OVERMAN 2335

Timeline Part 2

Back to Part 1 of the Timeline.


2017 :

The Justicars preaching of absolute law over all else finally causes the Ayatollahs of Iran to issue a fatwah against them. From this time on the Judicial Federation is troubled by Islamic terrorism, including attacks carried out by Islamic superhumans such as Desert Orchid.


2019 :

The San Andreas fault in California finally snaps, and a huge earthquake rocks the south-west USA and northern Mexico. Fortunately seismic monitoring techniques enable the quake to be predicted several days in advance, allowing precautions to be taken which save thousands of lives. Several groups of superhumans assist in clearing-up operations after the quake. California is economically crippled for more than ten years after the quake, which drives the whole USA into a recession.

Japanese corporations begin to build a number of underwater and floating arcologies to contain the countries expanding population. At the same time, in collaboration with the Indonesian government they, begin organised oceanic farming to feed Japans people. From the first these sea-farms are condemned by environmental groups, and also suffer repeated attacks by the superhuman Monad. Even so, the Japanese persist.


2020 :

The second cloning of Lady Blue takes place, with her mind being transferred from her now-aged body to a vital young clone-body.


Plants begin to be genetically engineered for military purposes - fast growing and immovable, but with various biochemical attacks and defences. Neoteris and the WAEC spearhead this technology, which comes to replace anti-personnel land mines in many roles.


As the Japanese-Indonesian sea-farming enterprise is seen to be working, other nations and corporations begin to use the technique to supply food. In particular the North Sea and the Mediterranean (led by Libya) become home to large sea-farming enterprises.


2022 :

The C-Jammer leaves the Barnard's Star system.

The Judicial Federation invade and take control of the Sudan.

An EC exploration mission gets into difficulties on Mercury and is rescued by Solar Angel.


The increasing understanding of psychology allows doctors to controllably use the placebo effect as a major therapeutic instrument, in many cases replacing the need for drugs, and even surgery. Needless to say these advances are opposed by the worlds pharmaceutical companies.


2024 :

Parts of the global computer net begin to be altered into a true virtual reality cyberspace.

Cuba becomes the 52nd State of the USA.

The first plasma weapons, using force fields to channel and focus a jet of nuclear plasma, are developed. Initially only of short effective range, over time developments in beam focusing and containment greatly increase their range. However, they are never a subtle weapon.


2025 :

The first of many manned and unmanned probes are launched into the depths of Jupiters atmosphere.

A laboratory in China succeeds in recreating dinosaurs from fragments of their genetic material found in certain extremely rare fossils. The captive dinosaurs immediately become a huge commercial success when they are exhibited in zoos and wildlife parks. However, they are only kept in a few well-guarded sites for fear of the damage they could do to the ecosystem if they should escape.

Another negotiated peace ends the Arab-Israeli war.


Genetic engineering companies begin to market engineered hyper-nutritional food plants, bland, but capable of growing nearly anywhere and filling all nutritional needs. Plants, algae and fungi are also engineering to live on human and city waste, turning sewers and building exteriors into food factories. Of course, none of these things come cheaply, but as time passes, billions come to depend on them.


2026 :

The Judicial Federation invades the Central African Republic after the death of its superhuman dictator, the Rock. The WAEC demands their withdrawal. When the Judicial Federation refuses, war is declared.

Scientists working in the SAU develop reliable techniques for the regeneration of central nervous system tissue, based on studies of several superhumans with regenerative abilities. These are soon adopted around the world, making bionics almost entirely redundant. However, the Chilean Empire continues to use and develop bionics for its Iron Legion troops, to the continuing disgust of the rest of the world. The Indonesian government, on the other hand, replace their cyborg Ksatriya troops with equivalent powered armoured troops using the same name.


The war between the WAEC and the Judicial Federation becomes known as the Central African War. In addition to the casualties of the war itself, the unrest surrounding it leads to a great deal of nationalist and Islamic terrorism behind the lines on both sides.


2028 :

A huge earthquake strikes Japan with little warning, devastating much of the country and crippling the economy of Japan and the rest of the world, leading to a world recession which continues for decades. Most of Japans floating and underwater arcologies are destroyed, killing hundreds of thousands, as are most of the sea farms, leading to mass starvation in Japan.


As the world recession continues, resources grow scarce, and populations increase, international tensions and world-wide poverty increase.


2029 :

The Amazon dies of old age and her ashes are spread across Minerva in a ceremony watched by billions around the world and followed by tributes from almost every world leader. Her clone-daughter Minerva takes over the running of the country. However, almost from the start it is obvious that she is nowhere near as qualified for the job as her mother was.

