Back to Part 7 of the Timeline.
The Soldiers of Love are taken over and shut down by the UN, as it becomes obvious far too many people are using them simply as an escape from the horrors of everyday life.
The Angels Crystal Palace suffers almost continual attack by the Hounds during this time, but those surveillance probes still in place show it shrugging off the Hound attacks and, although it has no visible weapons systems, destroying many of the attacking Hound ships. By 2265 the Hounds seem to have learnt that the Crystal Palace is almost impenetrable and abandon their attacks.
An attempt to saturate the Jupiter system with anti-matter dust fails as it somehow spontaneously reverts back to normal matter.
Initially the Hounds complete invisibility to most scanners allows them to attack almost with impunity, but as time goes by the development of several forms of mass detector lets the human defenders become much more effective, and greatly reduce human casualties. But by now more than 98% of the sentient population of the Solar System is dead, along with innumerable species of non-sentient life.
The abilities of warship crews mind-linked by the ships AI so that each ship is effectively a single entity prove very effective against the Hounds.
As time goes by the occasional asteroid settlement which was thought destroyed is discovered to have survived through being knocked out of orbit. However, these re-discoveries happen less and less often as the years pass.
A major warship assault on the Jupiter system, the first and last of its kind, is beaten back with massive casualties.
The first reports of Hounds taking prisoners come in. No trace of these prisoners has ever been found but the reports of their being taken continue up to the present day.
All star systems near to Sun become monitored for Hound (and other) activity by stealth probes psi-linked (at light speed only) back to the UN. These probes are built on-site by nano-machines carried from Earth on high speed craft.
The estimated sentient population of the Solar System falls below one billion individuals.
The last Iron Legionnaire dies in combat with the Hounds.
Shrines of the Children of Steel become common throughout the Solar System.
As it becomes obvious that Humanity is slowly losing the war against the Hounds, the UN states that it is now its policy to engineer all of Humanity into superhumans as soon as possible, in the hope that this will give it an edge over the Hounds. All the superhumans so produced must have some kind of offensive and defensive capability. Although objections are raised about the possible effects of this process, the UN states that the situation is desperate enough for the risk to be taken, and that if anything should go wrong then at least the genetic codes for normal humanity will still be on record, allowing the process to be reversed.
In a related debate an argument begins about whether the old rules preventing the production of unaging superhumans should be scrapped. This issue is debated for decades.
The UN begins to build long-range interstellar colony ships, to be run by AI's, which will carry the genetic codes of billions of people and other living creatures, the recorded minds of tens of thousands of people, and the sum total of human knowledge, out of the Solar System to (hopefully) find new homes for humanity elsewhere in the universe and far away from the Hounds, where mankind can be re-created. StarHolme and the 101 AI society are especially involved in this venture, which becomes known as the Hope Project. Although the ships will take thousands of years to reach their destinations (which will be selected by the AI's on board) they are seen as the only hope for humanity if it falls in the Solar System.
The Hope project also includes a second, much less well known aspect, which is known as Project Shotgun. This uses large numbers of tiny probes (each about 10cm in diameter) with low-energy gravitic drives, a computer, sensors, stealth systems, a volunteer AI in 'cold storage', and the packed information of all human knowledge, the genetic code of every person and life form known, and as many nanomachines as possible. The spheres are to be fired into space at speeds close to that of light from accelerators hidden in the cometary halo, half at likely targets (globular star clusters, far away parts of the Milky Way, other galaxies and the like) and half at random. The computer is to keep track of the probes position, and on detection of a likely target is to decelerate towards it and use local matter and the carried nanos to build a full ship and wake the stored AI, which will decide what to do from there (hopefully rebuild a human civilisation, with itself as parent and teacher of nano-grown first generation babies, and, eventually, a whole civilisation).
In a completely unprecedented move, the Angel allows scientists to perform an in-depth analysis on herself, in the hope that the mechanisms of some of her powers can be duplicated to aid the fight against the Hounds. Although much useful information is gained, including the fact that the Angel can somehow tap energy from quantum vacuum fluctuations, it soon becomes clear that even under ideal circumstances it would take centuries to advance technology sufficiently to allow her powers to be reproduced.
The seventh cloning of Lady Blue takes place.
Thomas Cannon, the superhuman once known as Parallax, is elected Secretary General of the UN, a post he retains to this day.
As the war with the Hounds drags on more and more of humanity has its children engineered for superhuman powers (a process which has never been lost). This process, along with the fact that superhumans are more able to survive violence than normal people, means that by 2335 over ten percent of the surviving population, more than twenty million people, have superhuman powers of some kind.
A remote probe, operating over the north pole of the Sun, discovers a very powerful gamma-ray laser trained on the sun from somewhere over the pole. Investigation reveals others beams, all of them coming into the poles of the Sun from various locations in the cometary Halo, far off the plane of the ecliptic. The beams are traced to a number of automated laser systems in the Halo, and shut down. These system are not, as was first suspected, of Hound origin, but apparently built by humans. A UN investigation reveals the culprits to be a clique of many despair-driven people who believe the only way out for humanity is suicide, now that the Hounds have destroyed or stolen all there was to live for. They believe they are doing what is right for all, by detonating the Sun in a supernova, even if many people would not agree with them. Many of the people involved commit suicide rather than be captured. Many others request mindwipes at their trials, which are broadcast across the Solar System, and, generally, their requests are granted.
