June 28, 1914 - An assassin named Gavrillo Princip assassinates Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand after a failed attempt earlier that morning. His chance meeting of the Archduke in front of a coffee shop after the failed first attempt is widely considered to be one of the largest coincidences in history, as well as one of the most world changing moments of the next several centuries.
July 28, 1914 - The First World War begins.
September 1, 1939 - The Second World War begins, ending in September of 1945 with a world that the now deceased Archduke could never have conceived of.
1960's - Over the next ten years a device known as the "Johns Hopkins Beast" will be constructed. The simple machine is one of the first robots capable of wandering through an environment and seeking the resources it requires to survive.
October 1962 - International nuclear war narrowly avoided during 13 day confrontation between the US and the USSR regarding Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba.
1972 - United States signs Antiballistic Missile treaty with Russia, effectively limiting strategic defense capabilities in the event of a nuclear war.
1991 - Declaration 142-H of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union dissolves the aggregate entity formerly known as the Soviet Union and breaks its constituent territories into twelve independent states.
September 11, 2001 - What would become eventually known as "the September 11 attacks" occurs in New York and the Washington D.C. Metro area. The event acts as a catalyzing force to shape US domestic and foreign policies over the following years, and is a key motivating factor in justifying wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2010 - First fully synthetic micro-organism is crafted in a laboratory.
2016 - First successful assembly of a 3d printer from components printed from other 3d printers.
2017 - Records of John F. Kennedy assassination are disclosed to the public in an environment of domestic polarization and mistrust in the United States.
2019 - Construction of the Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia concludes, making it the tallest building in the world.
2020 - The ITER nuclear fusion project is once again delayed due to budgetary restrictions.
2021 - Masdar City in Abu Dabi is declared the first successful ultra-low carbon emission city and a blueprint for the future. Controversies arise, however, as to the availability of housing for lower income families. NY Times reports that eco-friendly cities of the future will be "a citadel available to the rich." Of particular note to internet news outlets are massive walls surrounding the city's perimeter.
2027 - Plexis Technologies corporation founded.
2028 - ITER becomes operational, demonstrating the first nuclear fusion experiment to output more power than is used. Expectations for commercial application are expected within the next five to eight years.
2029 - Plexis Technologies unveils a two-year treatment array capable of slowly reversing the process of cellular aging, calling the process "antisenescence." The process is considered risky, however, and carries with it a 50% fatality rate.
2030 - Explored Alaskan oil resources are depleted. Nuclear fission is the primary means of power for 75% of the world despite mass ecological protest.
2031 - Antibiotic resistant pneumonic plague is discovered in Liberia possessing the gene NDM-1, making it resistant to virtually all known antibiotics. With domestic production at an all time high, many countries hastily close their ports to African imports. One exception is China, which makes the decision to strengthen ties with Somalian petrochemical interests as other investors flee.
Turing 0.8 is demonstrated in a lab, but the hardware required is too cost prohibitive to release commercially.
2032 - Mass labor protests in China hike up the cost of domestic goods significantly. Many families begin distribution of "home crafters" for printing a wide array of consumer goods. US economy undergoes a quiet intellectual property revolution as the number of printable goods increases significantly and need for superior designs emerge.
2033 - Pneumonic plague is discovered in Mexico. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California close their southern borders entirely. Border drones are dispatched along a 4 km "dead zone" with orders to shoot on sight anyone attempting to cross the border. Similar drones are dispatched off the coast of Florida as the plague reaches Cuba.
2036 - Highly anticipated space based mining operations become cost prohibitive with the scarcity of necessary petrochemicals for creating rocket fuel.
Nuclear fusion generators are completed in seven nations including the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, India, and Japan.
2037 - Pneumonic Plague is replaced by a strain that lays dormant in the lungs for extended, often random periods of time. An outbreak occurs in parts of Kansas, resulting in the quarantine of the small city of Sun Glenn. One year later that city's population has been reduced by 96%. The bacteria is later determined to have infected local cattle populations, leading to the destruction of some 800,000 cattle. It is this event that will lead to funding and successful experimentation of flora-meats. Somehow the plague manages to get beyond the quarantine zone, and is spotted in Nebraska, South Dakota, and then North Dakota.
2038 - First Turing 1 machine fools investors into believing they are communicating with a human via phone for thirty minutes. Turing 1 machines grow in popularity in personal computers and telecommunications.
