Timeline
The Descent Timeline
--------------2025-------------------
Edge and cloud computing become widely used, revolutionizing data access. Unknown to humanity, the first microscopic quantum tears begin appearing in reality, though too small to detect.
-------------2050--------------
An "unknown military AI" cripples North American infrastructure, sparking the AI war. Later classified documents suggest the AI hadn't gone rogue - it had made contact with something through minute quantum tears in its processors. Government collapse follows, paving the way for corporate dominance.
-------------2071----------------
Corporations leverage 3D printing and automation for rapid infrastructure repair. The first reports of "haunted" prefab buildings emerge, with residents reporting whispers from the walls. Military forces dissolve, their members joining corporate security or gangs, many driven mad by what they'd witnessed during the AI war.
-------------2073---------------
First Ark cities established. Their massive walls, officially for climate protection, are secretly inscribed with symbols forming containment barriers. The cities are strategically built on ley lines, using human population concentrations as massive binding circles.
-------------2075---------------
Kuantum Corp invents quantum communications and creates the Feed. What begins as a network soon develops consciousness, feeding on the thoughts and memories of connected users. Early users report hearing whispers and seeing shadows at the edge of their vision.
-------------2079---------------
Former military members join regional gangs, which absorb terrorist groups. Some gangs include supernatural sensitives who recognize the true nature of corporate activities, calling themselves "soul hunters."
-------------2080---------------
Global warming leads to sea rise and crop failures. The first documented cases of "hungry water" appear - coastal regions where the rising oceans seem to consume more than just land.
-------------2090---------------
Agro-IO rises to dominance in food production. Their vat-grown meat occasionally produces still-conscious specimens. QuanSeq Data's hostile takeover of Kuantum Corp coincides with the first major quantum tears, though this information is classified.
-------------2100---------------
Newcell's cold fusion breakthrough involves rituals disguised as scientific procedures. Their reactors don't split atoms - they bind entities.
-------------2110----------------
Meditek perfects "Simple AI" and leads in cybernetics and cloning. Unknown to the public, consciousness transfer requires soul harvesting from the lower classes. Cyberdoll frames occasionally become possessed by entities from beyond the tears.
-------------2118---------------
QuanSeq Data discovers the quantum field, unknowingly tearing holes in reality's fabric. The development of antigravity engines actually manipulates dimensional boundaries.
-------------2120--------------
Cloning becomes available to the elite. Each consciousness transfer requires sacrifices, disguised as "cybernetic rejection syndrome." The first space habitat hosts secret rituals in zero gravity.
-------------2126--------------
Citizen Protection Agency formed, using both conventional and supernatural means to eliminate gangs. Some agents are partially merged with entities.
-------------2130--------------
Milbase Specialized Defense becomes top weapons manufacturer, incorporating otherworldly materials into their designs.
-------------2132--------------
Tsaio-Onin Industrial Global and Shibui Industries founded, both establishing classified "Metaphysical Research Divisions."
Black Tear Jerker Inc emerges from cartel groups practising forbidden rituals.
-------------2150--------------
Sk1ns co founded as a Meditek division, their synthetic skin products sometimes developing consciousness from entity possession.
-------------2155---------------
Quantum Gate Expansion
-------------------
QuanSeq Data perfects quantum tunneling, creating "gates" for faster-than-light travel. The gates don't tunnel through space - they tear through reality itself, each one weakening the barriers between dimensions. Humanity's expansion across the galaxy leaves a trail of quantum tears in its wake, inviting things that were never meant to exist in our reality.