The Israeli Kibbutsim system of collective ownership, work and child-rearing proves especially effective in providing a stable social framework, as it depends much less on individual members than a (for example) two-parent family. In particular it proves effective in raising (usually by AI) many cloned children, all with the same birthday, at the same time. These clone-children often include genetic material from all the members of the Kibbutz. As time goes by many other settlements begin to copy the Kibbutsim system, and the quirk of all clone-children raised together having the same birthday becomes something of a tradition.
The first of the Hope Project colony ships, the New Hope, is launched from a secret facility somewhere in the cometary Halo and heads out of the Solar System. Like all the Hope Project ships following it, the New Hope is huge, over six cubic kilometres in volume, and equipped with the best sensors, stealth equipment and offensive and defensive weaponry available to humanity. It also carries a small crew of superhumans derived from twelve centimetre tall 'faeries' from some of the 'mythological' societies, who act as a back-up to the AI's controlling the ship and who will spend much of the trip in suspended animation. In an exception to the usual rule, after long debate the UN allows these superhumans to be made unaging, as in this case it makes a great deal of sense. The New Hope is escorted out of the Solar System by the Angel and the Destroyer.
The Hope Project ships carry probes with nanomachines to build decoy ships, settlements and facilities to confuse Hound pursuit, and are expected to last for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Other nano-machine carrying probes are to be sent to bright stars along the way, to build memorial/warning beacons, to both remember humanity, and warn of the Hounds. In addition to everything that is known of the Hounds, the beacons will also provide a guide to achieving the 2278 level of technology as quickly as possible starting from the level when it becomes possible to receive and transmit radio signals. Probes to do this are also sent out from the Solar System.
Several reports of previously unheard-of illness which even seems to affect AI's come in from various parts of the Solar System, leading to immediate quarantine of those areas until a cure can be found. Investigations discover that it is in fact due to nano-machines which seem to have turned virulent, and evidence points to the Hounds being responsible for this change. Only heroic efforts by several teams of researchers, many of whom die in the process, leads to a solution being found before the disease spreads across the Solar System, but even so many thousands of sentients are killed.
With StarHolme rebuilt, suggestions are made to move UN headquarters back there from Ceres. However these are rejected due to the time and effort it would take to make the move, and the possibility of disaster should a major Hound attack come in the midst of the inevitable disorganisation the move would cause.
The first rumours of virtual monsters lurking in some cyberspaces, and capable of killing users, begin to surface.
The second Hope Project starship (the 'Shining Hope') leaves the Solar system.
The estimated sentient population of the Solar System falls below five hundred million individuals.
Thomas Cannon is elected UN Secretary General, a position he holds to this day.
After an expansion of the Hope Project facilities, the third and fourth Hope Project ships (the 'Rekindled Hope' and the 'Glimmer of Hope') are launched together from the Hope Project base in the cometary halo.
More pairs of Hope Project starships are launched (the 'Ray of Hope', 'Hope of Deliverance', 'Hope of Survival', 'Golden Hope', 'Hope Against Hope' and 'Firm Hope').
A DEMON plot to kill the entire UN Security Council and replace it with their own puppet doppelgangers is foiled by only the narrowest of margins. It leads to a drastic increase in the amount of resources devoted to hunting down these traitors to humanity.
The eleventh and twelfth Hope Project starships (the 'Staunch Hope' and 'Steadfast Hope') are launched.
As things become more desperate, Project Shotgun begins to use groups of volunteer AI-compatible human minds rather than a single AI as 'crews' of its probes.
The eighth cloning of Lady Blue. For the first time Lady Blue does not have her mind placed in a simple clone of her original body but in a clone which has been genetically modified so as to have superhuman powers.
The thirteenth and fourteenth Hope Project starships (the 'Promise of Hope' and 'Passionate Hope') are launched.
The Virek Umbriel Reserve University on Uranus' moon Umbriel is eradicated in a major Hound attack.
At long last the UN makes a decision on the creation of an unaging humanity. From now on all children born within the ambit of the UN will be made unaging.
The estimated sentient population of the Solar System falls below three hundred million individuals.
A routine orbital sensor sweep of the Earth discovers what seems to be some sort of robotic eco-system growing on and around what was the island of Cuba. The Angel lands to investigate and shortly afterwards returns, declaring it not to be a threat. However, she remains reticent about what the true origin of the eco-system beyond providing re-assurances that it is not of Hound origin.
The fifteenth and sixteenth Hope Project starships (the 'Expectant Hope' and 'Fervent Hope') are launched.
The seventeenth and eighteenth Hope Project starships (the 'Good Hope' and 'Bright Hope') are launched.
Earthsea, a recreational settlement long thought lost, is rediscovered after Silverthorn, a Princess of that realm, with the aid of the settlements crippled controlling AI, contacts the UN via a jury-rigged radio.
Now. It is estimated that Alan Trahurn (the Marshal of Humanity) is roughly two decades from strategic and tactical parity with the Hounds.