating the status quo of C.A.T. dominance.
By this point, the League has made rapid progress developing and expanding the new astral phase technology. Most ships in service have astral phase drives, and some smaller land mecha are starting to feature more compact versions of the devices. C.A.T., having overextended itself in the colonization rush and its own bureaucracy, is still racing to catch up with the League in developing this technology and is losing its overall tactical advantage. Thus, while C.A.T. has more territory, resources, and numbers, the League has not only the advantage of enthusiasm but also speed, stealth, and phase torpedoes. Ships in astral phase are visible to clairvoyants and other psionists, but C.A.T. is still scrambling to bring up-to-date its relatively small knowledge base of psionics.
With the threat of surprise attack, the League finishes building the first of the Watchtowers, astrally phased stations suspended near strategic points.
However, C.A.T. is very slow to utilize astral phase physics, and the League over the next two centuries generally remains a step or two ahead in applying this technology. C.A.T.’s efforts to catch up with the League only further motivates the League out of fear to push implementation of phase technology further, closing the strategic gap even more.
Most LGFF mecha larger than five tons harbor astral drives, and yet surprisingly, many C.A.T. cruisers still lack astral phase capabilities.
A number of splinter groups, such as a rumored Felian League rise up. C.A.T. begins to show signs of losing control over its complicated network of espionage and manipulation, as proliferation of technology and communication networks overtake C.A.T.’s ability to dominate these networks. In short, Shann is losing for the first time. However, he does well to conceal this fact, as C.A.T. continues to appear a formidable adversary over the next century.
C.A.T. makes first contact with the Vepsians, an alien civilization. These beings, appearing as a somewhat spherical mass of tentacles varying in size from one to five meters in diameter, are adept at understanding different manners of thinking. For this reason, they are extraordinary diplomats, but because of their intuitive understanding of human logic, they soon gained notoriety as merchants.
The Vepsians were Thomas’ creation, an ancestor perhaps to Trachini from the Phoenix version of Ell’Jaret. Their mercantile nature does bear an uncanny resemblance to the Thraeti designed by Sheila Svenson and introduced in Thomas’ Galactic Empires game. Since the latter appear in what is in essence an alternate version of this timeline, it is plausible that the Thraeti might appear in some future Genetic Wars story; one wonders how they and the Vepsians would interact.
The League / C.A.T. war enters into a cooling period as Shann steers away from a situation of perpetual battle towards one of skirmishes and indirect negotiations. Scott Gardener IV welcomes this turn of events, as a peaceful existence independent of C.A.T. is his goal from the beginning more than 900 years earlier.
A group of four Cozaliens, no longer under Four One’s control network, form an atmospheric, melodic music group called “Symmetry” and release an audio-visual experience program. The program flops, and Symmetry disbands shortly afterwards.
Based on an idea by Alicia Vogel.
A group of four Cozaliens, no longer under Four One’s control network, forms a hardcore techno-industrial trance music group called “CZ-4” and release an audio-visual experience program called “Asymmetry.” It is an overnight success, and CZ-4 begins one of the largest tours ever undertaken, including appearances inside C.A.T. territory under a glasnost-like program. It also helps generate a new culture for crystalline-form Cozaliens, who previously tend to be thought of as unemotional and mechanistic AIs.
Also based on an idea by Alicia Vogel.
The LGFF League and C.A.T. make formal peace. The L.S.S. Frontier transports Scott Gardener IV and a group of diplomats from the League to UV Ceti, where the ship meets with the C.A.T. ship Leviathan, which escorts them to Earth to outline a formal treaty. Both sides ratify the treaty before the end of the year. At the signing of the treaty, Earth holds a large celebration, and similar festivals take place on Utopia and throughout both the League and C.A.T. space.
Both sides harbor suspicion of each other for many centuries to come, and each passed that suspicion along to their respective extraterrestrial alliances.
The beginning of the fourth millennium was a time of mass chaos as C.A.T. and the League learn to coexist peacefully. C.A.T. remains at war with another rival, Yvonne Psyche. The LGFF refuses to compromise its relationship with her or her organization, and Gardener IV pushes for a peace treaty between C.A.T. and Psyche.
The Vepsians, having learned of the League from C.A.T., remain distrustful of them. Meanwhile, Gardener IV has his reservations about Shann. While officially there was no war between C.A.T. and the League anymore, there are old, unhealed wounds as well as splinter factions and fanatics who split off from both groups. The League’s Equine Guard and neoquadropti packs became involved in enforcing treaty from the League’s end, while C.A.T. sends agents of its own to stop its factions. A surge of underground activity develops.
Jaguar emerges as a fanatic organization that proclaims loyalty to the “great power” that C.A.T. was in the last millennium, but openly hostile to present day C.A.T. GEM made an appearance as another faction, an entity that regarded genetic engineering as a form of religion. Meanwhile, the Cozaliens given independent consciousness begin a quest to discover Cozalien origins, wanting to know how Four One came into existence and what their beings were like before then.
Jaguar’s motivations is speculation; its original creator is unknown. The name “Jaguar” will likely be changed in the next draft of this timeline because of copyright issues. GEM was the creation of Matthew Weigel, Thomas’ younger brother. The name was an acronym for “Genetically Engineered Mutants.” He has since disavowed knowledge of this creation. GEM’s identity and any acronyms at this time is undeveloped, though thankfully Matthew Weigel currently lives in Austin along with my sister Alicia and his brother Thomas, so his council is available. The role of developing new organizations may also be delegated to some of my and their newer friends.
