The Age of Famine and Plague (23 to 21 kya): Flawed terraforming practices, population growth, and unregulated automated agent autonomy trigger a series of environmental catastrophes leading to population dieback (to 65 million) and major data loss. The Kumruist and Tricksterian religions are born. Research into cognitive enhancement and agent/​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​human synthesis peaks.

The Age of the Towers (21 to 15 kya): Population growth (to 50 billion) forces changes in ecosystem management, with a combination of stratospheric tower-cities, planetary interior excavation, and structural surface sprawl. Regulated automated agent interdependency, decentralized panoptic mutual surveillance, consensus government, and emotive economy emerge as dominant models, and polysomatic technology is perfected. Vail and Staid self-assignment accelerates, with periodic armed conflicts over hierarchical relations between these emerging identities. The Long Conversation is codified and established as a core element of Staid identity. The Diversionist religion, a syncretism of Tricksterian and Ascensionist practices, develops.

The Age of Forest Wanderers (15 to 7 kya): Population grows to 850 billion, forcing a transition to silvomorphic infrastructure, with large excavations beginning in the planet’s interior, a reduction of surface structures in exchange for ecologically crucial wildlands, and a complete integrated and optimized nutrient flow. Interior habitations are initially cramped warrens, leading to discontent and sporadic wars, including intergender wars. The Second Midwife Movement entrenches Vail and Staid as universal genders, promoting a negotiated balance between them with distinct roles and expectations for each, known as the Great Arrangement (8 kya).

The Age of War (7 kya to 700 years ago): Ideological and resource tensions lead to increasing frequency of armed conflict. At the same time, a widespread awareness of the fragility and interdependence of physical infrastructure, coupled with the success of the Midwives’ promulgation of the Great Arrangement and advances in consensus moderation, channels violent conflict into increasingly symbolic and ritualized forms, culminating in almost total sequestration of interpersonal violence into regulated, consensus-authorized dueling venues (“the mats”), which become as central to Vail identity as the Long Conversation is for Staids. Major expansions in habitation space via underground excavation begin a trend that will culminate in the Age of Digging’s spacious, complex, three-dimensional, highly optimized hypercities. Some authorities divide the Age of War into Major (7 kya to 3 kya) and Minor (3 kya to present) periods, subsuming the Age of Digging into the latter, symbolic-war era; others begin the Age of Digging as early as 3 kya.

The Age of Digging (700 years ago to present): Widespread cessation of hostilities allows for an acceleration in excavation. The massive effort of transforming the planet to a fully silvomorphic mode (trees on top, cities below ground) is romanticized, replacing the previous era’s military heroes with Digger celebrities. Population is stable at 1 trillion individuals, with an average of 3.29 bodies each.

1 During this period, I arrived on the planet, made contact, and became involved in long-term survival planning and stewardship.