2040 - Complex biovital scanning makes complex identification of all registered humans in the United States possible. Advertising algorithm generators know the names and purchasing habits of every person within all metropolitan cities and most rural districts. Consumer confidence expected to increase 4% more than expected over the next two years as a result. Violent crime drops 48% during the same period.
2041 - Antisenescence technologies begin to gain consumer traction as the fatality rate is reduced below 2% thanks to cancer breakthroughs by Plexis Technologies. Additionally, the minimum decline is down to 20 years of age. The treatment is still, however, extremely cost prohibitive.
2041 - 2061 - Not much is known of this period. Most computer systems from the period are lost due to a solar storm similar to the Carrington event of 1859. The lack of police infrastructure and production capability does result in a rise in crime by an estimated 700%. Order is restored slowly over the course of ten years. Some historians refer to this event as it happened as the first global civil war or the "Dark Decade" between 2038 and 2048. A similar event, however, occurs in 2058 resetting infrastructure again, but order is restored much more quickly.
2041 - Cure for Pneumonic Plague is finally discovered in the United Kingdom in the form of HLD-1110, a virus that breeds exclusively inside the bacteria and then ruptures out of the cell membrane. The virus has a short lifespan and cannot breed, except inside the plague. Inoculations are widely dispersed with great success, but the global population has been reduced significantly.
2061 - The city of New Burhakaba dìjíshì, Somalia is in a state of extreme civil unrest increasing strain on oil supplies and increasing prices in some countries to $109/gallon. Young general Ghedi Josef is assassinated by drone strike. Identity of the drone's country of origin is unknown.
2063 - First Anquan (Mandarin for "Security") city is constructed in Beijing. The 30 storey tall superstructure is thought to be one of a kind, but its applications are limitless, making demand for future structures quite high. Plexis technologies buys the design and promises to craft 100 Anquan by the year 2095.
2070 - State of Emergency is declared in the city of Miami, Florida as police drones begin the systematic extermination of its citizenry without explanation. The action is traced to a Cuban terrorist plot, and 103 members of a local domestic militia are arrested. During the subsequent reaction, all acts of malicious cyberterrorism are given a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison.
2078 - Nobel Prize for Fissile engineering goes to Alfred Von Herzig for his working model of a small high-yield FNF model radioisotope generator. News channels around the world feature a cover story of the prominent role nuclear fission will play in reversing tension over peak oil. FNF reactors will make possible several technologies once thought unfeasible. Herzig is quoted as saying the invention will hopefully bring about an end to the constant threat of war.
2079 - A Danish petrochemical exploration team goes missing in the Arctic, leading to widespread rumors that an illegal extraction operation may have been deployed there. Subsequent investigation is bogged down in international red tape, and the case remains unsolved.
2080 - Anquan city real estate is in high demand with 1 out of every 75 people pledging to commit $1,500,000 for the right to live in the security and comfort of the massive mobile platforms. Plexis Technologies promises a solution to the housing crisis soon.
2081 - With its power system simplified, Plexis corporation completes its construction of 100 Anquan cities more than ten years ahead of schedule. In a landmark moment for then CEO Harriet Tanhauser, she announces another 100 such cities will be built in five years to meet with growing demand.
2086 - 100 additional Anquan cities are produced and sold in shares to the populace. Another 500 will be built over the course of the next ten years at inflated prices.
2089 - United States announces the building of a "wall" around its coast, which if activated will effectively shield the eastern and western coasts from invasion by sea or air. When pressed for details, the White House releases a video showing the destruction of several remote controlled planes by unknown means. The project is named "Star Wars 4" in the official letterhead leading to speculation that there have been multiple top secret missile shield programs since the Reagan era.
2091 - First Plexis module self-replicating drone is dispatched to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to gather the materials necessary to build copies of itself and meet increased demands for raw materials.
2092 - Los Angeles vanishes from history. Alaska has by this point seceded from the United States alongside Hawaii with little explanation. Records indicate these are non-violent responses to growing autonomy and happen some time around 2092.
2093 - A nuclear submarine operating outside of the Russian Confederation goes AWOL. After a brief search, the submarine makes contact with port authorities, threatening strikes against military targets if the national government continues its abuse of coastal labor protesters in Vladivostok.
