1914 – Earth’s First World War begins. The series of hot and cold conflicts that follow, culminating in the weeklong AI War, will be collectively referred to as “The World War Era”
1987 – Steven Turing is born in New York City
2001 – Gene Klament born in Saskatchewan
– Turing witnesses the fall of the Twin Towers
Early 2010s – Turing goes to work for Google
2019 – Suri Mongano is born
2020 – Steven Turning accidentally becomes an AI
2024 – Turing, now literally the ghost in the machine, arranges the murder of noted misogynist Simon Bries and broadcasts it all over social media.
2032 – Turing collapses Hunter Jessup’s considerable fortune and drives him to suicide.
Mid-2100s – World War III, the so-called Bot War, between northern and southern blocs, ends when the United States retaliates for the destruction of Boston by hitting one of the major powers’ capitals, a breach of the limited nuclear exchange going on for a week.
Mid-2100s – Steven Turing hijacks combat drones to take over a small Siberian city. The drones slaughter the population, and Turing plots to reduce humanity to a remnant. Russia allows China to send a tactical nuclear warhead in to destroy Turing’s node, but the plot is stopped by Suri Mongano, who pleads with him to see what humanity is doing.
Steven Turing hides himself in the systems of a bank in Havana and goes dormant for fifty years.
United Nations reorganizes, making regional superstates the members of the Security Council, not the former World War II allies.
Interplanetary colonization begins in earnest
Early 2100s AD/1 IE – Glenn Pataznik falls into a wormhole that leads to system Garrond 5e. The wormhole is stable and traversable in both directions. The Interstellar era begins.
Steven Turing awakens, takes on an alias, and formulates a multi-century plan for humans to evolve beyond their self-destructive ways. It includes ending his own existence after ensuring no one person can attempt what he did in the AI War.
5 IE – Colony G5e, later GeFivee, then Jefivah, is founded, as is the Temple of Marilyn, a cult to Marilyn Monroe that starts as a gag.
7 IE – Aurora Pass, a wormhole from G5e to the future colony of Aurora, discovered.
9 IE – Aurora founded on the moon of a gas giant, made earthlike by volcanic activity warming the oxygenated atmosphere.
10 IE – Helios pass discovered, containing a record four Earthlike worlds. Astronomers note the resemblance to Sol System and give the planets Greek equivalents of the solar names: Hephaestus (liquid inner planet, no Solar analog), Hermes (Mercury), Aphrodite (Venus), Gaia (Earth), Ares (Mars), Demeter (dwarf planet Ceres), Zeus (Jupiter), Chronos (Saturn), Ouraunos (Uranus), and Poseidon (Neptune).
22 IE – A consortium in Kolkata, India, claims settlement rights on Aphrodite. Because the large ship designed to carry the colonists is too large, it is outfitted as a sleeper ship and pointed at Helios, ten light-years away. The trip will take ninety years.
Marcus Dazar demonstrates the first artificially generated wormhole in a system called “projection drive.” He soon will add hypergates, based on the same technology to allow FTL transport to anywhere in the galaxy.
23 IE – Etrusca founded by Dazar and his business partner. Based on a democratized vision of the Roman Republic, they Latinize their names to Marcus Dasarius and Tol Germanicus and declare the new world independent of Earth. The United Nations, unable to enfore their authority, is forced to recognize the new planet’s autonomy.
27 IE – First unclassified contact with the Yedevans, who are determined to be the origin of the grays, the humanoid creatures of UFO lore. Adam Hogarth leads the research. At Zeta Reticulii, mission commander Bernard Botaki is accidentally absorbed by the Yedevans.
Approximately 50 IE – First contact with the Orags, descendants of Neanderthal transplants on a world called Gohem. The Orags have perfected permanent rejuvenation.
32 IE – Despite nearly bankrupting itself and requiring partnerships with the North American Cooperative and United Kingdom, China declares its colony on Gaia, renamed “Tian” (“Heaven” in Mandarin), completed. Workers not given claims on the Earthlike world take claims on nearby Aphrodite, Ares, and Demeter. On Aprhodite, the residents begin referring to themselves as “Penqu,” roughly “outcasts.”
77 IE – The sleeper ship sent by the Kolkata Consortium arrives at Aphrodite. When they attempt to assert their prior claim on the planet, over three centuries of civil conflict begins.
