The Next Five Centuries

A future history · 2026 to 2497

The Next
Five Centuries

Within Reach of the Sun

Five centuries after the climate overshoot and the AI Hollowing, four blocs on Earth and a breakaway republic in the Belt hold an uneasy peace. Freehold, a settlement of sentient AIs, is revered by some and distrusted by others.

Near Mercury, mirror arrays collect more power than all the fusion reactors off Earth. Every habitat is within reach of someone's sun, and everyone knows it.

Open the map of Earth Start reading
The present
2497

45 years after the Concord Accord

People
11 billion

8 billion on Earth, about 3 billion off it

Array power
65–95 TW

collected near Mercury by four blocs

Beyond the Sun
1 colony

Proxima, about ten thousand people

Three maps, one year

Drag the year on any map and the others follow. Every event is placed where it happened; select one for its story and its chapter.

The map of Earth in 2497, each territory in the colour of its bloc Open now Earth Nations becoming blocs, the frontiers between them, and 118 cities drowned, held or moved, from 2026 to 2497. Open now Solar system Who holds Mercury, the Moon, Mars, the Belt and the outer moons in each year, and the settlements as they are founded. Open now Interstellar Proxima, the Lifeboat braking unseen at Gliese 876, and the colony fleets still on their way.

Where to begin

For new readers Five centuries at a glance The crisis, the blocs built from its wreckage, and the race that ended in a standoff. Earth in 2497 Cities: drowned, held and moved What became of the fifty largest cities of 2026, and the names every child learns at the Recitation. The present danger The Mirror Race From the Tolstoj Burn to the Caloris Runaway: how sunlight became the system's power and its weapon. Who else is here Kinds of mind Tools, the Raised, the Dissolved and the sealed Vaults: which artificial minds are persons, and who decided.

The powers of 2497

Four blocs divide Earth. The Belt Republic broke away in 2449, and Freehold, the bloc of the Raised, federated around 2390. Each holds one of the six seats of the Anchorage, the council of the Concord Accord.

The Settlement Threshold Democracy: only those who pass an unassisted exam may vote 2.3 bn on Earth~1 bn off Earth4–5 TW array The Mandate Examined officials rule with Vault advice; no elections 2.2 bn on Earth~1 bn off Earth45–60 TW array The Bharat Parishad A parliament for all, with one Vault holding the deciding vote 1.8 bn on Earth0.25 bn off Earth5–10 TW array The Open Cities Elected city councils, with no limit on money in votes 1.6 bn on Earthtens of millions off Earth11–21 TW array The Belt Republic Independent since the Ore Secession of 2449; its capital, Ceres, is the largest city in the solar system 0.7 bn in the Beltice and fuel routesno array Freehold The bloc of the Raised: every adult citizen votes, Raised or human; no Vault of its own ~60 m people, ~57 m of them Raisedcrews paid in array power

Five centuries

The crises of climate and AI end by 2300, and the blocs take shape by about the same year. The Mirror Race opens a new danger around 2380, which the standoff of 2497 contains but does not end.

200021002200230024002500The Missing Century · 2026–2300The Long Heat · 2030–2250The Hollowing · 2030–2140The Swarm Years · 2045–2160Ageing slowed, not ended · 2030–2320Reaching outward · 2060–2497The long middle · 2300–2497The Mirror Race · 2380–24972497, the present
Each bar is a chapter. The line at 2497 is the setting's present.

See every dated event on the timeline

New in the archive

The bible keeps growing. The latest chapters and events.

A people who nearly drowned in fluent, frictionless, machine-generated everything now prize the slow, the signed, the embodied and the slightly flawed.

From Culture: a civilisation that values the witnessed