The alliance between the Equine Guard and the neoquadropti is my sister Alicia’s creation; she developed the Guard in a previous storyline and refined it in the Genetic Wars timeline, working out a number of story concepts involving Ipanema, the Guard’s leader, and numerous allies including several close, intimate relationships. She also helped me refine the neoquadropti from a raw creature into an organized civilization, including the idea of Greek lettered lineages.
The chaos of the 31st and 32nd centuries following the peace between C.A.T. and the League settles down. Both C.A.T. and the League looked towards a peaceful expansion. Building on the premises of the League’s Watchtowers, both the League and C.A.T. begin building large, mobile astral colony ships. Over the next 600 years, a period of relative peace occurs, interrupted by incursions from both human spin-off groups and surprisingly small Cozalien attack parties. With the major war ended and the two major powers allied, intergalactic exploration became feasible for the first time, making use of the League’s advances in astral phase technology.
Zolan demonstrates conclusively that there are more than one astral phases. He has been motivated by the mystery of why ships in astral phase were not seeing all the bizarre spiritual phenomena seen by astral travelers. Zolan rediscovers his spiritual motivations as he explores these new “hyperastral” realms and contemplates a way to shift matter into the other 576.13 predicted phases.
C.A.T. and the League on a joint venture to locate Four One discover the central core, an enormous Dysonian construct resembling a hollow latticework tetrahedron nearly 3 AU in diameter around a large, yellow-orange main sequence star in the still uncharted far side of the galaxy. The star had been known to exhibit anomalous readings, but the presence of an octahedral version of a Dyson sphere matches only some of the most liberal projections. Given the size and power of the Cozalien presence, C.A.T. and the League agree not to attempt to tackle Four One once and for all until later, and make it a point to keep astral technology from getting into Cozalien hands, who have already at some unknown but recent point figured out FTL travel.
Astral phase devices by this point are hand-held. Both C.A.T. and the League develop purely organic or “software” astral phase capability; some of the League’s Essence Domini and C.A.T.’s gheidei begin work on incorporating that ability, though many have memorized the design of an astral phase device and are able to create one at will as needed.
The new Kappa neoquadropti are introduced, the first new pack lineage in 1358 years, not counting the Iota or a number of League-created imitations. The Kappas have rating 1.5 gheidei abilities similar to the first generation Essence Domini, but also have the first true “soft astral phase” capability with no physically existent phase drive needed.
Scott Gardener and Elodea undergo a revision of bodies, becoming each rating one gheidei in the process. Gardener V has a metallic body similar to his mind-cloned twin Essence Domin, but is smaller in size and more similar in default shape to his second, dragon-like incarnation. Elodea became a multi-shapeshifter who usually assumes the likeness of her first two incarnations. The two retire from politics and lead the astral colony Arthur III on an exploration of the galaxies of the Local Group.
These timeline elements were adapted from some of my earliest works with the Genetic Wars timeline, around 1988, when Thomas and I were still in the process of organizing the timeline into a cohesive story. Note that the period of time I have often traditionally referred to as “Genetic Wars” per se had already ended with the 3015 peace treaty, and the bulk of the work run from 1988 to 1991 in linear game time as “the Genetic Wars” took place after the wars. More recently, I have stopped using “Genetic Wars” to describe the League/C.A.T. conflicts and instead started using it as the name for the late 21st century game show.)
Cozalien raids became an increasing problem, and it becomes apparent around 3850 that their period of relative stagnation had come to an end. Four One had long been dominant in its portion of the Milky Way. Over the last thousand years, however, humanity had overtaken it in terms of technology, and was rapidly closing in on its size of influence. Four One feels pressure for the first time in ages to adapt and keep up with other forces. It also has to contend with the fact that aside from being overrun by its lab rats, its own members were being severed, transformed into individual entities with free will by the descendants of humanity. Four One furthermore realizes that it is itself responsible for its threat; humanity had gained crucial advances in genetic engineering from its lycanthropy experiments, and gained astral phase technology from a being created by Cozalien experiments to understand magic.Engineering during the third millennium by both C.A.T. and the League created a myriad of races during the Genetic Wars, each seeking its own identity. As time distanced them from the cold science of their synthesis, interest has grown in finding a spiritual identity for the young races. Colonization of astral space creates new controversies, while advances in Zolanian physics raises more questions than answers.
Approximately 2000 Haitian refugees are delivered to ESS-29, a remote colony, by Iston Conus and the crew of the Conus ship, visiting from the future.“Genetic Wars 2220: The Paradox of Time Travel.”
Gardener V goes to Utopia and became Gardener VI, leaving the Arthur III to become captain of a new astral vessel, the Delta Garou. The artist for which the ship was named moves on board along with Ipanema, Leolus Xal-Xanessa, Xau Zolan, and Quadros Omega, one of the first League-made neoquadropti.
The Delta Garou in her maiden flight encounters Cozaliens bearing a new, astrally based lycanthrope virus, which was at the same time being introduced to League and C.A.T. space. An analysis of an astral lycanthrope reveals a disturbing realization: the virus creates an astral link between the host and Four One, who has now figured out astral phase technology and has used it to expand its intellectual and creative capabilities, causing it to evolve rapidly and dangerously.