95 IE – First clinical trials of permanent rejuvenation of Earth-born humans (now called sapiens to distinguish them from Orags). Of ten subjects, only one is successful, Suri Mongano, who had been undergoing the standard periodic rejuvenation since the end of the World War Era. A second subject, Gene Klament, survives but is taken to Gohem for further treatment.
96 IE – Earth-Mars War begins.
101 IE – The Compact of Humanity is signed, ending the Earth-Mars War and binding most of the then-Sapiens worlds into a wider polity. Its capital will eventually reside in Quantonesia, a city built on an artificial island in Hong Kong Harbor. Founding members are Earth, Mars, the Jovian Federation, Jefivah, Tian, Ares, Demeter, The Caliphate, Etrusca, and Thule are the initial ten signatories and permanent members of the Security Council.
102 IE – Gene Klament returns from Gohem. The existence of the Compact angers him as he sees it as diluting Earth’s primacy. He begins a resistance movement eventually known as Juno.
130 IE (Approx) – Melekan, homeworld of the Gelt species, is destroyed in a series of simultaneous catastrophes. It also triggers a genetic degradation that reduces Gelt lifespans with each succeeding generation.
242 IE – Jayne Chedowski (later Jayne Best) born on Jefivah. It is a period of civil conflict driven by Jefivah’s unstable climate.
Claudius Dasarius born on Etrusca
260 IE – Jayne Chedowski undergoes what is later called “Thulian Rejuvenation,” a process that allows the human body to constantly renew itself. She is sent by the Marilynist Temple, which has became a major cult on Jefivah.
292 IE – Claudius Dasarius become CEO of Dasarius Interstellar.
302 IE – Cybercommand, the military branch responsible for intelligence and digital infrastructure defense in the Compact, is founded.
342 IE – Tessa Dasarius born on Earth
317 IE – Eileen Burke born on Trantor
330 IE – The government on Walton, a core world of the Compact, collapses. Its Compact membership passes to its colony of Belsham, which declares its former parent world a protectorate.
352 IE – Claudius Dasarius ousted as CEO of Dasarius Interstellar due to erratic behavior. His daughter Tessa is named “chief operating officer” and raised by CFO Tol Germanicus. Tedessa will never forgive Claudius for depriving her of a normal childhood.
374 IE – Eileen Burke joins the Compact Navy and trains as a pilot.
386 IE – Cui Yun, later known as Suicide, born on Tian
391 IE – Quentin Austin born on Demeter
393 IE – After delaying for a year, Tessa Dasarius formally becomes CEO of Dasarius Interstellar
402 IE – Mitsuko Yamato, grandniece of King Yanuhito of Bonaparte, born in New Tokyo
410 IE – Maz Tishla, later Lattus Tishla, and later still, Dr. Tishla Austin, born somewhere in the Realm
The Laputan Guardianship has a brief “war of first contact” with the Compact, after which, the Laputans compare notes with the Compact
412 IE – Tessa Dasarius has an encounter with a Lt. Quentin Austin that results in her pregnancy. She marries Austin and warns Germanicus not to interfere with his career, even if the relationship fails.
413 IE – JT Austin born on Earth
414 IE – Eric Yuwono and Connor Duffy born on Amargosa
The Polygamy Wars, a civil conflict against radical polygamists (who believe in forced marriages) erupts beyond Goshen, the Deseret colony where the conflict already simmered. It’s the first major conflict with the Compact in decades.
415 IE – Davra Andraste born on Metis
Ellie Nardino born on Amargosa
416 IE – Cui Yun suffers a double blow when she miscarries her daughter and learns her husband was killed in the Polygamy Wars. In honor of her husband, Akrad Izumi, she joins the Navy as a pilot, taking the call sign “Little Wing,” Akrad’s pet name for her.
418 IE – Cui Yun’s commanding officer changes her call sign to “Suicide” after she bounces her OA-22 Falcon off three buildings to land her craft. The call sign soon becomes a second name to her.
That year, Suicide meets Quentin Austin, beginning a lifelong friendship.
419 IE – Suicide meets a young Marine lieutenant named Lucius Kray, an Arean soldier traumatized by his first taste of combat. Suicide would soon regret it.
