Back to Part 3 of the Timeline.
Several scientists die when their exploration ship is crushed by a storm deep in the atmosphere of Jupiter.
A small scientific station is established on Titania, the largest moon of Uranus.
A conspiracy of mentally unstable, but brilliant, AI's to supplant all organic life is discovered and halted by a group of Interpol superhumans.
The supervillain King Cobra (Timothy Blank) is captured by a team of Interpol superhumans after being on the wanted list for more than 100 years. Upon his capture he publicly releases full details of his techniques for genetically engineering superhumans from fertilised eggs to the world at large. These have been developed from experiments on a gene pool of kidnapees from a wide genetic base, who are repatriated after King Cobra's capture. The UN monitors them to prevent their abuse by their assorted governments. The genetic engineering techniques King Cobra has developed become known as the Blank Process.
The Chilean Empire is discovered to be genetically engineering several types of fertile 'ani-men' slave races with unusual abilities from a combination of human, animal and artificial genes. These include creatures loosely based on rats (designed for maintenance work), wolverines and big cats (for combat), dogs (for guarding and tracking), dolphins (for underwater work) and buffalo (for heavy repetitive work). Previously this work had been done by normal human slaves. The other nations of the world have been using robots to perform these jobs for decades. There is a massive wave of public protest against the Chilean Empire for its actions, which the Chilean Empire ignores, as it normally does with such things.
As time goes by these slave races spread through Chilean facilities across the Solar System, and also, through escapes, spread to other places across the Earth and the Solar System. Although initially viewed with distrust these escapees are soon accorded full civil rights and become generally accepted by society.
Over the following decades the ex-slaves slowly build their own distinctive cultures in several asteroid settlements which they construct for themselves.
In the Chilean Empire the ani-men prove no more useful than human slaves, and more trouble in some cases.
After years of negotiation, Texas joins the UMNA.
A twist of gravitic theory gives hope of a faster than light spacecraft drive. It proves futile.
The first totally synthetic life form is created in a Neoterian laboratory.
Commercially available techniques are released, based on the Blank Process, which allow people to have their children genetically engineered with super-powers. Generally all such engineering must be government-approved to, for example, avoid the production of monsters. A small percentage of the superhumans produced are monsters nonetheless, but this percentage drops as the process becomes better understood; even with this risk many poor families consider it a worthwhile investment for their children.
As this technique is introduced protests and riots erupt across the world both because these techniques are derived from decades of experiments on humans, and as people see that they will lead to a rich, superhuman, elite. These protests are only ended when a coalition of governments agrees to provide subsidies for poor but deserving applicants using an indenture system - parents have their child engineered in return for the child giving the government a period of service in some non-military function (e.g. police, fire, ambulance) when they are old enough. The scheme proves fairly successful. Although over time some superhumans renege on their parents agreement, not enough do so to invalidate it. The philanthropic Athanasian Society also assists many people in having their children engineered.
This procedure also allows people to have their children genetically engineered so that they will never grow old. Responding with surprising speed to this potentially disastrous discovery, a massive media campaign by many governments convinces most people of the dangers of an unageing population before the process of engineering for immortality is quietly rendered illegal. In the following decades occasional people are convicted of the crime of having their children made unaging, with what are basically show-trials reinforcing the anti-immortality feeling of the general population.
These genetic engineering techniques also allow the production of children with any number of genetic parents (even none, using totally synthetic genes).
Genetically engineered 'plants' are produced which as well as extracting useful materials can process them into useful items such as foodstuffs. At about the same time nano-machines which can convert almost any kind of raw material into useful materials, such as foodstuffs and clothing, are introduced. Even though they need high vacuum to operate, these still find wide use.
As time passes the proliferation of superhumans and AI's, many of whom have appearances radically different from normal humans, leads to the virtual elimination of discrimination against sentient creatures on the grounds of appearance alone. It also leads to the expansion of the term 'human' to include any sentient life-form originating from Earth, not just ones descended from Homo Sapiens.
Over time the widespread use of the Blank Process also raises the average human intelligence and leads to the near-elimination of genetic diseases (though the definition of what is a 'disease' varies from government to government).
Several dystopian societies use the Blank Process to produce slave races of various kinds. Many dystopian societies also enslave natural-born superhumans with non-reproducible powers which are industrially or militarily useful, such as transmutation.
The Chilean Empire begins to use the Blank Process to make its ruling elite into superhumans.
After several years of deliberation, the UN states it's policy on the new genetic engineering techniques : while they should eventually be extended to all humanity, this should be done slowly and carefully to avoid any potentially disastrous mistakes. This proclamation is largely ignored.
Advances in nuclear physics lead to the development of the first gamma-ray lasers.
Studies of natural superhumans with growth and shrinking powers allow biologists to find methods of avoiding the square-cube law in living organisms. Other studies, of superhumans who have no need to eat or breathe, find that most of them either absorb energy from the environment or generate it internally from biological cold fusion reactions. During this time the processes which allow some superhumans to do without sleep are also determined. It becomes possible to engineer all these processes into human beings.
