# 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 Tt/yr 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`