History

Time and Setting

The happenings of this fictional universe take place within the Milky Way galaxy, in a time period roughly 100,000 years in the future. The exact timeframe is unknown. Synths were created in the Outer Rim, by ancestors of the same multi-species civilization they inhabit today (with "today" being this far point in the future). Time within the Outer Rim civilization is measured in standard years, which, despite the Sol system not being part of the Outer Rim territory, is the amount of time it takes Earth to orbit around its sun. It is unknown to the inhabitants of the Outer Rim whether Earth still exists, or if it was destroyed during The Great Reset, but Earth's theoretical rotation and position around its sun are still used in form of a standardized unit in which the passage of time is measured. The calendar used is based on The Great Reset, using the time of the Reset as year 0. Years before the Reset are referred to as BR (Before Reset), while years after are referred to as AR (After Reset). 1000 years after the Great Reset would therefor be written as "1000 AR".

Every following section of this page is from the point of view of historians living in the Outer Rim during the Pioneering Period, ca. 2440 AR.

Before Reset

Only fragments of knowledge are left about the times before the Great Reset, due to large parts of the galaxy remaining unexplored after the collapse of civilization. The mysteries of the past are only slowly becoming unraveled, as more of the galaxy is re-explored and lost ground is examined for clues. What is known is that the majority of the Galaxy had been colonized by a pan-galactic civilization originating from the Sol System. This civilization is referred to as the Sol civilization. It did not have a singular name for itself, since it consisted of a multitude of powerful factions, nations, empires and groups of interest, each of them with their own identities and names. The exact relationships between these factions and their nature are lost to time. It is to be assumed that the civilization went through times of war, times of peace and various shades of strife inbetween until the Great Reset ended it all, leading to the extinction of the vast majority of all species and much knowledge being lost forever.

The Great Reset - Year 0

The Great Reset refers to a cataclysmic event that almost led to the extinction of all life in the galaxy. The exact cause of the event is unknown, as well as its exact nature. The event's epicenter was calculated to have been the Sol system. Since the strength of its destructive force seems to have tapered off around the edges of a circular zone that encompassed almost the entire galaxy. The only systems not affected were the systems on the outermost edge of the galactic disc, furthest away from the epicenter. All signs point towards an event that lasted for 2 to 3 hours. Not much is known about the nature of the Great Reset, aside from that it affected biological life only and seems to have been highly infectious. It is speculated that it may have been an infectious disease, although it is unknown how any disease could spread across the entire galaxy within a few hours. One hypothesis suggests that a variation of a gray goo event may be to blame. The only survivors were either located on underdeveloped colonies in the outer rim of the galaxy or within colony ships on their way to these colonies. The only reason these colonies were unaffected was their distance from the epicenter.

The Great Reset is a topic of great controversy and disagreement among historians and scientists, due to the mysterious nature of the event and the lack of any evidence to justify either of the many theories about it. Among the many hypotheses, there are a few that appear more likely to be true than others, even if speculation is involved.

Galactic pandemic hypothesis

The hypothesis that the Great Reset was a viral pandemic potent enough to kill all life within hours. A pandemic seems like a good explanation for large populations dying off, but leaves unexplained how this pandemic could have spread over almost the entire galaxy in a circular radius over the course of hours. Proponents of this hypothesis argue that it should be possible to generate viruses remotely through the use of biological replicators, like bio-3D-printers. The Sol civilization had the technology of FTL communication, letting them communicate over distances spanning the entire galaxy instantly. This could theoretically allow for the control of biological replicators across the galaxy. If all of them are given the order to print viruses all at the same time, this could theoretically lead to the spread of viral infection among the population.

The fear that the pandemic hypothesis may be the correct one is one of the reasons why so few expeditions to ruined planets have been undertaken thus far. There is a fear that archeologists who dig around Sol civilization ruins could bring back dangerous biological material that could cause the same extinction event to happen all over again.

Grey goo event hypothesis

The hypothesis that the Great Reset was caused by a grey goo event. A grey goo event is a theoretical event in which nanomachines keep replicating themselves infinitely and consume all matter around them, ultimately resulting in all matter being transformed into nanomachines. It is hypothesised that the Sol civilization was easily advanced enough to routinely use nanomachines in their day-to-day affairs. This makes it a possibility that they developed nanites with self-replicating capabilities, which were programmed to consume biological matter such as food waste and other materials to turn them into compost. A programming error could possibly result in nanites targeting living biological matter instead. They could also be generated through the use of replicators, allowing the spread of these nanites throughout the galaxy. This event could have happened either as an accident or through malicious actions.

The Dark Ages - 0 AR to ca. 600 AR

The Dark Ages refer to the centuries after the Great Reset and describe a period of struggle for survival by those who survived the events of the Great Reset and the loss of knowledge, technology and culture over this period of time. The planets within the Outer Rim are the only ones known to have been unaffected by this disaster, but since most planets in the Outer Rim were very young colonies of the Sol civilization, survival on these planets was very difficult.

