A "Timeline" for Andre's expansive
Multi-verse: pt 3 of 5
By Maureen S. O'Brien
NOTE: Due to the size of this document we have split it into 5 parts.
Index to Multi-verse part 01
- Forerunners, Star Lords, and Ancient Ones
- Circa Napoleonic Times
Index to Multi-verse part 02
- AD 1957 - 1975: The Space Age Begins
- Time Travel and the First Starships
Index to Multi-verse part 03
Index to Multi-verse part 04
- From The Solar Queen to the Dipple on Korwar
- From the Dipple on Korwar to the Second Galactic Empire
Index to Multi-verse part 05
- The Four Sectors War
- The Second Galactic Empire Begins!
The Big Blow-Up, Central Control
and the Pre-Solar Queen Era
Circa AD 2012?:
[Well, that's when the Maya said the end of the world would occur, and that Atlantean heritage, should have taught them something. Besides, it gives more time for the colonies to be established and makes it more likely that 2250 would be described as more than 200 years after, instead of 250 years after.]
(“The Stars Are Ours!”) One of the three space stations around Terra is invaded, captured and occupied by mercenaries employed by nationalist forces pretending to be Free Scientists. By chance or plan, certain installations on the station were used as weapons against Terra. Apparently these men themselves had no idea of how much power they unleashed, and that it immediately went out of control. [In the confusion, isolated units probably unleashed ground-based atomic and conventional weaponry as well, since the EMP would knock out most communications.] Most of the high population areas were completely devastated. The loss of life was uncountable, according to the “Encyclopedia Galactica”.
Arturo Renzi, the sole survivor of his family, declared that science was evil and humans should return to a simple farming life to save Terra and themselves. He gained many followers. When he was assassinated (supposedly by a Free Scientist), there was a 3-day purge of scientists and techneers. Saxon Bort assumed control of Renzi's followers and organized the world dictatorship of the Company of Pax.
Circa AD 2019?:
(“The Stars Are Ours!”) It is "....7, almost 8 years...." after the "Big Burning" and the purge of the Scientists. The Free Scientists and freedom fighters based in the Cleft, unaware of the previous and highly secret interstellar colonization by means of the "Baldie" empire's stardrive, build a starship with a stardrive and coldsleep method of their own devising and take off in it just as Pax forces break into the Cleft.
AD 2250:
(“Star Man's Son”) The story begins more than 200 years since the chaos following the Big Blow-Up (the name of the atomic war). The people of the Eyrie are governed by "the Council" as in (“The Defiant Agents”) & (“Key Out of Time”). (They and the others of the story live inside radiation- scarred land that the rest of the world leaves alone. Note that later the Big Burn was so shunned that people assumed there was no life there up until the time of (“Plague Ship”). This would explain why there's no Pax around in this story.) Atomic cars existed just before the Blow-Up.
(“Star Man's Son”) A primitive lizard civilization exists, as well as "the Beast Things", mutated humans with animal intelligence and cannibalistic habits. The Plainspeople are nomads, something like Vikings in culture, who travel north and south around the valley of the great river. (the Mississippi?) The people of the Eyrie live in the Smoking Mountains. (the Smoky Mountains?) The Dark People are descended from black pilots who landed in a (Mexican?) valley at the end of the war that caused the Blow- Up; they moved north after volcanoes & earthquakes drove them out and the rising sea drove them into the great river's valley.
AD 2250?:
(“No Night Without Stars”) This is also a tale that takes place in radiation-scarred land after the Big Blow- Up. Here Sander the smith, his koyot Rhin, Fanyi the spirit- talker and her fishers Kai and Kayi face a computer of the Before Men with mind-control psi powers. [It is similar to the Soviets' machine in (“The Defiant Agents”). Also, Jak's Mob, which has always been connected with the 'koyots' and hailed originally from the Southwest, are probably descendants of the mutant coyote handlers from the same book.]
AD 2312?:
(“Moon Called”) This is also a tale that takes place after the Big Blow-Up. The story begins 10 generations after the Before Time ends. When the Craigs are destroyed by pirates, Thora the Chosen and Kort the dog travel away together. They save Malkin, a familiar, from the remains of a raided trader caravan, and take her back home as she requested. Home turns out to be the Valley of the Windriders, and there Thora meets Makil, bearer of the Sword of Lur and Malkin's blood-bound. They fight against the forces of Set, using war machines hidden in the Before Times, and learn that Malkin's kind were genetically engineered in the Before Times to drive war machines into battle and thus spare humans.
