I’m still sneaking up on novel-writing, but it helps that Jed is working on editing my Jump Space book (linked short stories in the same universe), so we’ve been having some discussions in the last day about various aspects of timeline, etc. and that’s helping to clarify everything.
Speaking of timeline, though, Jed wants me to start locking it down, and I’ve successfully managed to avoid that so far through several years of writing in this universe, but I think I might need to really think this through now. So here’s me taking a shot at it. All subject to change!
1971: Indenture novel (the one I’m supposed to be writing now) — aliens have secretly visited Earth, and my protagonist has gone off with some to a different solar system, far, far away; the aliens utilize a complex system of wormholes
2000: Shattered novel (following on from Indenture)
2021: now
2025: humans discover a ‘black box’ at the far edge of our solar system that’s essentially a ‘welcome to the galaxy, humans!’ package, a map to nearby wormholes; they develop a functioning Jump drive in response, and we’re off!
2027: colonization of Solvida; six other planets colonized in wormhole-adjacent systems in the next few years, come to be known as the “Seven Daughters” of Earth
2030-2045: humans travel outward, meet various aliens, with various results
2045: ethno-religious conflicts on Solvida drive a group of wealthy South Asians to put together their own colonizing expedition; with a ship mostly crewed by Scots-Irish immigrants, they set out to colonize a planet at Pyroxina Major, christened Kriti (creation). Kriti is only marginally habitable, and will take generations of terraforming before humans can comfortably live outside domes, but is wealthy in minerals that will be of use in spaceship construction.
2045 – 2055: humans continue to spread out and colonize, and varied forms of government (or lack thereof) emerge; the Fringe worlds are far from settled space, generally poor, but appealing to those who distrust government for a variety of reasons
2050: founding of the University of All Worlds on Kriti
2125: “Jump Space”
2135: “Hush”
2140: “Among the Marithei”
“That She Might Fly”
“Plea”
2152: Liminal Space (novel)
2153: The Station (YA novel) — school for kids with esper abilities; usually also war trauma