Many of these colonies were underdeveloped, as they were still in the process of being colonized when the Great Reset took place. Many survivors were engineers and technicians, meaning to establish rudimentary infrastructure to allow for the arrival of more colonists. Some were farmers and labourers, meant to prepare colonies so they could later be used and inhabitated by wealthier people of higher classes or castes. A few colonists were still in transit to their colonies and had just made it outside of the radius of the Great Reset inside their colony ships, allowing them to survive and travel onwards to their destination colonies. Since these colonies were meant to receive more resources and colonists over the course of time, most of them ended up underequipped to deal with the suddenly dire situation of having to survive on a recently colonized, barely inhabitable planet that hadn't even finished the process of terraforming yet. Some colonies were luckier than others, having advanced further in their development before the event took places. These colonies would later on develop into the population centers of the Outer Rim.

The colonies remained in contact with each other, since their communication equipment and the pre-established communication networks remained intact, even though contact with the center of the galaxy simply broke off. Neither of the colonies were able to get in contact with any of the developed worlds further towards the center of the galaxy, leading them to believe that something must have happened and that they were now on their own. Even though many of the colonies belonged to different factions of the Sol civilization, most of them tried to cooperate in their communications with each other. Some colonies chose not to cooperate with the others, due to ideological differences and broke off all contact. These colonies were later on found not to have survived this time period.

Many colonies never made it through this period and succumbed to starvation, political turmoil, in-fighting or the inhospitability of their planets. Hundreds of colonies died out over the course of several centuries. Less developed colonies had to find ways of generating the resources they needed for survival, or else they would simply die out and not respond to communication requests anymore. Colonies could not send resources to each other, due to the lack of spacetravel capabilities between them. Each colony had to work for their own survival. It soon turned out that those colonies who were in active communication with each other and who were willing to exchange information were the ones who did best. Information on how to find resources, generate energy, build structures and other knowledge was exchanged over these communication channels. Over time this shared survival knowledge led to a shared identity among the surviving colonies. While much knowledge about the previous world was lost with the great number of lives lost on the way, the surviving colonies aimed to preserve as much knowledge as possible, especially knowledge that was seen as essential for survival. This group of colonies, even though they were spread many thousands of lighyears apart, slowly began to identify as one group, which led to the concept of the Outer Rim as a civilization of its own.

The cultural impact of this period of survival was immense. Ideologies that led to lack of cooperation quickly died out with the colonies that adhered to such beliefs. The cooperation between the surviving colonies fostered a culture of cooperation and exchange of knowledge, with the understanding that, if you help a friend on the other end of the line, they will also help you at the end of the day. Skills became very important for this society, with every colonist who had skills in agriculture, medicine, engineering or one of many other fields was seen as an important, irreplaceable asset to the society around them. Money had become useless very early on, since it is useless when you are stranded on a planet where you have to worry about generating enough oxygen to survive before anything else. Society transformed into a System where the entire colony gets to enjoy the fruit of everyone's labour, or noone did. A large part of the modern, cooperative culture of the Outer Rim can be led back to this cultural shift. A lot of the old knowledge and culture was lost in exchange of new ideals and a chance to re-build a culture from the ground up.

Building Period - ca. 600 AR to ca. 1000 AR

The Building Period is characterized through a culture of expansion and improvement of the quality of life throughout the Outer Rim. During this time period the automation of labour ws prioritized. The colonies strived towards space travel to finally physically connect their colonies through travel and trade. The time period is also known as the birth hour of Synths.

At roughly around 600 AR the situation of the surviving colonies had stabilized for the most part. At this point in time the majority of the basic needs of most colonists had been secured to a reasonable extent. The colonies of the Outer Rim began thinking about expanding their colonies to use more of their planets' resources and expand their populations. Raising the quality of life on each planet was a huge concern, due to many colonists living in cramped, functional conditions with few luxuries for centuries. Some basic needs were still an important concern, due to the population on most colonies beginning to grow rapidly. To cover these needs, multiple steps were taken.

Automation of Labour

At the beginning of the 7th century it was still common for large numbers of agricultural workers to farm and process food themselves. Automation was a well known thing, but was only available in form of large food processing machines that had to be managed and controlled by workers. This meant that food production took up a large part of the workforse, all to feed the population each colony had at the time. As population numbers kept increasing, the number of people that needed feeding quickly outgrew food production capacities. Robotics were introduced to tackle this problem, boosting the food output of farms and hydroponics centers. Service robots had to be maintained, developed and built, which led to a shift of the workforce away from agricultural labour to the production and maintenance of robots. The need for food kept rising however and the food production was not able to keep up with the rising population numbers. Eventually this led to a food crisis, which was difficult to solve through the means of simply throwing more automation at it. If you want to grow more food, you need more robots, which need more maintenance, which needs more workers. There were more jobs to do than there were workers, which led to an interesting thought: Why not build robots that maintain our robots?