Circa AD 2307\2407?:
(“Star Born”) The dictatorship of the Company of Pax falls, and the story of the Free Men's starship is found among their records. This inspires the newly freed world to concentrate its scientific efforts on space. After the space program begins, a new experimental starship in the “RS” series is sent out every five years.
Circa AD 2362\2462:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 1” leaves Earth & doesn't return.
Circa AD 2367\2467:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 2” leaves Earth & doesn't return.
Circa AD 2372\2472:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 3” blows up in Mars orbit.
Circa AD 2377\2477:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 4” leaves Earth & doesn't return.
Circa AD 2382\2482:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 5” leaves Earth & doesn't return.
Circa AD 2387\2487:
(“The Stars Are Ours”) The Free Men's starship arrives at a habitable planet (“Star Born”). They name it Astra. They learn that it is inhabited by the Others (authoritarians who at one point engaged in atomic war; they have a small population & less power than formerly, but still have higher tech than the Terrans) and the seafolk (former slaves of the Others who revolted and ran). The “RS 6” leaves Earth & doesn't return.
Circa AD 2392\2492:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 7” goes out of control while still in contact with Earth. Its fate is unknown.
Circa AD 2397\2497:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 8” leaves Earth & doesn't return.
Circa AD 2402\2502:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 9” leaves Earth & doesn't return.
Circa AD 2407\2507:
(“Star Born”) The “RS 10” leaves Earth. It reaches Astra. The crew meets the Others and is tricked into helping them. When they see the Others' evil, they help the seafolk and Terran colonists to defeat them. Then they begin their return to Terra, promising the Astrans that their existence will not be divulged. The Astrans reveal something they remember - that before Pax took power, there were at least two galactic expeditions. [Of course, the AS 10 might never have reached Terra to keep the promise of silence. But Astra survived, and both it and the duocorns are mentioned in later books (“Plague Ship”) & (“Postmarked the Stars”).]
[When the starships repeatedly fail to return, or when the worlds they find do not appear to justify the expenditure, Earth burns out on its dreams of space. At some point, the political union dissolves into nations, the nations begin to war, and someone uses atomics.]
Circa AD 2956:
1000 years before (“Star Guard”), atomic wars rage across Terra. North America is hit hardest, but Europe and Asia also suffer. Most of the survivors live underground; they call those from before the wars 'the Old Ones'. Thanks to the Big Blow-up and these wars, it becomes unthinkable for Terrans to use atomics. [It is possible to interpret "....the Big Blow-Up and the wars which followed. Those had occurred 1000 years before...." to mean 'this is 1000 years after the Big Blow-Up'. In this case, however, the Big Blow-Up would not have taken place until AD 2956. This doesn't make much sense to me; so I am interpreting "those" as a reference to "the wars which followed". The resulting cycle of brushfire and major atomic wars is horrifying but consistent with human nature.]
Parallel world AD 3450:
(“Long Live Lord Kor!”) El Zim makes the discovery which makes time travel possible. Strong regulatory measures are imposed, though Zim and his assistants had already promised to take care.
Parallel world AD 3465:
(“Long Live Lord Kor!”) After time travel is organized, controlled strictly by bureaucrats, and explored by trained and screened operatives, the newly organized Bureau of Time Exploration and Manipulation is allowed to meddle in history as long as it is done by the book and not in home systems of groups in power. On worlds burned off by war, they attempt to prevent the burn-off from occurring.
Parallel world AD 3500:
(“Long Live Lord Kor!”) ZAT, a master computer, supplies data to the Bureau. With this help, Creed Trapnell is sent into the past of Vallek, a burned-off planet, to prevent the Orm Prophet from prophesying war. He finds himself inside the body of Lord Kor Kenric, thanks to the machinations of ZAT's secret decision that it needed a permanent agent in that identity.
Time travel takes place by mind transfer to persons with severe enough mental handicaps that they have little personality, except in the case of permanent agents who are transferred differently.
Communications: TV screen, wall screen, computer, briefing helm, spy ray.
Transport: time travel, send-sling.
Weapons: blazer, stunner.
Psi: mind-see, sleep search, mind-thrust, mind-shield, mind-sleep.
