The Singularity: In 1993 the science fiction writer Vernor Vinge observed that not only was technology increasing, but the rate of technological progress was itself accelerating. He argued from this that eventually a point is reached where it becomes impossible to make predictions about the future. He called this the Singularity (more on this here, for a non-technical account of what this means, see the book "The Spike" by Damien Broderick). No-one knows whether the post-singularity beings will be genetic and/or cyborg-augmented human, AI, or something else. In the OA Universe we follow a number of researchers in this field (Morovec, deGaris, Kurzweil, etc) assuming it is the AIs that...

The Singularity: In 1993 the science fiction writer Vernor Vinge observed that not only was technology increasing, but the rate of technological progress was itself accelerating. He argued from this that eventually a point is reached where it becomes impossible to make predictions about the future. He called this the Singularity (more on this here, for a non-technical account of what this means, see the book "The Spike" by Damien Broderick). No-one knows whether the post-singularity beings will be genetic and/or cyborg-augmented human, AI, or something else. In the OA Universe we follow a number of researchers in this field (Morovec, deGaris, Kurzweil, etc) assuming it is the AIs that reach the Singularity first. Many Transhumanists and Extropians agree with Vinge that the Singularity will most likely occur very soon (in the next few decades or so) but again, no-one knows. For the sake of a dramatic story (and to have ordinary humans in spaceships!) we have assumed here that the Singularity will not occur until a couple of centuries later. Of course, no one really knows. But one thing is certain. The future promises to be a very strange place!

Clades: instead of familiar sci fi terms like "races" or "species", the more inclusive term clades is adopted from evolutionary theory to refer to an evolutionary branch of humanity (or other sentient being) that share common characteristics.

For more on the early evolution and influence of AIs, see History of the AIs
For AI faction fights in this period, see AI Political Science

See this page for the history and background of the nanoswarm disaster in the OA universe
The chronology of events during and following this period is given here

More on GAIA here

Rather than using the current calender, the future calender uses the a...

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Clades: instead of familiar sci fi terms like "races" or "species", the more inclusive term clades is adopted from evolutionary theory to refer to an evolutionary branch of humanity (or other sentient being) that share common characteristics.

For more on the early evolution and influence of AIs, see History of the AIs
For AI faction fights in this period, see AI Political Science

See this page for the history and background of the nanoswarm disaster in the OA universe
The chronology of events during and following this period is given here

More on GAIA here

Rather than using the current calender, the future calender uses the anniversary of the first moon landing in the Sea of Tranquillity, on July 1969. This is abbreviated to AT or a.t.

The Origin of the Archailects
Artificial Wormholes

More on Archailects here
More on Sephirotic Civilization here

Vecs - sophont robots , after Hans Morovec, information age roboticist