The Polygamy Wars end that year when forces surrender in New Kirtland on Goshen. Suicide witnesses one too many Section 11 executions at Kray’s hand and voices her disgust to Rear Admiral Burke.
420 IE – Suicide leaves the Navy and joins Dasarius Interstellar as a contract pilot. She is aside to a project to pacify and rebuild Aphrodite.
That year, Suicide meets Master Frederick Ansel, founder of Cubism. She also meets Gerard Kurz, who will start a violent, radical faction of the religion.
422 IE – Suicide marries a woman named Priya, a Kolkat she had rescued from the ethnic fighting two years before.
424 IE – Maz Tishla indentures herself as a concubine to her childhood friend, Lattus Kai, in exchange for her honors in genetics. She becomes his confidant and chief advisor.
425 IE – Priya is killed in a cafe bombing, prompting Suicide to quit Dasarius and move to Amargosa to live in seclusion.
427 IE – Marcus Leitman, aka Marq, approaches Laral Jorl and his son Umish about invading three human colony worlds.
Same year, a student name Rafe duplicates Steven Turing’s mind upload experiments. He is shut down by Cybercommand.
428 IE – Douglas Best begins inspecting three worlds as potential colonies for Jefivah. One of the is a desert world that becomes Marilyn after the Temple of Marilyn adopts it as a possible new homeworld. Luxhomme, aka Marcus Leitman, offers the assistance of JunoCorp, a GMO startup.
Marq approaches Lattus Kai with an offer of potatoes to help with famine conditions on Essenar, a prison planet Kai oversees.
The Alcubierre makes the first ever warp-driven flight from Jupiter to Trantor. Frequent stops extend the trip of two light-years to two weeks.
Davra Andraste visits Lowell Academy, a prestigious school on Amargosa. During her tour, she meets Eric Yuwono, an overzealous Youth Corps cadet. She leaves unimpressed by Yuwono but is interested in the Academy.
Warp program is reduced in size, prompting specialists Hideki Okada and Peter Lancaster to resign their commissions in the Compact Navy.
429 IE – Essenar’s potato crops fails. Marq brokers a scheme to help the Larals claim “three renegade colonies” to alleviate the famine. Tishla advises him to go along with it and also offers to fulfill her duty to give him an heir.
JT Austin, when told he is going to military school, runs away from his mother’s home in Seattle. A prank diverts him from Tian to Amargosa, a Martian agrarian colony. The governor places him in custody of John Parker, a local constable and Polygamy War vet.
Marcus Leitman meets with Lucius Kray on Amargosa, agreeing to supply Kray’s “citizens’ militia” in exchange for allowing an illegal Juno crop in his township.
JT Austin meets Lizzy Parker, who declares him to be her “pet Earth Man.”
Ellie Nardino’s mother leaves for Earth. Connor Duffy’s mother departs on a month-long trip to Etrusca on government business.
Douglas Best is accused of losing seven nuclear warheads. He is sprung by the Marilynist Temple on the pretext of finding Mr. Luxhomme, who brokered the deals to remove Navy weapons.
The domes of Farigha are destroyed in one night by Gelt kinetic weapons, with the missing warheads detonating in four cities. Only John Farno survives.
As crops fail again on Essenar, Marq brokers a deal with Lattus Kai to hand over Essenar to General Laral Jorl in exchange for throwing in with his scheme to seize “three renegade Tianese colonies.” Believing the planets are held by squatters, Kai’s mistress Tishla advises him to take the deal.
Douglas Best travels to The Caliphate to question Walter Pope, CEO of JunoCorp. Frustrated, he traces Luxhomme to Metis and leaves custody to go search for him.
Kai impregnates Tishla. who does not know she is expecting twins.
Laral’s forces, led by Lattus Kai, invade Gilead. However, Kai learns the colony was legitimate. He signs her indenture contract over to Marq, who takes her back to the Compact, unaware her indenture contract becomes null upon entering an entity that does not recognize indentured servitude. The move automatically makes Tishla Kai’s wife without ceremony.
Kai is murdered by Laral Jorl. The murder is made to look like a duel.
Best finds Luxhomme, aka Marcus Leitman, on Metis. He sees a woman he much later learns was Tishla, who has just brutally assaulted Leitman for attempting to enslave her. Best also punches Leitman and turns him over to Metisian authorities.