"Vladivostok Incident" occurs, and a small 500 kiloton missile is detonated near an unmanned missile silo. There are no immediate casualties, but refugees from the port city create a crisis at the Ukrainian border. Donets'k is inundated with refugees seeking help. Russian government officials are paralyzed to respond as national attitudes toward the refugees turns cold rapidly. Over the following six months, Donets'k will struggle to keep up with the throngs of refugees.
2094 - The United Nations effectively dissolves as several delegates remove themselves from chambers. Those remaining include Russia, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, Vietnam, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. Many versions of this story suggest the reason is an escalation in violent rhetoric following the embarrassment of the Vladivostok Incident.
The United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Canada meet in July to discuss global financial reform. The meeting is clandestinely recorded and broadcast on television.
Shipments of food to several major cities is disrupted by drone strikes piloted by persons unknown, resulting in famine in several major US metropolitan areas and a subsequent mass exodus.
Construction Unions in the United States launch a protest over increasingly draconian labor practices by destroying key bottlenecks of US highways and then going on strike.
Temperature increase of 5 degrees globally since 2000.
2095 - An estimated 0.001% of Americans are now living atop the Anquan plates. This percentage will increase over the following years, primarily due to die-offs related to disease and domestic skirmishes throughout the midwest during the exodus of urban centers. A marked social animosity has developed between the those on the plates and those on the ground. Transportation becomes more unreliable as lithium for batteries in electric cars grows scarce. Some vehicle operators resort to retrofitting their trucks with biodiesel grown in algae vats, but the roads themselves are still in a state of disrepair. The national highway is estimated to have one 'prohibitive' obstruction per six miles. Reclamation of back roads in many municipalities by wild growth is a major problem. Anquan cities as well as railroad lines serve to transport goods across the continental United States in response to the "decline of the automobile."
2096 - Trade lines have returned to metropolitan areas, but the population has declined significantly. A survey reveals 82% of people intend to leave cities to pursue lives in areas where food is more reliable. Among the casualties are many workers producing plate cities, meaning production will slow to a crawl.
2097 - Populations have become more dispersed and regional, with only 4% living in urban arrangements. Urban sprawl is actively mined for its material components as infrastructure begins to decay. This does not, however, mean the United States has become agrarian in nature. Instead, industrial hubs are separated throughout the United States. The same craft and resource based economies are still in place, but Anquan cities claim the areas where resources are most concentrated.
2098 - Workers from Anquans 030 and 031 disembark to fight over rights to exploit a lumber operation in Northern New Hampshire territory. The incident is considered uncharacteristic and bloody, and local police from ground districts are called in to quell the fighting. Fire is exchanged from one plate to the next via high powered rifles in a tense standoff for 41 days.
2099 - Fighting between Anquan cities increases as prices over land rights increase. This will devolve into factional open warfare, often fought with the assistance of mercenary bands of the local citizenry and offers of trade shares of the fallen city. Warfare often occurs in territory over ground level habitations. Collateral damage is often significant.
2100 - Plexis Technologies announces via DC TV that it has already finished constructing a vast intercontinental subterranean rail system that connects every major inhabited area, and this rail system can operate easily "without fuel." It is believed the rail system operates off of a centralized power grid attached to an underground fusion reactor, but this is not confirmed.
2104 - First Plexis Drone completes building an exact duplicate of itself. The two drones separate after running a four minute test on one another, and begin gathering resources and crafting duplicates of themselves.
2108 - In an effort to quell fighting between the cities, Anquan 041 reveals a recently acquired stockpile of small nuclear warheads and distributes them to the other cities at "10 per," hoping to both secure the supremacy of their fleet, and encourage cooperation. The addition of nuclear range cannons to the city turrets goes unnoticed by Washington, which is growing increasingly isolated. Fighting among Anquan declines significantly over the course of that year.
2109 - First Drafting of the Anquan Accord.
2115 - Washington, still claiming national sovereignty, discovers the new alliance of the Anquan and their nuclear weapons, resulting in the third Civil War - with this one lasting seventeen years.
Armies march, and bombs of every sort are dropped all over until the blasts do nothing but bounce rubble and scatter long dead bones.
In the later days of the war, tactical ICBMs are used to disrupt the now unified Anquan fleet - dispersing vast clouds of radiation and firestorms. Creatures are designed in Washington's underground labs to withstand the harsh terrain, including the melthorse.
What remains of the immobile cities is bombed to dust. This does not, however, explain the massive amounts of radiation flowing in from the west coast. The war reduces what remains of civilization in the west to a withered husk. The Anquan fleet trods the Earth, immune to this new harsh reality, intent only on keeping the ground and its fearful inhabitants subjugated and servile.