The first Martian colony is established by China at Xianhongshan (Scarlet Mountain), near the Martian south pole.


As time goes by civil unrest grows in Minerva against the rule of Minerva Montpelier, forcing ever harsher measures to be instituted against civil disorder. As this happens relations with Neoteris become cooler and cooler.


2030 :

The USA establishes a settlement on Mars, at what becomes known as Rockettown, near one end of the Valles Marineris. It becomes the centre of the 'Martian Territories'.

Following continuing economic problems, after a national referendum the UK withdraws from the EC, and instead cultivates closer ties with the USA.


2031 :

A multinational research base is planted in Jupiters moon, Europa, located under the moons thick ice sheet to protect it from Jupiters intense radiation. Exploration of the kilometres-deep Europan ocean begins. No evidence of life is ever found there.

President Vatutin of the CIS, the superhuman known as Glasnost, is assassinated by a death squad composed of nine Triad and Russian Mafia supervillains while on walkabout in Chelyabinsk. Despite being more than 60 years old, he puts up a formidable fight, knocking out several of his attackers before his wounds take their toll and he is himself knocked out. The death squad then kill him in cold blood before escaping. The exact reason for the attack is never discovered, but it is suspected to be to prevent his passing a series of radical new anti-organised crime bills, and as a warning to his successors. His death is mourned the world over, and he is remembered as both statesman and superhero.


2032 :

The Bright Ranger starprobe enters the Sirius star system.

Quebec secedes from Canada, almost causing the break-up of the whole Canadian nation, and forcing the remainder into closer ties with the USA to survive.


2033 :

The first generation of microscopic nano-machines, developed independently in several places around the world including Japan and Minerva, and capable of manipulating matter on an almost atomic level begin to find applications in many areas of life, especially the assembly of an entire new generation of micro-machinery and computer systems. However, they require zero gravity, vacuum, and very low temperatures to function, and can only perform a single task which they are constructed to do. Even so, they cause a revolution in materials science, allowing the synthesis of many exotic compounds and composites.


The invention of nanos (as nano-machines come to be known) causes unrest in many nations as their initial promise of an end to poverty and want fails to materialise.


2034 :

The superhuman cyberpath known as Abacus appears in New York, working for the United Nations.

The Central African War between the WAEC and the Judicial Federation ends after eight years in a Pyrric victory for the WAEC. All the Justicars are killed or captured, and the WAEC incorporates the states of the former Judicial Federation into itself, as 'protectorates'. However, the war has drained and devastated all of equatorial Africa, putting back its development by decades.

China becomes the worlds largest economy.

The first of an alternative form of interstellar starprobe is laser-launched from orbit for Singapore University. Unlike the huge self-powered probes of the C-Jammer type, these are tiny, light one-way probes, using nano-constructed components on a laser mirror, launched by lasers in Earth orbit. Although individually inferior to the larger probes, their cheapness and speed mean they can reach more systems more quickly than the large probes.


Increases in population, the continuing world recession and mass unemployment caused by the computerisation of mundane work cause overcrowding, mass despair, rocketing suicide rates, and the breakdown of the welfare state in many countries. Many cities, especially in the third world, become barely inhabitable, and no-go areas for the authorities. In many cases only superhumans such as Parallax maintain order and try to help the very poorest in the teeming cities, but their efforts are only a drop in the ocean.

Rumours have it that the Children of Steel find the poorest areas of cities to be fertile recruiting grounds, where they carry out 'missionary' work (in addition to similar work in war zones and the like). The numbers of the Children of Steel are never made clear, but they obviously increase over this time.


2036 :

A programming error at a theoretical ecology laboratory in the CIS inadvertently releases a whole ecology of 'living' computer programs onto the world computer net. Unlike normal computer viruses the programs have the ability to evolve and do so, rapidly causing huge damage to computer systems world-wide (particularly in the developed world) as they invade system after system. As the Minervan Gaea AI and defence computers world-wide and in space are affected only the Chilean Empire remains largely unaffected due to its isolation from the rest of the world and the biological nature of the Pericles artificial intelligence system. Millions of people around the world are killed in malfunctions caused by the programs and in the chaos the breakdown of computerised society brings. In many places only the presence of superhumans prevents even worse disasters.

Taking advantage of this confusion the Chilean Empire moves against the SAU in Brazil and Columbia and once again Solar Angel is forced to intervene in order to prevent a massacre. Parallax also offers his services to the UN in this time of crisis, help which they gladly accept.