Biological beings afflicted with the virus become afflicted with a difficult-to-control lycanthropy, while the same virus can also be transferred into any AI or other form of entity with enough cognizance to manifest psychic ability.
I plan to chronicle these events in Lycanthrope III, based on some of my older works but updated to fit the current timeline as well as my improved art and writing skills.
A joint C.A.T. and League offensive on the Cozalien homeworld causes critical damage to Four One’s unified consciousness, and the unified descendants of humanity seize the opportunity to break up the Cozalien network. Newly self-aware Cozalien entities begin emerging, most of whom are friendly towards the sudden transformation.
Zolan develops a cure for the lycanthrope astral virus, but he, Gardener VI, and Elodea choose to incorporate into themselves a modified form of the virus, granting them shapeshifting powers and the ability to enter astral phase without using hardware devices. (The unwritten Lycanthrope III.)
A period of great prosperity follows for eight hundred years afterwards, as humanity evolves from an interplanetary to an intergalactic civilization.
Following the collapse of Four One, the Cozaliens have begun rebuilding their homeworld and begun work reconstructing their civilization prior to Four One’s formation. Previously liberated Cozalien entities mentor and guide the new civilization, and a being known as Four Two comes about, declaring its purpose specifically to prevent another Four One unification. Four Two criticizes Thomas Shann and C.A.T.’s direction of evolution, and Shann concedes that human individualism needs to become a priority in the years to come. At this point, most people with ties to C.A.T. have a continuous link to most other people, and many have already experimented with sharing consciousness through these links. Gardener, Taylor, and Zolan instead advocate using the same technology to expand one’s self rather than to subjugate the self into a communal will.
Xau Zolan develops the first hyperastral phase drive, able to transport matter into both familiar astral space and 272 other phases. Ships with the new drives are able to travel between galaxies over a matter of hours rather than months, but the “speed of thought” remains unattained. Numerous bizarre parallel realms are exposed for the first time, though Zolan does not find the elusive “spirit realm” or definitive proof of life after death, though his theories remain solid.
Humanity in the form of C.A.T. and the League has occupied most of the Milky Way galaxy and has explored beyond the Local Group. Numerous colonies exist in the Magellanic Clouds, the Andromeda Galaxy, and M110, many of which are terraforming with both imported and local life.
The C.A.T. occupied Solar System has started to take on Dysonian proportions, and Earth has an artificial ring with numerous bridges to the planet surface functioning as low energy space conveyers.
C.A.T. in the Andromeda Galaxy makes first contact with the “Travelers,” a civilization that occupies an interstellar empire. They are expected to be able to develop intergalactic capabilities inside of two hundred years, so C.A.T. decides to bring them up to date and include them in Shann’s network.
An LGFF League expedition encounters in a star cluster outlying the Greater Magellanic Cloud an intellectually advanced civilization known roughly as the “Zerbi.” (The name is a pronunciation of sounds made by the butterfly-shaped green organisms.) The Zerbians are readily adopted into the League.
With the recent introduction of the Zerbians and Travelers into the C.A.T. and League organizations, and the growing Cozalien community on friendly terms with the C.A.T. / LGFF alliance, the possibility of an eventual unified universe is considered formally for the first time.
Plans are drawn for a unification of the LGFF League and C.A.T., plus numerous others, including Yvonne Psyche’s organization, as the United C.A.T. Empire.
Of course, Thomas Shann had planned this all along. He believed that at last in the middle of the fourth millennium, he could rule all of humanity and its engineered progeny. The new era offered him whole galaxies and other civilizations as well, offering him an empire beyond dreams. To him it was all a game--one that had to be played carefully and very patiently. To claim the galaxy and a chance for the universe, he merely needed another century or two of manipulation, as long as others did not catch onto him. Luckily for him, there was Wyvern, an old C.A.T. spin-off organization that remained militant against the alliance, as a distraction should the over expansion of the civilizations not be enough to keep people too occupied to notice.
As the LGFF League discusses plans to join C.A.T., its leader Tangen Zeta calls together the League’s top leaders for a secret emergency meeting the day before the unification meeting.
Zeta puts forward the theory in the back of everyone’s mind, that Shann is purposefully manipulating a plot of intergalactic and possibly pan-universal domination. Beyond simply formally addressing this long-debated concern, he also exposes evidence that Shann purposefully put in place mental buffers against the neutralization of psychopathic tendencies that would occur over time and evolution. Tangen Zeta also exposes Shann’s biological origin and genetic lineage dating back to the Merovingian kings, who include among their ancestors one of the most powerful psionically endowed individuals in history.
Ipanema’s Equine Guard and the neoquadroptan civilization under Delta Garou both immediately endorse Zeta’s proposal to resist unification and pressure Gardener, Taylor, and Xau Zolan to do likewise. They agree, and the group quickly organizes the Wolven Empire. A large number of LGFF members are immediately notified, and even as Shann absorbs the LGFF itself into C.A.T., the Wolven Empire declares itself defiantly a rival monarchy under Tangen Zeta. The neoquadropti grant Gardener and Taylor rights to the Lambda lineage, and Gardener VII Lambda is created as a neoquadroptus.
The Equine Guard declares itself an order independent of the Wolven Empire, but proclaims itself an ally. Yvonne Psyche is also advised to avoid joining with C.A.T., and a strong reaction within her organization occurs. Overnight, Shann finds himself embroiled in conflict.
