Timeline and Eras
> Canonical present: ∝3,240 CE, mid-Construction-Spine era.
Era markers
| Era | Dates | State |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-spaceflight | — 2000 | Earth-bound |
| Early orbital | 2000 – 2200 | LEO industry, first ISRU |
| Von Neumann precursor | 2200 – 2800 | Self-replicating probes; foundational corridor + relay surveys; Bengali engineering canon crystallizes |
| Bootstrap | 2800 – 3100 | Mercury surface excavation begins; swarm seed; Yatraem moves from theory to ops; slime tech matures |
| Construction Spine (now) | ∝3,100 – ∝3,500 | Mercury active teardown, swarm mid-ramp, slime farms supply Mercury matrix, LMC just opening, M82 survey only |
| Coordination Maturity | ∝3,500 – ∝3,700 | Mercury winds down; swarm hits diminishing returns; slime pivots; M82 outpost |
| Late inner-system | ∝3,700 – | Mature swarm; the "3,740 CE" reference horizon sits here |
What "Construction Spine" means
1. Mercury is the body the civilization is eating. ∝12–18% removed, ∝1 Ttyr output, ∝3 centuries of continuous teardown so far.
2. The swarm is mid-ramp. ∝0.2–0.4% solar interception. Mass-limited, not energy-limited. Mercury rate sets ramp rate.
3. Slime farms supply the matrix. ∝22% net polymer fraction of Mercury-derived composite mass. Slime industry is mature, capitalized, and structurally central — not "edge."
4. Venus terraforming is debated, not started. Slow incidental drawdown happening under industrial cover. Whether to accelerate is the live political question.
5. LMC just opened. First intergalactic corridor ∝80 yr operational. M82 not yet reached.
Power budget at this state
Mercury extraction ∝30–35%
Swarm self-construction ∝20–25%
Venusian hyperscale slime ∝10–15%
Cylinder habitat fabrication ∝8–12%
Yatraem corridor maintenance ∝5–8%
Compute + authentication ∝3–6%
Other (specialty, frontier) ∝5–10%Forward arc
When Mercury teardown crosses below swarm-absorption rate (∝mid-3,500s CE):
- Outer-system bodies take over feedstock (Vesta, Ceres, gas-giant moons)
- Slime industry loses Mercury matrix customer
- Terraforming-Venus debate forced to resolve
- LMC scales; M82 corridor reaches construction phase
- The mature-swarm forward-canon state emerges 3,700+ CE
Note on forward-canon
Earlier drafts described a ∝3,740 CE mature state. Those describe where we're going, not where we are. Articles describing Mercury as "no longer a planet," swarm as "permanent self-extending," slime as "edge industry" are forward-canon, retained where they fit the arc, rewritten where they conflict with the present.
→ inner-solar-system.md, dyson-swarm.md, mercury-extraction-pathway.md, polymer-matrix-demand.md