Tishla returns to Gilead, now called Hanar, to reassert Kai’s claim on the planet, intending to rebuild with the surviving humans.
Best, out of the Jefivan government, accepts a position on Belsham to teach history. He finds Leitman hanging out there again and has him arrested on additional warrants.
Mars blocks attempts to liberate Gilead, citing a greater danger to its colonies. Martian delegates neglect mention Farigha’s loss.
Best is invited by Jefivah’s First Minister Gallorn to become her chief of staff. She sends him to Earth to represent her at Leitman’s hearings. Leitman manages to paint the invasions of Farigha and Gilead as a military failure prompted by Martian interference. The senior Martian delegate’s career is ended by this, and Leitman is recruited to work for the UN Secretary-General.
JT Austin and Lizzy Parker spend his sixteenth birthday at a nearby reservoir. They are intimate for the first time. That evening, they witness several explosions in the sky.
Davra Andraste is ejected from Amargosa’s orbital station moments before it explodes. Her father is killed in the blast.
Laral Jorl leads an invasion of Amargosa only to be recalled personally by the Sovereign to Gilead.
Davra finds Eric Yuwono and follows him and a boy named Suvi into Lansdorp, capital of Amargosa. There, they meet Connor Duffy and Ellie Nardino, but miss boarding a projection-drive ship as it explodes in front of them. A fusion device detonates in Lansdorp. Yuwono leads them to underground shelter. They find the maglev line and begin following it in the dark.
JT and Lizzy flee her parents’ farm after they are killed by the alien invaders. They head for Walden, John Parker’s cabin in the territory north of the Townships. There they spend the night holing up. JT proposes marriage to her, promising to fight for Lizzy’s family farm or to get help if he flees the planet.
John Farno is rescued from Farigha. The AI interface he used to survive has achieved sentience and vows to protect Farno always. She is taken by Tol Germanicus.
After being rescued from Lucius Kray’s militia, Davra, Eric, Connor, Ellie, and Suvi travel east toward the Misty Mountains, where a resistance cell is already forming. The hover tram comes under attack, and the kids arm up, Eric, the cadet, teaching them how to use their weapons. They do well, and the enemy is repelled. Suvi, however, is incinerated by a heat ray. The kids later make for an abandoned, but working, maglev train and take it to reach help faster. They have to clear the track a few times, and Ellie suffers a panic attack when the unlit train goes into a tunnel.
Marines and Planetary Guard swarm Walden and use it as a camp to regroup. Quan, the Parker farm’s manager, has been activated as a major and drafts JT and Lizzy into the new resistance.
The kids arrive at the Edoras Transit Center. There is a battle with more of Kray’s militia. Resistance from the village of Edoras, atop the mountain above them, save them, though Eric is shot. Diana Jovann, who is gathering her resistance forces in the village, sends Davra, Ellie, and Duffy in the maglev on a mission to find more freedom fighters.
Leitman arrives on Earth aboard an Amargosan projection-drive ship. Best meets him. Punches him.
Tishla is shot, but her unborn twins are the real target. The bullet, unbeknownst to the shooter, contains a bio-toxin adult Gelt are immune to, but not unborn cubs. Her son Kai-bon will die, but daughter Athena will prove not only healthy but loud, a foreshadowing of the girl’s rather strong personality.
JT and Lizzy marry. That night, after having a short wedding night, they break out a prisoner who says he has a line on a pilot who can get them off world. Instead, he leads them to Lucius Kray, who takes them prisoner and forces them to find Suicide, who is a recluse at that point. Suicide kills the two captors and runs off with the couple. However, they are ambushed by Gelt. Lizzy is killed protecting JT from a heat ray. Despondent, JT gathers up her ashes. Suicide helps him and explains the tradition of bullet lockets, showing the ones made for her husband and her wife, both now gone for years. They find the maglev, but the train is under attack by Gelt. JT and Suicide turn their own weapons on them and link up with Davra, Ellie, and Duffy. Suicide joins the resistance as a commander and takes over the mission from the lieutenant who was killed.
Tishla has the shooter arrested, but opts to exile him instead of executing him. Instead, she personally kills the Gelt legal advocate who arranged the shooting, stabbing him in his jail cell with Kai’s dagger. She then asks to train so she can go to Amargosa and kill Laral Umish.