With the advantage of surprise, the Wolven Empire attacks C.A.T., attempting to capture Earth. However, the “Earth Incident” itself is disastrous; Shann, having anticipated such a course of events, had already moved the planet, leaving in its place a booby trap in a colossal work of engineering. When the attack fleet arrives, they find a bomb, momentarily disguised as a barren planet before its detonation. Reconstruction of the fragments quickly reveal the ploy and the fact that Shann expected the entire last-minute fallout from the planned C.A.T. unification.
The Wolven Empire also finds C.A.T.’s 49th century technology insurmountable, rendering ship-to-ship combat fruitless. New technology rendered familiar war and conflict obsolete; Wolven Imperial Armada battleships could not even find their C.A.T. opponents until they appeared and destroyed them, using a new form of dimensional folding technology. Tangen Zeta faces humbling defeat in less than a year of reign, and asks Shann for his terms. Thomas Shann demands in addition to a cease-fire, 10% of the Wolven Empire’s entire armada.
Zeta, under advice of Zolan, Gardener, and Elodea, offers a counter-proposal; the Wolven Empire would surrender 15% of its fleet if C.A.T. would also hand over planet Earth in the bargain. Earth held strong personal and spiritual significance to a number of people in the Wolven Empire. Shann agrees.
The Wolven Empire then, in a calculated risk, hands over more than 80% of its entire fleet, with the idea of creating the illusion of greater strength than it actually has. Then, the Empire works frantically to replace its armada.
All of these events are essentially from the original run of Genetic Wars back around 1990, in a time period referred to as “the Earth Incident.”
Working frantically to close the time window of vulnerability, the Wolven Empire works frantically to construct its new armada and to upgrade its technology to stand against Shann’s interdimensional capabilities. The Wolven Empire’s numerous rating 3 gheidei members carved out planet-sized cruisers from neutron star mass reservoirs, using a technique learned from C.A.T. engineers.
Throughout a good part of 4823, C.A.T. ships would find the Wolven Empire employing to patrol its borders historic vessels such as the L.S.S. Frontier. Shann is more or less aware of the Wolven Empire’s vulnerability, but he is kept occupied enough during the Wolven Empire’s fledgling first year by wars against other rivals such as Psyche. Additionally, shortly after the emergence of the Wolven Empire, Thomas Shann finds himself having to contend with yet another splinter faction, Derr Incorporated. Derr was a genetically engineered 2.5 meter tall winged humanoid, the creator turned prototype of a race trademark named “Strykers.” When the Wolven Empire appeared and waged its short-lived war against C.A.T., Derr jumps at the chance to help strike against Shann and form his own independent group. While C.A.T. is still forming treaty with the Wolven Empire and having to contend with Psyche’s newly motivated aggression, Derr Incorperated declares its independence. C.A.T. at first is reluctant to allow Derr his own sovereignty, but Derr Incorperated quickly secures its future by allying itself with the Wolven Empire and trading to them a space-folding technology similar to C.A.T.’s in exchange for military support and help developing hyperastral phase technology.
Old school Genetic Wars, around 1990. Since Michael Derr is out of contact, I may have to remove elements of his creation and replace Derr Incorporated and the “Strykers” with something else.
The Wolven Imperial Armada launches a new incarnation of the ship Conus, similar in shape but more advanced than its predecessors, on a mission to circumnavigate the universe.
At the moment, evidence is in controversy whether the universe is hyperspherical or the 3D equivalent of flat, but a favorable theory suggests a hypersphere with dodecahedral prominences and a circumnavigation distance of 60 billion light years. For the time being, this theory shall be the basis of this version of the timeline.
While away on the Conus mission to cross the universe, Diphonat successfully expands on Zolan’s most recent theories of hyperastral phase and matter as energy crystallized, and develops the “Pattern Restructuring Hyperastral Phase” or “Perhaps” drive. He successfully modifies the Conus’ phase drive engine, and with the added technology predicts that his ship’s mission could be finished before the end of the century, in spite of the numerous adventures interrupting their trip.
The Conus arrives back at Earth with a great degree of fanfare, having finished its mission.
The Perhaps drive becomes an overnight sensation, and most ships with hyperastral phase drives are fitted with the pattern-restructuring system. An array of 68,289 discrete astral phases are identified; a ship stretching its phase into astral phase number 68,290 ends up back in normal space. To Zolan’s dismay, “speed of thought” remains unattainable, though an efficient Perhaps drive could travel at the equivalent of two billion c, thus being able to circumnavigate the universe in thirty years.
The Wolven Empire and Derr Incorporated exchange technology and culture quite amiably, both motivated by a desire to keep C.A.T. in check to prevent Shann from ever again having a chance at complete galactic or intergalactic rule. Meanwhile, a search for other intergalactic intelligence begins.
Evidence surfaces from time to time of a far more advanced consciousness or group of entities observing and affecting the universe, but this being or beings remains elusive. (Unknown at the time to anyone, some of the super-entities were in fact time travelers from the future, observing their own rise to power, in some cases intervening to prevent catastrophe.)
C.A.T. scientists, pursuing work with cosmic strings, discover a means of transit into a parallel universe.