The programs rampages are only halted when a series of equally 'living' and evolving 'predator' programs are injected into the net by the cyberpath Abacus. His programs quickly bring them under control, allowing SAU forces to re-establish their borders. However these 'predators' only control rather than eliminate the 'living' programs.

These events become known as the 'compuclysm'. They throw the world economy even deeper into recession.


Even after the emergency has died down Parallax continues to associate with the UN. In the process he reveals his real identity as Thomas Cannon, the oldest son of the superhuman Masquerade. On several occasions he works with the superhuman Sabre in various of the worlds trouble spots.


2038 :

A second generation of programmable nano-machines which are capable of reproduction, are produced.


Coups, attempted coups and counter-coups become common in many nations, even supposedly stable and civilised ones, as the cracks in society spread. These are often aided by superhuman mercenary groups. In many cases only a nations superhumans allow the legitimate government to continue in power; in other cases they do not. This unrest leads to the drastic curtailing of civil rights, and the declaration of States of Emergency, in many countries. Some of these 'emergencies' continue for decades.

This curtailment of civil rights is particularly the case in the USA as groups fight what they see as the erosion of their constitutional rights, or governmental discrimination on the basis of race or economic status. This leads to further clamp-downs in an increasing spiral of violence and repression, as well as graft and corruption, and the ghettoisation and surveillance of 'disruptive' elements. In many nations these last come to include superhumans.

Conflicts between governments and corporations become more and more common.

More and more people try to escape these conditions by seeking new lives in space.

On Earth there is a great reduction in cultural diversity as, in the name of security, many national governments force conformity to a 'national identity' as a means of reducing internal conflicts.


2041 :

The C-Jammer enters the Tau Ceti star system.

Despite nationalist protests and sporadic terrorism, the WAEC unifies into a single nation, the West African Commonwealth (WAC). The has national-level education, taxation and law, but common defence and international relations, and a common language - English.


The off-Earth population of the Solar System exceeds one million people.


2042 :

Dr Biafra is rejuvenated when he transfers his mind into a young clone of his now-aged body.

In the 'data wreckage' left over by the 'compuclysm' of 2036, an SAU journalist discovers that the hugely corrupt Chinese dictatorship is in fact a front for the Horsemen supervillain group. When this information is made public, there are protests and uprisings across China, which rapidly turn into civil war as the central government struggles to retain control. By the end of the year Chinas economy and infrastructure are destroyed, and China has fragmented into more independent states than it did in 2003, many of which are poor, struggling, hugely overpopulated, and run by (sometimes superhuman) warlords.


The new Chinese states fight among themselves to take control of the whole of China, or simply to survive. More than one hundred million people die in the break-up of China and the continuing civil war, with a similar number being made refugees inside China. Tens of millions more flee China for the surrounding countries, causing hardship and anti-Chinese sentiment there as their economies struggle to support the wave of refugees. Only Tibet remains reasonably unscathed by the civil war.

The Scarlet Mountain Mars colony is forced to secede itself to the USA in order to survive after supplies from Earth are cut off.


The WAC government begins to use social engineering techniques to increase its national sanity and stability, and to help integrate its constituent nations.


2043 :

Advances in computing techniques allow all of the global computer net to be changed into a virtual reality cyberspace.

Only Solar Angel prevents another Arab-Israeli war, fought with anti-matter weapons, from occurring. Instead it deteriorates into constant low-level fighting.


2044 :

A small scientific colony is set up in orbit around Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Although Saturn is further away than Jupiter its lack of intense radiation belts allows it to be colonised much more easily.

Cloaking device technology advances sufficiently to allow essentially permanent cloaking of vehicles to most electromagnetic radiation sensors.


Miniaturised gravitic technology becomes cheap enough to spread widely, expanding most cities traffic problems into three dimensions. Grav vehicles are soon banned from most cities.


2045 :

Ghost Wind resigns as President of Burma after she judges the country able to stand on its own and arranges free elections for her successor. She then disappears into obscurity.

A third generation of nano-machines which can operate in gravity are produced.


2046 :

The first medical non-cryogenic suspended animation systems are introduced using techniques derived, in part, from studies of the powers of several superhumans.

The super-terrorist calling himself the Annihilist appears for the first time; he is allegedly the son of Bora and Fiacho of Eurostar.


2047 :

The first lasers which can operate across the whole frequency range from radio waves to X-rays are developed.


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