Circa AD 3656:
(“Star Guard”) Central Control, noticing Terra's entrance into its starlanes, decides to take Terra as a member. It believes the starship it intercepts is Earth's first successful starship; so do the Terrans, even those of Hidden Prime later [perhaps thanks to the fact that no previous starships got home safe]. (Terrans do remember legends of ships with cold sleep that fled the atomic wars and the ages of political\social confusion after.) Central Control's psycho-techneers rule that Terrans are too warlike to be allowed into space except as regulated mercenaries; this will kill off the venturesome, reduce the number of humans around, and generally keep Terra from getting uppity. Terrans are forbidden to trade. However, they promised that when Terra was ready, it would gain a more equal status. Prime, a city built on the banks of the East River (Manhattan Island was covered by the sea), becomes the capital and sole spaceport of Terra.
(“Star Guard”) Combatant forces are made up of teams, which are composed of doubles (2-man partnerships). There are two kinds of Combatants: Arch (archaic) and Mech (mechanical). Arch are organized in Hordes; their uniform is green-gray; they wear helmets; their most advanced weapon is the stat-rifle but they also use swords and knives. Mechs have Legions; their uniform is blue-gray with crossed rockets on their dress tunic; they wear bubble helmets; they use the most advanced weapons available and their best tactic is to frighten opponents into backing down without war. Arch rank runs: Swordman 3rd class (S-3), S-2, S-1, Swordtan, Blademaster. Mech rank runs: Mechneer 3rd class (M-3), M-2, M-1, Mechtan, Mechmaster. Number of stars on tunic indicate rank of Mech- and Swordmasters.
Service uniforms: The Galactic Patrol wears black and white. Central Control Agents (bureaucrat rulers) wear red cloaks trimmed with gold.
Circa AD 3706:
(“Star Guard”) The first remembered operations of Hidden Prime against Central Control.
Circa AD 3856:
(“Star Guard”) One in every 20 Terran troop transports is actually a colony ship from this date on.
AD 3951 - 3956:
(“Star Guard”) Twenty Legions lost in fighting, according to one Mech.
AD 3956:
(“Star Guard”) Kana Karr, just out of training as an Arch (archaic) Combatant, is hired by Yorke Horde and sent to Fronn. The Horde has been hired as mercenaries to fight for a Llor prince in a war of succession. However, Kana soon discovers that Central Control has sent Mech (mechanical) Combatants to get rid of the Horde. After a dangerous march through hostile country, Kana and others try to get word of this reachery back to Terra; but they are captured and condemned to the labor camps by Central Control. Kana escapes and is rescued by the Hidden Prime, a resistance organization which works to get Terrans in the stars.
1000 planets have secret Terran colonies by this point, of which 30 fail and 6 are struggling. Twenty X-Tee worlds have been taught the Hidden Prime pattern and are also colonizing in secret. Terrans hope that someday they will work on exploration teams with friendly X-Tees. [Compare with the later Star Trek.]
Planets: Vega 3, Capella 2, Nevers, Fronn, Procyon, Rigel 6 [home of the Rigellian in (“Sargasso of Space”)], Mars [Martian sand mouse also in (“Plague Ship”)], Moon, Caq, Sansifar, Wolf II, Cephas, Zacan, Sirius II, Arcturus, Polaria, Lydia I. Also X-Tees: Yabanu (feline), Trystian (avian).
Communications: record-pak (on wire) read in sleep or by portable reader, speecher (key-punched), visa shots (photos), tele-cast. [Archs play cards and Yano and bet on fish-fights, but star-and-comet apparently has not been invented.]
Transport: shuttle (air vessels), land jopper, 'copter, surface mobile, transport (cargo truck), track- running truck, crawler and land fortress (war vehicles), coaster (air vessel), wing (plane), antigravity belt, jet (on suit), starship with Galactic overdrive that travels in warp.
Weapons: sword, Grace knife (for giving comrades the coup de grace), needle knife (deadliest Arch combat form), stat-rifle (used only by Archs), fire cartridge (burning explosive), crawler and land fortress (war machines), blaster, spouter, flamer.
[It is revealed that Terrans and other 'minor systems' have been secretly resisting the will of Central Control. Shock and dissension spreads.]
AD 4130:
At the Galactic University of Zacan, Hist-Techneer Zorzi lectures on the events recounted in (“Star Guard”). He says that it "changed history for their species, and perhaps for the Galaxy as well. Whether this change will operate for the general good of us all remains to be seen."
[The dissension and shock caused by the revelation turn into rampant hostility and civil war. Races are wiped out, planets are burned off and suns are left dead in desperate attempts to maintain control or win freedom. Eventually, Central Control falls, but the civilizations of the Galaxy fall with it -- and forget their previous voyages to the stars.]
[Civilization rises again fairly quickly.]