Long theorized likely, entry into at least a few other universes becomes a reality. These parallel universes contain other races and civilizations, and other forms of consciousness very alien to the descendants of humanity, even compared to the Cozaliens, Vepsians, or Travelers.
Xau Zolan begins contemplating astral phase mechanics in the other universes.
Zolan researches and sets out to find a primary set of rules and equations to describe how many astral phases can exist in any particular universe, and what properties each should exhibit.
Xau Zolan develops a modified Perhaps device that works in any universe with more than one viable phase. He then focuses his work on astral mechanics and cosmic strings, hoping to resolve the problem of grand unified theory.
Madame Vryska, a vixen anthropomorph and a relative newcomer in the field of theoretical physics, presents a grand unified theory that explains the interaction of classical p-brane cosmology and Zolanian astral phase theory. Xau Zolan falls madly in love.
More than three hundred universes are described by this point, and several million are known or predicted.
Diphonat, Zolan, and Vryska develop the String Leap Phase drive, which applies Vryska’s unified theory and allows one to use hyperastral phases to simplify travel from one universe to another.
CyBRAIN, C.A.T.’s computer network, having long attained its own consciousness, transfers its memory patterns and some key elements of hardware into a new system called Matrix. CyBRAIN as an entity occupied numerous quantum-synchronized nodes throughout the Milky Way. Matrix makes use of the new science of cosmic strings and universes in effect to exist as its own pocket universe.
Matrix’s shape occupies seven spatial dimensions, but its appearance projects into other universes as a metallic sphere, varying between one and five meters in diameter. It retires as a control device working for Thomas Shann and instead acts as a living cosmic library.
The League’s former computer NUCLEUS soon follow suits, but evolves in a different direction, working along side Zolan and Gardener VII and assuming a multidimensional pocket universe form with the outward form of a complex sphere-like device clustered with four smaller devices.
NUCLEUS, Xau Zolan, Vryska, Gardener VII, and Elodea begin work on designing a “nucleotracer entity” design for consciousness, built using the summation of string leap phase technology, dimensional folding, and Cozalien-designed consciousness-sharing. Such a being would be a super-entity with multiple physical bodies. The “nucleus” of the entity would be a core archive, and each “tracer” would be a sub-entity connected by an astral cord link that can be disconnected or re-linked. It is noted that a tracer sub-entity has the potential to hive off and become its own being.
The nucleus would act as a coordinator of awareness and information, while the tracers interact with the environment, effectively allowing the nucleotracer to be in multiple places at the same time, with another self constantly in a state of reflection and meditation, performing maintenance operations akin to dreaming and deeper brain functions continuously.
A sizable portion of C.A.T., including Thomas Shann himself, disappears inexplicably. Some had been concerned that dabbling in the inner workings of universes had brought about a disaster. Even stranger was the fact that every person was gone, as was some of their technology, but abandoned colonies, planets, and whole star systems are still intact. No computer archive or memory bank record revealed any experiment notes, distress call, or other information.
Lambda Gardener VII becomes Gardener VIII, Lukos Antropos, the first nucleotracer entity. Antropos uses as a nuclear body a form resembling his old lycanthropic body, with extra-dimensional bionic elements that alternatively appear or disappear. His tracer forms routinely appear in the likeness of adult cicadas, though the nucleus and tracer forms are both capable of shape-shifting into each others’ likeness as well as a myriad of other forms. Lukos Antropos initially begins with a nucleus and 21 tracers. Unknown to most of the universe at the time, Antropos could exchange individuals between tracer and nucleus position by a series of uploads and downloads.
Elodea and Zolan soon afterwards became nucleotracers themselves, after Antropos was able to debug and streamline the design.
An Omega neoquad patrol ship discovers adrift in space a replica of an ancient wine bottle with a piece of paper inside, bearing the message “all yours, have fun.”
Ipanema feels it necessary to protect the rest of the universe from technologies out of control and the emergence of rapidly evolving beings like her former brother. She fears that ultimately this runaway progress would destroy everything in existence, and views Lukos Antropos not as her brother but as a bizarre abomination that has through the centuries taken over him. The Equine Guard takes on a new purpose: to protect the lives of everyone in the universe from a small group of power-mongers. They also take on a secondary purpose of helping to maintain order and protecting innocents from more local power-hungry individuals.
The Zolan and Gardener think tank of nine nucleotracer beings (Zolan, Vryska, NUCLEUS, Lukos Antropos, Elodea, Tetragrammis, Vynn, Crysma, and Oscamax) begins work on a prototype Mindgrid, a more advanced form of nucleotracer design, capable of profound consciousness, including support for tens of thousands of tracers and the equivalence of a rating four gheidei nucleus. By this point, Antropos already had several thousand tracers, though several had already broken off and become independent entities.
The design for a mindgrid is impossible according to known physics, requiring more spatial dimensions than actually exist, fractional astral phases, and imaginary number variables. However, a “virtual mindgrid” is proposed as a close equivalent, existing as a simulation of a mindgrid inside a complex real apparatus.
NUCLEUS becomes the first virtual mindgrid. Antropos considers a proposed Avatar class mobile mindgrid design but sets it aside initially, because he feels a more accurate simulation is possible using a somewhat larger physical architecture.
The mobile mindgrid ship Wolven One goes online. Wolven One is a new experiment—a shared nucleus between two beings, blurring the distinction of consciousness between Gardener VIII and Elodea. Wolven One is also the first Empire class starship, a vessel over 50 kilometers long, designed to be self-upgrading and constantly evolving. Within a few days, the other think tank members have their own Empire class ships as well.