After years of negotiations Minerva and StarHolme finally reconcile their differences and re-open free trade and diplomatic contact. However they remain very much separate nations.
With this change in the attitude of StarHolme the WAC government also starts to be more open towards Minerva.
Accurate telescopic mapping of the Solar Systems cometary halo begins.
Minervan finally becomes the sole official language of Minerva, a century after its introduction. Because of the large Minervan/StarHolme presence in the Solar System it becomes one of the Solar Systems main languages, after English in amount of use but roughly equal to Japanese and Russian, and above Spanish.
Minerva, the WAC, China and the UMNA become the first nations to completely abolish physical money.
The continuing Arab-Israeli conflict finally peters out, from exhaustion on both sides and the destruction of anything left to fight for or with, as much as anything else.
Fifth generation nano-machines which can operate without the need for any kind of special environment are developed. It is obvious from the start that these could be used to eliminate poverty very quickly, but the corporations which developed them are monopolising them for profit.
As time passes nano development continues so that by the 23rd century they can operate in any environment where superhumans can survive.
Contact is lost with the Bright Ranger starprobe several days after it enters the Sigma Draconis system.
The first AI Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church is appointed.
The first nano-contraceptives are introduced.
Techniques are developed which allow human minds to function inside computers, improving on the cloning mind transfer procedure, which only allowed the recording and transfer of mental patterns. However, it is soon discovered that most human minds are incapable of existing as an AI due to the almost entirely different mental 'environment', although since then several notable human intellects have used this procedure to effectively become AI's themselves.
A group of superhumans, operating incognito, steal the secrets of constructing 5th generation nano-machines. Despite a world-wide hunt they are not found.
Construction of the Solar Systems first orbital tower begins in Martian orbit, using nanotech construction techniques and materials. The orbits of Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos are altered to allow this to be done.
The Martian orbital tower is completed.
Military researchers in various of the worlds nations develop the gravity bomb, a weapon of mass destruction without the side effects of nuclear or anti-matter weapons. It works by producing very high-strength positive and negative gravity fluctuations in a given area, tearing the target apart. Although it is never tested calculations show it would be very effective in triggering geological fault lines.
The first long-duration manned and unmanned exploration missions into the cometary halo are launched.
It is discovered that several organised crime groups, Unterwelt in particular, are using the Blank Process to create human-seeming beings for all kinds of unsavoury and illegal purposes. Although governments world-wide try to crack down on these abuses, in general they have little success.
Force field technology becomes reliable enough that 'hull-less' ships and settlements protected from the void of space only be force fields, begin to be built.
The Chilean government begins to exterminate the 'ani-men', considering them to much trouble to be continued. Within two years the only ones remaining are escapees outside the Chilean Empire, and a very few in Chilean research labs.
The first human minds 'uploaded' into space probes, leave the Solar System. Although remaining in contact with Earth for many years, in all cases eventually the link is lost and never reopened.
Tens of thousands die when Islamic terrorists release nano-machine 'devourer' weapons in Israel. Fortunately the weapons are not programmed to reproduce without limit. Israel enacts terrible reprisals, though fortunately nothing using weapons of mass destruction.
Earths first orbital tower is constructed. It is anchored to Earth in Sumatra, near Bukit Tingai. Because of its location its construction includes heavy earthquake protection. Almost from the first people begin to have homes constructed along its length, mainly for the view, eventually turning parts of it into a series of vertical towns.
From this time on, nano-weapons become a standard part of terrorist arsenals around the Solar System.
The first anti-nanoweapon 'nano-antibodies' are produced.
Timorese terrorists use nanomachines to assemble an anti-matter bomb under the Indonesian city of Surabaya. After their warnings are ignored, it is detonated, and more than a million people die, to no good end, as the Indonesian government refuse to negotiate any further. These events lead to a massive crack-down by the Indonesian government, led by the Ksatriya super-soldiers. The only good by-product of this attack is a world-wide turning away from violent terrorism as the effects of the Surabaya attack become publically known.
A clique of AI's in high governmental and economic posts around the Solar System attempt to impose a 'perfected' language on all of humanity. As humanity resists, this results in a several month long 'cold war', before the AI's finally admit defeat.
A manned research station, staffed almost entirely by genetically engineered superhumans, is set up on Jupiter's moon Ganymede by a consortium of Asian nations.
Fifth generation nano-machines, and controllers to program them are illegally given to the poor and needy the Solar System over, apparently by the same clique of superhumans who stole them in 2108. This utterly destroys the corporate monopoly on their use, despite their best efforts to take control of this gift; the perpetrators see to have planned the release extremely well. They immediately begin to eliminate poverty and drastically improve the quality of life of humanities poorest.
The development of 'Neo-Chinese' script begins. This is designed to integrate the tens of thousands of idiograms into roughly a hundred symbols to be used more like a western alphabet, eliminating differences from dialects and languages, and making it much easier to write and print. However, many Chinese, seeing it as an erosion of their culture, refuse to use it.