The destruction of the civil war is nearly complete, with what remains of the Anquan now reigning over what can only be described as a wasteland.
Deserts and badlands expand outward from the southwest as temperatures rise to record highs throughout the United States. Storms laden with radioactive isotopes drawn up along the Westerlies draw radiation from the now mysterious "other world" - Old Asia.
During this time the two Plexis drones have crafted two exact copies of themselves, making four in total. They each run tests for 4 minutes and commence work to construct new copies of themselves.
2131 - "Simplification" begins in the heartland and moves to the extreme coasts. Crops are burned when scarcity cannot be otherwise enforced. Food is traded to the now simple and desperate locals for knowledge and "old things." Libraries are turned out, mounded up with books and machines to be traded for food and small arms.
An agricultural commune in Oklahoma rebels against Anquan 730 "Vicinity." The rebellion is quashed by informing rebels that the deal stands "no matter who brings it." This is the first known use of the term "entourage" to describe followers of the cities.
Plexis drones 1-4 bring their duplicates, drones 5-8 to the arranged meeting point and perform tests to ensure they are operating at peak efficiency. All tests are successful, and all eight set off to harvest materials and build duplicates of themselves.
2200 - By this point the United States has been reduced technologically on the ground to a pre-industrial state - and in many regions a level lower than that is enforced. The Anquan exercise their dominance through prolonged campaigns of terror. It is believed the fall of the United States may be playing out in similar scenarios around the world, but intercontinental communication is extremely limited and unreliable.
2212 - Plexis drones 1 through 512 meet at the arranged spot in the asteroid belt to test their sensors and capabilities. They determine that they are all operating at peak efficiency and set out to build perfect replicas of themselves.
2281 - Ongoing campaigns in the western state of Mississippi result in the meeting of Anquans 389 Grenada and 390 Jackson. During a battle over unknown circumstance, short range nuclear ordinance is deployed, resulting in the immediate destruction of both cities.
2283 - Speculation that Anquan 973 Salem has fallen due to a rebellion results in the "year of perdition" visited on various villages by Anquan 974 Eugene in both sectors.
2290 - Rustbaby witnesses events outlined in Timestamp #8000001 as Helio the Human Fire Eater inquires, "What is that thing?" and activates the AI for the first time in its recorded memory.
Plexis drones 1 through 32,768 meet at the arranged spot in the asteroid belt to test their sensors and capabilities. They determine that one of them is not operating at peak efficiency, and that one is immediately destroyed by the others. When the deed is done, three seconds pass as they scan its component parts, searching for a defect. The surviving 32,767 drones return to the asteroid belt to craft duplicates of themselves and meet up every 13 years.
2371 - Ebon the Waste is born.
2379 - Ebon the Waste discovers Crassus as a young child.
2381 - Plexis drones 1 through 4,194,176 meet and determine that they have reached the necessary critical mass to begin construction of the Plexis Objects. Construction of the Plexis Factory Shopping Center takes approximately six years.
2387 - Plexis shopping center is completed, filled with the necessary software and plant matter, and set on a course back to Earth. During its four year journey, six drones will attend to the algae and flora and perfect the interior of the center as the object falls back to Earth. The Drones that remain behind determine the object to be a success, exchanging information of the materials in the cloud of asteroids nearby, and then commence crafting duplicates of themselves from the raw material of the asteroid belt in celebration as per their programming.
2388 - Ebon the Waste and Crassus come across the ruins of Anquan 629 destroyed and abandoned.
2390 - Drones 1 through 8,388,340 begin construction of the next two Plexis Objects on their collective agenda over the following ten years.
2391 - Year of Forgiving Rains according to regional shamans and farmers operating within the former midwestern United States. Plexis object one arrives on Earth.
2400 - Drones conclude the construction of two objects in space and send them back to Earth to remain in a holding pattern in orbit until a designated time and place to land is received via radio transmission. They begin construction of the next generation of drones.
2413 - 16,776,680 Drones begin construction of the next four Plexis objects to be sent to Earth in ten years at the designated time and place.
2431 - An unidentified object falls from the sky, destroying Anquan 741 Tulsa. One survivor from the city is recorded later.
The entity which will become known as "The Rustbaby" records the events around the Wonderland on which it presides. Actual death toll remains unknown.
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