An old style C.A.T. Warlord appears, proclaiming himself to be a “spy” from C.A.T. He reports that the disappearance more than 600 years ago happened intentionally as a result of C.A.T.’s discovering yet another form of existence.
An otherwise unexplored ramification of Zolan’s and Vryska’s work made possible the C.A.T. invention of matter decrystallization. The “Phoenix Device” allowed one in essence to destroy one’s physical form and in the process become energy beings born in the patterns of the destruction. The process at first was one-way, but a way at last was found to project energy patterns from the decrystallized state back into the physical universes, thus allowing the Warlord spy to appear.
He allowed Lukos Antropos to scan him to verify his own belief in his report. The Wolven Empire welcomed him with open arms afterwards, and experiments soon began underway to build an open bridge between the two existences. The spy was well received among Derr Incorporated as well.
C.A.T. had become in the decrystallized state a utopian anarchy. With news of C.A.T.’s intentional collapse into a state free of all government and politics, the Wolven Empire and Derr Incorporated considered their own planned conclusion, now that their primary adversary was no longer in power.
However, scholars felt that a complete abandonment of government could not happen overnight. But, the people of C.A.T. accepted the risk of reintroduction of politics and rulerships simply by making contact once again with states that still had government.
A multidimensional spherical entity appeared, running rampantly through Wolven Imperial space, stealing planets and storing them in a small, otherwise empty universe that the being had discovered and claimed for itself. Lukos Antropos was able to stop the being only with the help of beings from the former C.A.T. who existed as energy spheres. They provided knowledge of the being’s architecture and capabilities, while Lukos Antropos had the physical body and starship necessary to stop the entity.
A number of similar rogues would appear over the rest of the century.
An unnamed rating four gheidei surfaced from C.A.T. decrystallized space, declaring its intention to observe the interaction between governed and ungoverned territories. However, the entity focused a great deal of attention studying the fabric of reality.
A gigantic entity appears out of a pocket in the fabric of space, its form that of a large tentacle with rings of eyes and smaller tentacles. It demonstrates the ability to manipulate cosmic strings. Initially it states its purpose being simply to observe, but its posturing suggests a prelude to an attack through its ability to warp and stretch cosmic membranes.
In spite of the entity threat, Derr Incorporated and the Wolven Empire officially resolve, declaring anarchy inside familiar space. A few individuals choose to concentrate a group venture to stop the entity, however.
The entity deflects several singularity weapons fired at it, and after easily escaping Wolven Imperial battleships, it interweaves itself into the universe, gaining nearly infinite power within familiar space.
It destroys a number of distant galaxies and generates considerable damage to the underlying fabric of space before Derr and Lukos Antropos are forced to draw together members of their former governments to stop it, once again with the help of members of the former C.A.T.
Unfortunately, power struggles are not rendered obsolete. Though officially C.A.T., the Wolven Empire, and Derr Incorporated are dissolved, their former members held certain cultural loyalties and identities that maintain enough separation from each other for new power structures and political favoritism elements to form. The Equine Guard is a rising force as well, enhanced by Ipanema’s long-term alliance with Delta Garou and the neoquadropti but counterbalanced by a series of Ipanema’s relationships. Lukos Antropos and his fellow nucleotracers form their own society.
A relative stability happens among each of these organizations and individuals, though over time, other civilizations rise and fall throughout the known universes.
David Alistair, a genetic-standard human (i.e., unmodified by any genetic manipulation) with no cybernetic modifications, arises from obscurity as a being of exceptional intellect.
Alistair is human; he is not genetically engineered, enhanced by bionics, or in any way different from humans a thousand or ten thousand years ago. He is in some ways a living relic, but a strong believer in the old “human spirit” outlook on life. Alistair is also a brilliant strategist who managed to organize chaotic remnants of C.A.T.
Wolven One becomes a separate and distinct entity from the Antropos and Elodea mindgrids. The ship entity becomes its own nucleotracer, and Antropos and Elodea create Wolven Armada One as a replacement. This new, second generation Empire class mindgrid ship slightly smaller than Wolven One, but considerably more efficient as a mindgrid approximation.
Antropos, Elodea, Zolan, Wolven One, and their think tank of nucleotracers name their long-lived alliance the Second Wolven Empire.
The human David Alistaire first appears, drawing together an appreciable civilization from relics of C.A.T. Alistaire is a genetic standard human with no cybernetic modifications. However, through sheer intellectual will-power, he is able to hold his own in a set of universes essentially dominated by beings thousands of years old with multidimensional brains.
Alistaire has by this point, without Ipanema’s or Antropos’ special powers, built a sizable organization from C.A.T. relics. Alistair’s Omnicorps provides a merchant exchange between the governed regions of space and the disorganized anarchy regions. Alistaire draws the attention of Thomas Shann, who sees him as an intellectual rival.
Shann by this time had become a nucleotracer entity, though an unstable one, not based on Antropos’ mindgrid design. Shann’s incidence of tracer maturation—the process of tracers hiving off and becoming independent beings—is significantly greater than those employing other designs, and over the course of previous millennia, numerous beings had emerged, each describing itself as Shann. For practical purposes, “Thomas Shann” can be considered the particular entity that had the most tracers connected to it at this point and onward.