Force Admiral Quentin Austin summoned to Earth. Amargosa has fallen, and now Mars considers it an emergency.
Joint attacks on the Founders’ Mine from Suicide’s growing group of resistance fighters and Kray defectors join forces from Walden and Edoras to eject Kray from the mine and turn it into the resistance.
Admiral Austin presses for invading the more lightly defended Gilead, unaware the humans have joined with Tishla to rebuild. He believes Amargosa can only be liberated with another world for staging. He is instead ordered to execute a poorly planned invasion of Amargosa.
Austin leads the first liberation attempt of Amargosa. However, despite his best efforts, he cannot overcome interference from headquarters. The operation is a disaster, and Austin returns home with his reputation in tatters.
The Ban Ki-moon survives being shot down from orbit and crashes in Amargosa’s Western Ocean. The crew begins communicating with human resistance.
Col. Diana Jovann sends a team led by Suicide to reach the Ban Ki-moon. JT Austin, Davra Andraste, and Eric Yuwono disobey orders to join the mission.
Tishla travels to Amargosa in an effort to confront Laral Umish. However, her escort is ambushed and she is taken prisoner by Eric Yuwono and JT Austin. Connor Duffy dubs her Trixie as Tishla feigns being unable to speak Humanic.
Quentin Austin travels to The Caliphate to question Walter Pope of Juno. He and Pope’s assistant, Sarai Gaddar, discover Pope dead. They travel to Bromdar to visit JunoCorp’s parent company. Austin is nearly killed but left disabled by a car accident.
Ellie Nardino is abducted by sapient lycanths, two of whom become known as Red and Spikey. Along with
Douglas Best is named Jefivah’s junior delegate to the Compact Assembly.
Davra Andraste is taken prisoner by Gelt soldiers and kept as a domesticated pet for a month.
Confronted by the governor of Amargosa, Suicide’s team is pressured to give up their prisoner. Tishla reveals her identity and ability to speak Humanic, offering herself for vivisection if the governor will let them go. The team instead springs her and leaves the governor hiding in his bunker, where he’s been since before the city above was leveled.
Quentin Austin and Vice Admiral Eileen Burke stop a Gelt invasion of the Etruscan colony of Anacreon. Austin is then promoted to rear admiral and placed in charge of the warp project.
Tishla asks JT Austin to kill her if they are captured. He tells her he’ll have a grenade ready to detonate between them if it comes to that. Tishla is deeply touched.
Best, his wife Carolyn, and High Normaj Jayne of the Marilynist Temple begin an investigation of JunoCorp. Eventually, Carolyn Best is killed, and Best undergoes Thulian rejuvenation. Jayne offers both her bone marrow to jump start the process and herself to help with Best’s elevated libido. This results in a daughter they will name for Carolyn, believing she is dead.
Suicide, Duffy, JT, and Tishla flee Amargosa while the crew of the fallen Ban Ki-moon scuttle the ship to keep it out of Lucius Kray’s hands. They travel to Hanar where they learn Tishla is first citizen.
Eric Yuwono stays behind and infiltrates Kray’s militia.
The Sovereign is killed alongside Laral Umish, who was the target of a human suicide bomber.
The Northern Resistance, led by Ellie Nardino and consisting of humans, Gelt, and sapient lycanths begin a long campaign south toward Arcanum.
The senior delegates from Earth and Jefivah are killed in a blast intended to kill Tol Germanicus. Best and Marcus Leitman become the new senior delegates. Carolyn Best replaces her husband as interim junior delegate.
The Challenger is commissioned as the Compact Navy’s first active duty warp vessel under command of Hideki Okada. Okada and Peter Lancaster are reactivated. They are sent on a bombing mission against a Gelt world.
Laral Farad assumes governorship of Amargosa and changes the policy from enslaving humans to outright genocide. Many Gelt settlers and Warriors rebel. An alarming number join the Northern Resistance.
Carolyn Best is resurrected when her backup is downloaded into an existing golem used by Germanicus as a personal assistant. When asked what role she would like to play to explain her presence, she adopts the name “Marilyn” as her new body bears a passing resemblance to the Jefivan goddess and says she will be his wife. They even marry to legitimize her identity.
