The Great Blackout

The Great Blackout

From the early days of bipedal messenger delivery, to the time of telegraphy that inspired the information age and into the golden era of the nanotransmission methodology that solved the need for instantaneous Void communication, the transfer, retention and dissemination of data has always been used as a way to control, enlighten it or destroy a populace.

The age of the Aggressive Expansion which lasted from PI 00 through PI 2025, was one of the most tumultuous times in the history of humankind. In the early days of this age, various methods of data transfer were developed in an attempt to alleviate one of the greatest hardships of an interconnected humanity: the lack of reliable interstellar communication.

The first artificial wormhole jump (in PI 89) out of Cradle's home system demanded a far more advanced method of communication than was currently available.

The time between the first wormhole jump and the development of reliable Void-wide communication was called the Great Blackout (PI 92 to PI 238). As more and more people were forced to reach further and further into the depths of the Void, the need for instantaneous communication was great, but current technologies only allowed a slow trickle of information.

During the height of the Great Blackout, when the lack of communication with these far-flung outposts reached critical mass, all information became unreliable. What sporadic information did filter in was contradictory at best, fraught with mass hysteria at worst.

The concerted effort of Void Station Prometheus that finally achieved the successful implementation of the first generation Dynamic Point-to-Many Generation Communication or GENCOM v1.0, this was the first step out of the Great Blackout and spurred the movement to expand even deeper into the Void.