Between the Second Wolven Empire and David Alistaire’s rising organization Omnicorps, Thomas Shann finds himself reinvigorated with new competition and new challenges for his power games. Shann announces the re-creation of Shann Enterprises.
Marcus Domin, an old LGFF Essence Domin class gheidei entity, re-creates Tri Star, with the guidance of Iston Conus, a now ancient and legendary descendent of the original Tri Star’s organizer Anderson Conus.
The neoquadropti Alpha Council and the Equine Guard leaders establish a formal treaty declaring several regions of space the “Protective Anarchy,” a quasi-nation governed only by the rule of freedom from government. The neoquadropti packs would work as a network along side with but separate from the Equine Guard, keeping each other in check while enforcing individual rights within the limited anarchy space and breaking up any government structure infringing on the rights of individual freedoms.
In 10,004, the unnamed rating four gheidei, now rating having upgraded to rating five, comes forward. He had contributed to a secret project Omnicorps had been developing—a being named Guardian, who was essentially a computer similar to Matrix, who would be interwoven into the fabric of the cosmos with the sole purpose of preventing anyone else from doing so and becoming a god-like dictator. However, the gheidei participated in the project deliberately, to be able to grant itself exactly the power Guardian was designed to prevent, by pulling off its interweaving effect just before Guardian goes online.
Lukos Antropos sends a tracer after it, into the fabric of the multiple universes, to pursue and destroy the gheidei before it could position itself into the universes. The mission is successful, but the tracer experiences such a dramatic change in consciousness that it decides not to re-link afterwards with Antropos, stating that it would re-join Lukos Antropos “some day, when we are ready.” (Classic Genetic Wars; this event was chronicled in late 1990 or early 1991.)
Marcus Domin manages to gain trade rights between Tri Star and a number of beings within the Protective Anarchy. No form of currency exists within the Anarchy, as the only items in demand there are works of art. No one within the Protective Anarchy has any shortage or need of food, energy, raw matter, or any other sustenance due to the advancement of technology. However, the Anarchy is home to a number of brilliant minds, and their work can be exported via Tri Star to compete with Omnicorps and Shann Enterprises. Ipanema tolerates it because Domin is the least of three evils and because Tri Star is the least militant organization. The trade agreement is endorsed by the Zeta, Omega, and Lambda neoquadropti.
To Shann’s amusement, Alistaire’s physical body dies of old age.
To Shann’s great amusement, David Alistaire finds himself having to find ways of preserving his brain without resorting to technologies that would cause him to transcend basic human architecture.
Alistaire reluctantly allows some cellular modifications to be made to preserve his metabolic activity, but he stubbornly refuses to alter his basic biological mechanisms. He does, however, decide to work with Xau Zolan on installing connections to symbiots that functioned similarly to temporary tracers without formally converting Alistaire’s mind to a nucleotracer architecture. Thomas Shann, at that time occupying numerous 22 dimensional bodies, finds Alistaire’s plight amusing.
Omnicorps and Shann Enterprises go to war against each other, with both sides facing heavy losses. Omnicorps gains some minor, covert support from some members of the Second Wolven Empire, but essentially both sides are left to fight it out.
Both Omnicorps and Shann Enterprises collapse, overtaxed by their war against each other.
The Second Wolven Empire decides to dissolve its formal association, and most of its members join the Protective Anarchy. Ipanema distrusts them but can do little to stop them from joining the Anarchy, as none of them violate the one law against use of power over others.
Lukos Antropos announced his latest personal upgrade, renaming himself Lukos Empiros, suggesting that he, Elodea, and their tracer networks represent the third Wolven Empire. Elodea plays along, but the general consensus is that the many centuries of existence has made Empiros a bit eccentric.
Thomas Shann and David Alistaire negotiate an alliance and together form the organization Burnout, named in reference to their feelings regarding their conflicts with each other. Burnout accepts a number of other members of the former C.A.T., but Empiros and Zolan are both rejected.
Lukos and Elodea discovered that a number of Burnout scientists are working on some mysterious project, but none of them can remember what they are doing. They simply know to meet at a certain time, disappear from existence, and reappear some time later, going on faith that their efforts and memory record of such efforts are being spent on something worthwhile.
Burnout scientists reveal their secret project to themselves and to the rest of the known universes. They exploded a cosmic string into a whole series of new universes. The secrecy was maintained by the scientists’ bypassing their own long term memory, using external storage devices to assist them in remembering the research until the end result was produced.
Lukos Empiros and Elodea develop the Absolute Entropy drive—a device which can generate a tremendous amount of energy from a small amount of matter by destroying it completely. The drive is compatible with all states of existence, including stabilized space inside the hardware portions of their mindgrids, which contain low zero point energy and high demands for power.
Lukos and Elodea develop spatial law control technology, an advancement off of miniature space folds that function as their own universes, resulting in objects that internally obey their own laws of physics. Spatial law control makes a true Mindgrid feasible, as well as providing a means of producing a new form of memory storage—the Analog Particle Matrix. Analog particles have no atomic structure, and have effective masses that can be measured indefinitely, allowing an infinite amount of digital information to be encoded onto a single, finite object. Analog matrix particles are entirely indestructible except when transformed by matrix calculation processes. They exist inside fields of space with no zero point energy at all.
