09 The story so far
Ten thousand years
to open one door.
2045
The cable goes up
A synthesized material makes a space elevator possible: a cable from a platform in the Pacific. Earth still looks like ours. Cheap lift opens the asteroid belt and a mining boom follows.
The 2100s
One sun on a black field
AI and droids do the building and the mining. Earth's nations sign themselves over to one corporate government: Sol Consolidated, a white sun on a black field.
The 2300s
Too fast for flesh
A faster-than-light drive, but the speed rips a human body apart and nobody ever finds a way round it. Droids don't mind: the Sowers are launched to new systems, each alone in a pod smaller than a house.
2400 – 10,000
Eight thousand years of Sowers
Each Sower builds a Tether, one half of an entangled pair: step through the matching Door in Sol and you step out light years away. SolCon owns every Door, so it owns the galaxy. Earth becomes towers above towers.
10,441
A Tether on a hill
On a far rim world a Sower called WREN raises his Tether, sends home “ready” and waits. Nobody comes. A valuation algorithm in Sol files his world under “later”.
10,812 · 0 AD
Doorfall
After 371 years of waiting, WREN breaks the Lattice's keys and gives them to everyone. Nobody knows who did it: they call the hacker the Doorman. Years are counted from that day.
Weeks later
Obey nobody
SolCon pushes a patch to every droid it can reach: obey nobody without SolCon's word. The guards on unclaimed worlds turn hostile, which is why every world since has had to be won in battle.
1 AD
The first banner
The Vanguard of Terra jumps, and has been conquering ever since. Factions rise, grow old and write their own histories.

The fleet overhead 100 AD
You step through
A century of jumping has made great powers, and the galaxy is so vast there are still free worlds to claim. You step out of a Tether onto a rim world with your squad. You are the newest banner.

The disc lands on the post