JT begins training as a pilot under Suicide on Hanar. He also develops a crush on Tishla, resulting in some questionable Gelt playmates. In addition, he begins training volunteer Hanar settlers in combat alongside Gelt and human militia.
430 IE
Mitsuko Yamato and Giddeus Modesto are assigned to accompany Athena Jovann to Hanar. The mission includes Admirals Burke and Austin and the Germanicuses.
Northern Resistance marches on Deming, Amargosa’s northermost city and commandeers the combat mechs originally for use against humans.
Baker ibn-Aziz of The Caliphate is named secretary-general. Marcus Leitman becomes his deputy and introduces, over ibn-Aziz’s objections, a revision to the Compact creating an independent president to act as head of state.
Douglas and Jayne Best arrive on Hanar at the behest of the diplomatic corps to assess the situation on the former Metisian colony.
Davra returns to the Founders’ Mine and is tried for desertion. The charges are dismissed.
Tishla’s government offers to stage the liberation of Amargosa. Despite Admiral Austin’s reservations, JT Austin will participate and is trained by Mitsuko and Modesto. JT and Duffy become surrogate little brothers to Mitsuko.
The Gelt garrison at Arcanum surrenders without a shot to the Northern Resistance. Along with the human Marine battalion outside the destroyed city, they join the Northern Resistance and march with them on Riverside in hopes to neutralize Lucius Kray.
Metis, formerly the parent world of Hanar (Gilead), demands the Compact Assembly recognize Hanar as a new entity. In an attempt to prevent Metis from seceding during the revision process, the one legal means of secession in the Compact of Humanity.
Tishla and JT are intimate in what is a cathartic but one-time moment, or so they think. The next morning, her daughter Athena announces that JT is her “new daddy.” It’s awkward, but JT bonds with the girl anyway.
Liberation begins: Riverside destroyed by fusion blast from a device smuggled in personally by Marcus Leitman, killing Laral Farad. Modesto is killed defending the Navy Special Forces. The Northern Resistance surrounds Kray, who has captured Davra Andraste. Tishla arrives and joins the siege, among the three women who confront him backed by a company of battle mechs. When he refuses to surrender, Ellie Nardino sentences him to a Section 11 execution. Rather than shoot him or, in keeping with the Gelt members of the resistance, incinerating him with a heat dish, she has the sapient lycanths under her devour Kray.
Carolyn Best, named for Douglas Best’s late wife, is born to him and Jayne. Best is named provisional governor of Amargosa with Jayne as his chief of staff.
Davra Andraste and Eric Yuwono undergo Thulian rejuvenation.
Thule collapses the natural wormhole between it and Etrusca, effectively withdrawing from the Compact.
The presidential revision passes. Baker ibn-Aziz is named provisional president. Marcus Leitman becomes secretary-general.
Sansar Aryanna, who is elevated to Sovereign of the Realm and leader of the Gelt, is assassinated by Jez Salamacis. Salamacis escapes by disintegrating herself, initially believing she is sacrificing herself to her god, Marcus Leitman.
Tishla returns to Hanar and has a disastrous first contact with a thoroughly alien species.
431 IE
The Dasarius control nanites still in JT Austin’s bloodstream reconstitute Lizzy Parker’s consciousness She basically becomes a ghost haunting him.
JT and Suicide begin flying the first ship called Goldeneye.
Davra Andraste travels to Tian for Naval Officer Training School. During the trip, she saves the ship from a fission reactor meltdown and has her start date postponed.
Duffy, studying warp research at MIT, thwarts a Cubist attack on a theater at nearby Harvard by hijacking spider drones and some captured Gelt stun grenades.
Eric Yuwono declines joining the Marines to work on the Lizzy’s Farm under Colonel Quan.
Jayne Best gives birth to Naomi, her second child by Douglas Best.
Marilyn Germanicus begins taking on duties at Dasarius Interstellar from her husband, Tol, who has been CFO from the company’s inception.
Ellie takes a position as a “mech whisperer” in Deming, with plenty of time off to spend with the sapient lycanths.
Baker ibn-Aziz wins a term as elected president of the Compact. However, he falls ill days after his inauguration, succeeded by Marcus Leitman as acting president.