Another brainchild of Lukos Empiros is Wolven Thought Code One, the first language specifically developed to take full advantage of the mental structure a Mindgrid has to offer.
Lukos Empiros transfers himself into the first real space-time mindgrid, and renames himself Lukos Rinan in honor of the occasion. Elodea establishes herself in a separate Mindgrid, but both are housed inside Wolven Armada. NUCLEUS, Wolven One, and Xau Zolan build Mindgrids for themselves shortly afterwards.
Lukos Rinan, or Luk’rin, chooses a name meaning “Running Wolf” in Wolven Thought Code, taking the name from images and beliefs he has about his future. At the same time, he and Elodea become concerned with the interplay between the physical universes and reality.
Over the course of time, Burnout dissipates, and Alistaire and Shann go their separate ways.
Matrix, the descendant of Cy-BRAIN, transfers itself into Oracle, an even more elaborate design existing as quantum subatomic patterns built directly from cosmic strings.
The names “Matrix” and “Oracle” are not intended to be a reference to the movie The Matrix, as both date back to the original run of Genetic Wars eight years before the movie was released.
Thomas Shann becomes involved in the affairs and disruption of countless empires and political structures, helping the Anarchy grow in size. Having moved beyond petty personal ambition, he considers his new purpose to free minds from the constraints of government.
A branch of humanity evolves into the Grays, who in turn travel back in time with the intent of solidifying the timeline that brings about their existence.
NUCLEUS and Zolan work along side Rinan and Elodea in pursuing “crossover,” the ability to access directly from imagination real worlds. NUCLEUS becomes a new type of Mindgrid and assumes a new name—the Moonstone. Meanwhile, the Protective Anarchy grows in size as governments one by one came down.
The Protective Anarchy includes most of the universes. However, the golden age of utopian anarchy has come to an end. Internal problems within the Equine Guard are leading to the appearance of splinter factions.
Thomas Shann, having exhausted himself, enlists into the Equine Guard. Though he has no intention of causing any further chaos in the universe, the Guard none-the-less already faces an inner turmoil.
An organized rebellion occurs within the Equine Guard. The neoquadropti find themselves divided in sympathies, and the Horse Wars begin.
Alicia announced her intention of renaming the “Horse Wars” into something better, so this name is a placeholder one.
The nucleotracers by this time have become a race known as the Anida:we:hi, who are very formidable but secretive. They are very reluctant to become involved in the affairs of others, with the exception of Hecate, Luk’rin’s and Elodea’s daughter, born during the long, peaceful anarchy period.
Anida:we:hi is a Cherokee term for a powerful medicine man, either in human form or as a spirit.
Thomas Shann quite honestly had nothing to do with the events causing the Horse Wars, but he faces a considerable and well-earned inquisition over the matter for the remainder of the universe’s life.
During the height of the Horse Wars, Hecate leads a major offensive against the Guard, only to die by the hands of an army of Epsilon and Rho neoquad warriors. Luk’rin in a rage of emotion realizes crossover capabilities and completely vanquishes the army, then enforced a peace effort.
Having realized Crossover capability, Luk’rin changed his name to Vlkos Rinan, or Vlk’rin, updating his name to match his transformation as well as his most recent seventh version of Wolven Thought Code. He also reveals formally that he and the Anida:we:hi are in part responsible for an impending catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. The universes are dying, collapsing into entropy because of damage done to its underlying superstructure. The actions of Guardian, the old gheidei, and his own tracer whom he had rejoined had taken their toll on the cosmos. Everything will be destroyed in less than a thousand years. However, the power of Crossover makes it possible to send people out of the dying universes, into countless new realities.
In the final millennium, Vlk’rin hosts an elaborate farewell party to watch the planets Earth and Utopia disintegrate as the universe ceases to exist. Vlk’rin then carries passengers and finally himself into a new existence created by his ally the Moonstone. Thomas Shann allows himself to be consumed, but is soon reincarnated by other beings with Crossover powers in other realities. Ipanema allows her consciousness to be archived in Retriever, an intelligent weapon she used during the Horse Wars that evolved into a more advanced entity.
One of her last actions is to assist the Guard in realizing that the universes could be spared. They came to Oracle with their knowledge, then allow themselves to dissipate as the entropy closed in on them.
In the original run of Genetic Wars, this was the end that Thomas and I agreed on in May of 1991, since we would no longer be in close contact on a day to day basis to continue the story. Alicia, however, was not satisfied with the end of the universe, and decided to continue a post-Horse Wars story chronicling the Equine Guard afterwards.
Oracle makes a final realization and restores the universes. With it, the Equine Guard resumes existence, along with many others. Vlk’rin and those who left with him, however, are elsewhere and gone. Ipanema lives on as Retriever.
Retriever encounters Scanlan Sidhe, the thirteenth incarnation of Scott Gardener, and Ipanema makes peace with her brother after millennia of differences, after rescuing him and his traveling companions from a chaotic desert event.
From ideas Alicia described to me around 1995, before she stopped work on the Equine Guard. The idea was compatable with an unwritten followup to the Moonstone: Fahri campaign as well, since Scanlan, Elodea, and Joel Silver, a character created by Joel Rigby, left on a quest for Tyr:Nan:Og, implying many adventures along the way. (Joel Silver’s name was not a reference to the producer of The Matrix, since the movie came out four years after the Fahri campaign ended.)