1000+ years before (“Sargasso of Space”):
"There are Terran colonies over a thousand years old...There were those who went out to cross the gap in frozen sleep, and those who lived for four, six, and eight generations in ships before their far off descendants trod the worlds their ancestors had set course for. And there were earlier variations of the hyper-drive, some of which may have worked, although their inventors never returned to Terra o report success." Some, like the ancestors of the Khatkans, fled the atomic wars or the chaos that came afterward.
(“Voodoo Planet”) A race war. One side tried to take over Africa, herded most of the Africans into one giant concentration camp and started killing them off. [They also may have used them for labor and as shields for their secret projects, ala the Nazis using slave labor in the rocket factories.] When the camp's keepers were bombed toward the end of the war, some survivors staged a revolt with the help of the enemy. They captured an experimental station in the middle of the camp, kidnapped the white technicians to pilot them and took off for the stars in the two starships hidden there. Most of the people died on the way, but enough survived to found a colony on Khatka. Technology is forgotten, since survival is the immediate goal. The highest status belonged to the darkest skin.
The last of Terra's atomic wars:
(“Plague Ship”) The Big Burn, a high-radiation area scarring hundreds of square miles, is created in North America. The only safe ground left is in the far west and south. It covers 3\4 of the continent; the damage extends up to the arctic regions.
(“Wizards’ World”) Psi, which popped up after the atomic wars, is respected by most people. Even as extensive colonization of the Moon and Mars began, the Espers were increasingly oppressed. They were not allowed to crew spaceships or go to the colonies. After a while, they were forced into E-camps to do slave labor or 'brain-twisted' into becoming Hounds that hunt psychically for E-camp escapees. The only safe havens were the deserted barrens created by atomic wars. Craike, smuggled out of an eastern E-camp, is sent to explore the area that used to be Reno. But he was tricked into revealing himself and tracked by an Esper hound. Fortunately for him, he accidentally dived into an parallel universe where the Esper Black Hoods ruled. He helps Takya, a woman whose power is new to the Black Hoods, fight their power. ['Hounds' with the same name, powers, and purpose were used by Ahab in the dark Marvel Universe future created by Chris Claremont.]
500-800 years before (“Sargasso of Space”):
A Class Three, Asteroid Belt ship with an experimental stardrive crashes on Limbo. At the time, humans were confined to the solar system, "except for a few crazy experimenters."
[A reliable stardrive is developed.]
50 years before ("All Cats Are Gray"):
The “Empress of Mars” passengers are killed by an invisible alien. It orbits the solar system as a derelict for the next 50 years, its warning lights red.
20 years before ("Mousetrap"):
Black Spragg finds a cache of Martian crown jewels.
("Mousetrap") Two years after Sam Levatts finds a 'sand monster' shaped like a woman with wings, Len Collins persuades him to show her off. Collins then tests a glue on her and runs off when she crumbles anyway. Levatts plots revenge. Having figured out that 'sand monsters' were created in self-defense by a Martian animal, Sam tricks Collins into kicking the animal. This time Collins' glue works, so he sells the new 'sand monster' to the Interplanetary Museum, buys a stellar ship, and goes looking for the winged race.
The main Martian starport is known as Terraport. The city once called Prime is being called New York once more. Star Stones and gormel ore are found on Mars, and the prospectors who find them are called "desert spiders". There are canals on Mars. The Space Marines guard the sand monsters. Martian sand mice live there. [mentioned also in (“Plague Ship”) and (“Catseye”)]
Planets: Earth, Moon, Mars.
Communications: TV, flat pictures, shock fields.
Transport: sandmobile, wind plane, rocket, stellar ship.
("All Cats Are Gray") Steena (a computer operator), her cat Bat, and Cliff Moran board the “Empress of Mars”, a derelict interplanetary pleasure liner, and kill the invisible alien that had killed the passengers and many would-be salvagers. Steena and Cliff get rich and married.
"Venaport" is Venus' starport. Natives live on at least one of Jupiter's moons. Free spacers and others wear spacealls. Slitite is valuable. Vernal juice is an intoxicant.
Planets: Rigel, Jove (Jupiter), Moon (quarantine station even then).
Communications: Stellar-Vedo spreads, 'the big calculators' (computers), photo-reg cards (old).
Transport: stellar ships.
Weapons: blaster (has exploding shell).
[As Terrans pushed out into space, Trade was made into a Service, similar perhaps to the Merchant Marine. Apparently they meet up with the "Styor", who dominate two-thirds of the nearby planets inhabitable by humanoids.]
