Chapters (50)
- Cover
- MARAUDER
- HISTORICAL ARCHIVES SUBSECTION C/5 category ALPHA
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- EPILOGUE
- TIME LINE
- SHOAL TRILOGY
- EVENTS FOLLOWING EMPIRE OF LIGHT AND PRECEDING MARAUDER
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Gary Gibson
She hoped, more than anything, that this was true.
She turned around then and walked away. Heading across the nearby square, she kept walking until she reached the foot of the funicular railway, some of whose vertical cars were the size of small houses. She climbed aboard one and stood facing the wall of the chasm itself as it rose into the night. She was now thinking of the Magi ship waiting, hidden, in Jars outer system waiting to take her to the core of the galaxy . . . and all that might await her there.
TIME LINE
2,000,000 years PHA (Pre-Human Era)
The earliest starfaring Magi cultures form within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
162,000160,000 years PHA
Maker caches, containing faster-than-light nova drive technology, are discovered in the LMC.
The star drive triggers a rapid expansion of the Magi cultures until they dominate the Cloud.
160,000 years PHA
Multiple Nova Wars break out in the LMC, almost entirely destroying the Magi culture.
A fleet of Magi superluminal craft departs a devastated LMC for the Milky Way, intent on hunting down and destroying both the Maker caches and the Swarms responsible for seeding them throughout the universe.
A few millennia after its arrival in the Milky Way, the Magi fleet is almost entirely wiped out by the Shoal Hegemony. The Shoal subsequently becomes the dominant power throughout a large part of the Milky Way, maintaining a monopoly over nova drive technology stolen from the Magi.
SHOAL TRILOGY
2542 AD (Stealing Light)
A human expedition to the Nova Arctis system, piloted by Dakota Merrick, discovers a derelict Magi ship with a functioning faster-than-light drive.
25422543 AD (Nova War)
Dakota and Lucas, along with a Magi ship, are captured by a Bandati Hive. Subsequent events trigger a Nova War between the Shoal and their ancient enemies, the Emissaries.
2544 AD (Empire of Light)
Following the Shoal Hegemonys retreat from the Perseus Arm, Dakota Merrick locates a Maker Swarm at the same time that the first human-built ships equipped with nova drives emerge from within the Consortium. A later expedition piloted by a resurrected Dakota succeeds in finding a way to bring the Nova War to an end.
EVENTS FOLLOWING EMPIRE OF LIGHT AND PRECEDING MARAUDER
25452570 AD
The Consortium, the legislative body acting as a government for human worlds, is dissolved in the wake of the Shoals departure and replaced by the pan-species Accord of Worlds. Further human expeditions meanwhile trigger a rapid expansion throughout the Perseus Arm, a period subsequently known as the Great Diaspora.
2645 AD
The Three Star Alliance, an independent nation comprising three neighbouring star systems, Alyeska, Kjregrnnested and Al-Jahar, announces its formation.
2647 AD
The Three Star Alliance formally secedes from the Accord.
27482751 AD
The Accord begins an embargo and a long war of attrition against the Three Star Alliance, in order to gain control over nova drives recovered from a Shoal coreship adrift in interstellar space.
2752 AD