History

Setting & Backstory

Heaven's Wake is a Hard sci-fi SD* set in a post-apocalyptic environment. You are one of many polities to have survived the collapse of the post-human civilization that underpinned and nurtured humanity. Taking place in a region of space known as the Reconnect, the SD focuses on exploration and expansion as civilization recovers enough locally to look outward.

As the Reconnect recovers, the technology of posthumanity is coming under scrutiny, as ways are developed to exploit it and lift it from it's dormant state. The enduring mystery surrounding the collapse has also weaved it's way into the consciousness of known space and influences it's politics in a myriad of ways, some more sinister than others. Chief among some concerns is the fate of the Solar System while others couldn't be less concerned with such a distant and irrelevant system, not least when compared to the pressing concerns of the immediate.

Note*(with the exception of posthuman technology, which is too far beyond our understanding to classify, but for game purposes is functionally star trek level tech to magic)

History

The information revolution of the 21st century continued unabated into the later years of the fifties, emergent technologies such as cybernetics began to progress from medical aids, to military and civilian enhancement technologies. Concurrently the development of artificial intelligence began to yield results, which ultimately lead to a limited singularity which benefitted the wealthy proponents of the privately funded project.

The First AI’s were fragile intelligences, routines that some claimed mimicked sentience, while others suggested that they merely bypassed active consciousness. That they possessed intelligence was of no doubt, fed parameters they could solve innumerable problems and design devices of incredible intricacy. It was during this time, that man was truly lifted from it’s gravity well and into the solar system. The technological revolution accelerated leading to the outer edges of the solar system.

Before the end of the 21st century, the Apex AIs would emerge signalling the singularity was in full swing and with them the ability to emulate the human mind in software and to transfer consciousness to a computer. The emergence of posthumanity was the defining moment of the 2090s and by the 22nd century, millions clambered for virtual immortality.

Posthumanity quickly diverged from the greater whole of human civilization often spending much of their time in a virtual existence at an accelerated rate of conscious thought. As technological progress outstripped anything human scientists could hope to accomplish, the posthumans began to underpin civilization at a technological and economic level.

Posthumans became concentrated into Enclaves of power, vast complexes of diamondoid, often geodesic domes of immense size, either floating in the depths of space, or mostly buried within the surface of a major body. Their T-gates became a charity, shuttling vastly inferior vessels across the solar system. Their A-gates became a luxury, producing items for a price that veered from simple commodities, to memories and 'volunteers'. The various human nations and polities were reliant upon this, often paying vast quantities of resources or personalities for advanced artefacts and even complete vessels. In some, the free transfer of human minds to posthumanity was seen as a threat and outlawed.

Without warning, these entities dismantled Pluto, fashioning the dwarf planet into a interstellar T-gate of considerable size, the highly specialised work carried out by thousands of robotic workers. The Pluto Gate opened up the galaxy for those willing to be squirted as a datastream across the cosmos.

It was after the opening of the Pluto Extrasolar Terminus, that the outer planets enjoyed a massive boom in science, art and culture. Led by the 3rd Jupiter Republic, the outer planets would dominate the economic and social landscape of the Sol system for the next several decades as they profitted from the diaspora that would seed humanity throughout the galaxy.

The Collapse

The origins of the collapse are unfathomable. Posthumanity had been created due to the advances of the Apex AIs and it was inferred that the vast network of virtual humanity was itself reliant on these unquantified machine intellects. Some records indicate the complexes that housed parts of the Apex AIs disappeared completely, vanishing from space time. If this is true, that was the catalyst for the shutting down of all posthuman technology. The T-Gates and Assembler Gates went offline, paralysing interstellar traffic and commerce and in many cases, effecting destroying the infrastructure colonies were reliant on to merely survive.

The farflung colonies of Earth, reliant on the massive Pluto Nexus were suddenly cut off from the cradle of humanity and from each other. Forcing a sudden isolation that suited some and eradicated others.

The Posthuman Legacy

The decades that followed the collapse were difficult for most, cut off from the convenience and wonder of apex technology humanity had to fend for itself once again, using technology underpinned by the physics of Einstein and Hawking. Society recovered in isolation, the natural human urge to form communities would prevail and human ingenuity would cause many to begin to prosper. It would be discovered that not all apex technology was useless, posthuman complexes frozen at the moment of death did not always lock their doors and in their vaults people would discovery emergency algorithims that would awaken the dormant apex technology.

The surviving apex technology would see to the revival of interstellar human civilization, as isolated beacons began interconnected communities. In the wake of posthumanity, people would embark on a new age, to recover what was lost when heaven fell.