400–499 years: Millennia ago, fewer people lived this long, and this period was often devoted to renunciation, contemplation, religion, and art. Increasingly many people are entering this time still “courting”—unable to establish cohorts, and thus 300 years off “schedule”—or embroiled in parenting. Others have largely given up on such ambitions, and spend their days simply chasing the bare minimum ratings needed for a socially comfortable existence.

500–999 years: Advances in life expectancy in the last few millennia mean that the great majority of those who manage to reach 500, nowadays, can expect to live to 800. Voluntary termination of life is not uncommon, often as a consequence of trauma following accidental body loss. Other lives are lost to complex disorders which are usually products of idiosyncratic nonlinear interactions between human bodies, the surrounding ecosystem, and Far Technological systems. Despite the fact that people have been living past 500 for generations, these are often called the “new years,” and the world is arguably still trying to culturally accommodate and find roles for the “new old.” Many of those reaching 900 today were alive during the Age of War, so that the significant cultural dislocation in their own lifetimes, as well as the malaise of having no culturally recognized purpose, is a significant contributor to voluntary termination rates.

Appendix 5

THE AGES

Local inhabitants have limited usable historical knowledge of the Dispersal of Humanity, and many events since planetary settlement are popularly understood in a semi-legendary fashion. The typical rubric follows:

The Ages before the Ages (50+ kya): Pre-settlement. Also referred to as Far History. The predecessor civilization (80 to 50 kya) was an explorationist offshoot of a non-planetary long-haul itinerant spacegoing culture: transits of several-hundred-year durations at speeds ~0.17c were typical. Several idioms and expressions from this period (“all-sucking void,” “void-scoured,” “to burst one’s seal”) are still in use.

The Age of Arrival (50 to 35 kya): The planet’s basic terraforming was completed, marking a transition from hybrid orbital/​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ground to fully planetary habitation. Population expanded from tens of thousands to roughly half a million. Data from this period survives but is mostly obscure to current inhabitants; some poetic texts are cited in later traditions. Dramatic cultural shifts render previous philosophical traditions, rituals, somatic practices, and genders largely obsolete.

The Age of Roads and Doors (35 to 22 kya): The First Midwife Movement spreads the idea of balance between Vail and Staid, originally philosophical-political stances or orientations, soon seen as ineluctable natures. The Ascensionist, Groon, and Unfeeling religions crystallize. The rudiments of the modern feed are in place. The population reaches 100 million, divided into small surface-dwelling polities. Regression to exchange economy and resource competition is common; the earliest works of the Long Conversation date from this period, often as critiques of these practices.