200 years before (“The Sioux Spaceman”):
The Plan and the Policy begin to govern Trade. According to Policy, Trade does not interfere with the Styor. According to the Plan, Trade winnows out the more defiant people, teaches them to be sneaky, and gets them to work on the slow undermining of the Styor Empire. [This may be an alternate universe - but as this chronology shows, there's plenty of time for the Styor to come and go. Also, there is precedent for the double government in (“Star Gate”) Hidden Prime.] Service tests are used which fit the right person to the right job. [These are probably the forerunners of the Psycho tests of the Solar Queen's time.] Failure in the Service sends one to the labor gangs.
(“The Sioux Spaceman”): Kade Whitehawk, a Lakota of the Northwest Terran Confederation, kills a Styor lordling on Tadder. As punishment, he is taken from Tadder; but he finds himself re-assigned to a Mixed Team on Klor – an elite group. There he learns that his predecessor, a Lakota, was murdered. Kade puts his skills with animals and his empathy with the enslaved Ikkinni natives to good use; he imports Terran horses and teaches the Ikkinni to ride and use bows in guerrilla warfare against their hated Styor masters. When his operation ends, Kade expects to be punished. Instead he is informed of the Plan and told to keep up the good work. [The Spirits of Outer Space are referred to by the Traders.]
Planets: Lodi (Offworld Trader Base), Tadder, Klor, Venus, Qwang-Khan
Tech: Hypo-trainer, stunner, perma-steel, ear-reader,tri- dees, dura-steel.
"Styor" tech: sonic, slave control box and collar, hop-ship, private-flyer, inter-atmosphere cruiser.
Circa 500 years before (“Plague Ship”):
The First Martian Rebellion. Refugees from this conflict leave Mars on the “New Hope” for the stars, but a plague kills its passengers. The ship floats on forever, its 'dead' lights seen (by legend) only by similarly unlucky ships.
[The "Styor" Empire falls.]
Alternate world, circa '23:
("Secret of the Lost Race") Fifteen years after being left in '07 at Kern's SunSpot, an illegal casino in the Port of N'Yok's JetTown, Joktar is hunted by those who have learned he is the first descendant of humans and an alien race that can only have female children unless it mates with another species. The child produced by such a genetic mix is known as a Ffallian. Joktar flees Earth to the Alpha Lupi 'Wolf' system, where he manages to live despite the icy environment. He gets off Wolf, pursues his hunters in the Patrol, and manages to make a deal with them to be left alone. Then he finds the Ffallian world and is reunited with his extended family. [This is clearly an alternate world, since the sentient races known do not correspond at all to those of the mainline Andreverse. However, star-and-comet is played here.]
Circa 400 years before (“Sargasso of Space”):
A century after it left, the derelict “New Hope” is sighted for the first time.
Circa 200 years before (“Voodoo Planet”):
Psi gifts suddenly appear in five clans among the people of Khatka. After a period of turmoil, these Five Families form a oligarchy to lead a loose tribal confederation over all Khatka. Under their leadership, a new technological civilization evolves.
100 years before (“Plague Ship”):
The population of Earth, drained by atomic wars and the colonization of the solar system and the Galaxy, begins to increase for the first time in generations as retirees and tourists from colony worlds move back to Earth.
Almost 100 years before (“Plague Ship”):
Volcanic action followed by tidal waves sinks Japan beneath the sea in two days and a night (“Sargasso of Space”).
75 years before (“Voodoo Planet”):
Khatka is found by a first- in Scout. The Combine buys the trade rights to Khatka at the Survey Lottery and proceeds to set up with Khatka as purveyors of luxury safaris.
"Some planet years back":
(“Postmarked the Stars”) Vegan Trosti, a billionaire with a mysterious past, disappears as mysteriously as he appeared. Under orders in his will, his men dissolve his holdings after a set amount of time has passed and form the Trosti Foundation.
10 years before (“Sargasso of Space”):
The Crater War is fought when Mars revolts. Mars' cities are devastated by atomic attack. As a child, Ali Kamil survives the horrifying massacres; his family does not (“Plague Ship”). Ali attributes his survival to a psychic sense for danger, past, present and future; and staying loner enough to be able to act on such a warning without waiting to explain it to others (“Redline the Stars”).
8 years before (“Postmarked the Stars”):
In the year '21, the Trosti Foundation sets up a lab in the hinterlands of Trewsworld. Pioneer holdings in that area do not expand much after that year.
