- Project Herculaneum (Mid 2682)
- Initial focus is on finding and excovating Grey / Sooni ruins of old bases and scavanging tech.
- There are a few candidate locations, including a few ship corpses in deep space.
- A base destroyed by Nuclear Winter is found, best candidate. (Late 2682)
- Sure everything's radioactive, but it was also preserved in ice rather well.
- This site is excovated by a covert team of NorAellians and Humans.
- It's slow going, but eventually they find a few Grey ships. (Early 2684)
- CNK gets involve with Herculaneum (Late 2685)
- McKenzie and Rhea have a huge fight when she finds out what she's doing, and CNK pulls a bunch of contracts. (Early 2685)
- Glyse and David intervene with the two, force them to talk.
- Eventually, they agree on a deal to share information
- Neither wants to talk to the other for quite a while, but they do when required.
- CNK renegotiates contracts (Mid 2685)
- Almost no black project work anymore
- Most contracts are just manufactoring existing designs.
- Massive CNK black division layoffs (Mid 2685)
- Everyone laid off is secretly contracted by LNI
- LNI's black division now primarily made of civlian employees, CNK-alumni
- Special group of CNK experts plus new LNI black division begin work on recovered tech.
- Rhea + LNI Black division produce prototypes for Grey weapons and Core (Late 2688)
- Initial testing shows problems with both
- Setbacks push functional prototype testing (Mid 2689)
- Grey Core design modified to take Humans (Late 2689)
- Project Dante created (Early 2690)
- Primary goal to develop a Grey-like ship with central intelligence
- Main focus is on propulsion, auto-repair, main weapon
- Dante joins project (Late 2690) [Ch. 2]
- Dante integrated with core (Early 2691)
- Dante struggles (Early 2691)
- Additional augmentation is required in the form supporing neural processors
- Dante begins to make progress (Mid 2691)
- Rhea proposes alternative organism for core (Late 2691) [Ch. 3]
- Gerrold is recruited by Selene (Late 2691) [Ch. 3]
- Zealots (using the League Congress) begin applying pressure on reduction of League Military Spending (Early 2692)
- Freeland and Harper discuss Project Dante and cutting it's budget. (Early 2692) [Ch. 4]
- McKenzie feels the pressure and comes up with a plan to keep the project going. (Mid 2694) [Ch. 4]
- Terrans begin Operation Tinker (Mid 2692) [Ch. 1]
- McKenzie leaks Project Dante to RIS. (Mid 2692) [Ch. 5]
- === Everything After Here Speculative ===
- Rekonin is created / comes online (Early 2693)
- A bunch of nothing happens
- conversations between Dante and Rekonin would happen
- Rekonin’s socialization
- further conversations between characters about Rekonin’s development and growth
- Freeland and Harper could meet again, with a visibly annoyed Harper bitching about it
- Rhea and Dante should absolutely talk in private sometime
- either with Rhea revealing her truth to Dante or Dante somehow figuring it out from how much Rhea knows
- Intro Liz
- Some scene of her doing something weird and dangerous with McKenzie in her ear talking about terms for her to be available as an “oh shit” plan
- More Zaine
- More Gerrold going off the rails
- Gregorie and Anatolie visit Moskva (Late 2694)
- Gerrold Activates Virus (Early 2695)
- Rekonin was performing subspace engine test dives / drive certification
- Gerrold arranged for a war game: an boarding scenario
- Rekonin was supposed to prevent this by crash diving or using subspace engines for protection
- The whole point was to let her explore creative solutions
- The Assault Team is really Gregorie; Rekonin is sabbotaged and shutting down as Terrans board
- Eva is killed trying to save Rekonin (succeeds)
- Rekonin is pointed at the Terran Border (Early 2695)
- Scientists object, are locked in the conference room
- Liz Intercepts (Early 2695)
- Liz Fights Rekonin
- Rekonin kills all Terrans (except Gregorie)
- Liz Fights Gregorie
- Anatolie kills all scientists
- Liz Fights Anatolie
- Rekonin called in for help with Tel'Erani (Early 2695)
- Gregorie Escapes (Early 2695)
- Realizes about Sooni, as some DEEP THINKS.