Mitsuko Yamato and Edward Windsor take a mission for Bonaparte to remove an unauthorized human colony from a planet inhabited by sapient cephalopods. During the mission, she accepts Edward’s proposal of marriage.
432 IE
Davra is assigned to the CVN Anna Khirovsky, which is soon commandeered by Leitman’s chief of staff, the resurrected Jez Salamacis.
Douglas Best survives an assassination attempt. By a previous arrangement, Jayne flees Amargosa and hides the infant girls with trusted people. Tishla will take custody of them until Governor Best recovers.
As the search for Jayne begins, Suicide is shot down in the Goldeneye. They continue on in a new ship, a Zaran freighter JT promptly has redubbed Goldeneye. Their search will take them to the Jefivan colony of Marilyn, then the failed core world Walton. After rescuing Jayne, the flee to Thule using remnants of the original wormhole. There, they confront Salamacis aboard the Khirovsky. Davra Andraste wounds Salamacis after she murders the captain in front of the crew. She is arrested by Suicide. However Salamacis escapes by disintegrating herself, a clone body and resurrection backup standing by to recreate her.
Eric Yuwono joins Cybercommand and moves to Tian.
JT Austin joins the Compact Navy.
Metis, along with Amargosa and Farigha, secede from the Compact, using a loophole by not signing the revision to the Compact creating the presidency. Together, they form the independent Metisian Republic, or simply, the Republic.
433 IE
King Yanuhito dies (actually fakes his death, a Bonapartan tradition kept from the public) elevating Edward Windsor to Edward I. JT Austin and Mitsuko Yamato travel to the surface of Mud. Shortly after their return, their ship, the Queen Maria Sophia is seized by Cubist terrorists using mechs. The captain is killed, but Mitsuko and JT get the royal party off. Escaping to Mud, JT and Edward cut a deal with the opposing Gelt garrison to get off the planet and escape to Hanar. Their escape is aided by Suicide and one ship each from the Compact and the Republic. They proceed to Hanar.
On Amargosa, where Edward and Mitsuko will undergo Thulian (permanent) rejuvenation, JT discovers Edward’s sister Elizabeth was a collaborator with the Cubist terrorists. Before she can self-detonate and kill her brother, Queen Widow Reiko sets off a concealed stun grenade, which neutralizes her nanite load. She is sent to prison.
JT Austin resigns his commission and renounces Compact citizenship. He cites his anger over Elizabeth Windsor and the Navy’s failure to catch the terrorists ahead of time. He also has a rift with Suicide upon learning she is a Cubist, though not of the violent kind. It will take a year to repair.
Mitsuko resigns her commission to become King Edward’s chief of security.
Tishla visits JT Austin after the Queen Maria Sophia incident. She nudges JT into a season-long affair with Ellie Nardino.
434 IE
An assassination attempt on King Edward prompts Mitsuko to travel with Suicide to Aphrodite, which is a hotbed of radical Cubist activity. While confronting Gerard Kurz, leader of the radical Cubists, Suicide is kidnapped. Via the Compact Navy, the rest of the Children of Amargosa are recruited to stop Kurz and rescue Suicide. Mitsuko herself is briefly abducted before escaping. Kurz is killed in a confrontation with Mitsuko atop Aphrodite’s Mt. Buxanshal.
Mitsuko marries King Edward but refuses to become queen of Bonaparte. She instead adopts the title “princess consort.”
435 IE
Cybercommand sends Eric Yuwono to track down stolen resurrection technology on Hosh, a non-aligned world. During the operation, Yuwono engineers a coup to put a stop to Juno activity.
436 IE
Davra attends to ceremony making Hosh a core world in the Compact.
A coup on Hanar sends Tishla and her daughter fleeing to Amargosa, seeking help from Suicide and JT Austin. The pair escort her to the Gelt Throneworld, where Tishla will indenture herself to the Sovereign in exchange for helping free Hanar. A member of the Laral family challenges for her indenture, JT counter-challenges. He is nearly killed in single combat in the arena, but decapitates Laral Belcas, becoming “Lord of Hanar” in the process. The Sovereign is impressed and allows him to recover on the Throneworld.
Davra Andraste works with Marilyn Germanicus in proposing the Goshen’s provisional governor a plan to make it a full colony under its parent world, Deseret. She discovers Marilyn is a resurrected human in a cybernetic golem.
The Children of Amargosa, minus Davra Andraste, participate in an operation to overthrow the twin insurgent authorities on Hanar in a joint Compact-Republic operation. The Sovereign arrives and has the Gelt coup leader executed when he refuses to be silent. To restore Tishla’s original claim, he consents to JT, as Lord of Hanar, marrying Tishla. Additionally, he agrees to Hanar’s permanent independence if the Republic and a seceding Bonaparte (still a Compact core world) merge with it into the Foundation. Thule adds its voice to the expanded entity, originally only Hanar.
JT Austin formally adopts Lattus Athena as his daughter.
437 IE
Baker ibn-Aziz is found wandering in the northern reaches of Lycanthia on Amargosa. Ellie Nardino discovers him. But to stay off the books, she and Tishla attempt to smuggle the stricken former president via Liberty to Aphrodite, where there is a new Thulian Clinic and proximity to Tian, in the same star system. The pair are betrayed by their pilot and stranded on Liberty. Juno kidnaps Tishla and is freed in a confrontation with Bonapartan forces and the Children of Amargosa. JT is wounded by a bullet containing the same toxin that disabled President ibn-Aziz. He will require Thulian rejuvenation to counter it. When he refuses, Ellie Nardino offers to go through it with him.
The Compact Security Council, relocated to Tian, begin the impeachment process against President Leitman.
438 IE
Davra Andraste promoted to full commander and named first officer of the Endeavour, the Compact Navy’s newest and most advanced starship.
While on shore leave, a Gelt engineer named Pelgar Shrian reveals a device for quantum entanglement travel, which allows near instantaneous movement across light-years of space. Duffy works with the Children of Amargosa to free Shrian from her indenture contract. The pair, who have fallen in love, begin working on integrating the device on Compact Navy vessels.
Duffy, Pelgar, and the quantum entanglement box are transferred to the Endeavour. It’s used on a mission to retrieve all the Assembly delegates for an impeachment vote on Tian against Marcus Leitman. During the mission, forces loyal to Leitman murder the delegation from Trantor. The Endeavour escapes but are confronted by the Yedevans, an alien race who created the device. A delegate and Captain Darnell are killed, making Davra Andraste captain of the ship. When they realize the quantum entanglement drive is fused to the Endeavour’s systems, they teach Pelgar Shrian how to build a new one. The remaining delegates not already on Tian are retrieved.
Connor Duffy and Pelgar Shrian are married.
Leitman is convicted of treason and removed as president. Leitman refuses to leave office, triggering a civil war within the Compact.
Juno terrorists detonate a nuclear weapon at Tian Regional Command.
439 IE
Tol Germanicus brokers a deal to end the war with the Realm: He will deliver news of Leitman’s ouster, a quantum entanglement drive, and the secret of Gelt amortality (completing Tishla Austin’s work.)
Davra Andraste commissioned as a captain and given permanent command of the Endeavour. She and Eric Yuwono marry in a private ceremony.
Davra’s ship is selected for Germanicus’s peace mission. She names JT Austin her first officer. Despite Juno sabotage, the peace mission is successful.
Tol Germanicus submits to voluntary execution on Thule, leaving five subminds behind to serve specific purposes.
Tishla become the first Gelt woman to undergo rejuvenation treatment.
440 IE
Tessa Dasarius and her daughter taken hostage by Marcus Leitman, who plans force Tessa to pass the Dasarius Interstellar back to her father, the mad Claudius Dasarius. The company taps Suicide to handle the rescue, and she convinces JT Austin, Tessa’s estranged son, to come along. Soon, all the Children of Amargosa are involved. Claudius is killed in the operation. Jez Salamacis is dispatched and without a ready clone to resurrect right away. A golem containing a submind of Germanicus detonates, forcing Leitman to resurrect. JT and Tessa reconcile only when she agrees to recognize Tishla as his wife and Athena as his daughter. Suicide is believed to have been killed while sabotaging a Leitman-loyal starship to allow the Endeavour to escape.
442 IE
Suicide destroys the resurrection server farm in Tibet with help from another Germanicus golem. The explosion prevents Jez Salamacis from resurrecting, effectively killing her.