A Billion Years?
In my initial descriptions of the Ninth World, the setting for Numenera, I describe it as a “billion years in the future.” For most people, I figured that statement would merely be evocative, and would get across the point that this is far, FAR in the future. But for people in the know, I figured that it would raise interesting questions. As we understand it, the planet won’t even be habitable (at least for most organisms) at that point. So I thought it would raise the question, “how is this possible?” Or, if you’re thinking like a sci fi fan, perhaps more a statement: “Wow. When Monte said advanced technology, he wasn’t kidding. They’ve altered the sun, the entire planet, or both in some fundamental fashion.” If you’re like me, your mind starts racing with all kinds of ideas of how an advanced civilization, hundreds of millions of years in the future, might go about such a thing.
So I must admit that I was a little disappointed when people in the know (at least, in most of the responses that I saw) just assumed that I hadn’t done my reading and screwed it up, or just picked the number “one billion” because it sounded big.
Part of the fun of game design and world building is the research, and I’m a huge science and science fiction geek. So doing the reading has been, well, a blast.
Of course, it’s not precisely one billion years in the future. The date isn’t 1,000,002,013 AD. (No actual date, according to our system, is mentioned, because it’s irrelevant.) When you’re using numbers that big, you can round up or down a few million and not notice. More importantly, the people of the Ninth World don’t know the age of the planet, and they certainly don’t care how far separated they are from us. But we care. So let’s talk about a billion years for a moment–because it’s fun.
A billion years in the future puts the people of the Ninth World farther from us than we are from the dinosaurs, temporally speaking. By a lot of years. In this time frame, continental drift has brought the continents all back together again, and probably also seen them break apart again (in the Ninth World, this has happened and actually they’ve come back together again, but we don’t know if that’s natural or the product of some past technological workings). The sun’s luminosity should increase about 10 percent, drying up the oceans and making photosynthesis impossible. But in the Ninth World, there are oceans–actually there’s only one–and plants. So again, some kind of major engineering, even megascale engineering, has gone on here.
But here’s my favorite bit. Even by conservative estimates, assuming sub-light speeds, it would take a civilization about 50 million years to colonize the entire galaxy. In a billion years, this could have happened many times over. A billion years is enough time for a civilization to raise to a position of vast power (perhaps even being the seat of a galactic or even intergalactic empire), collapse entirely, and for the Earth to lie fallow for a long time to give rise to yet another civilization. And another. And another. Maybe some of these civilizations aren’t even human.
That’s the kind of thing that makes my heart and mind race.
Is our civilization one of the eight great civilizations that have risen and fallen in this time? Is it the first? Numenera isn’t going to answer that question. First of all, it’s the kind of thing that the people of the Ninth World wouldn’t have a clue about. More importantly, our civilization, as of today, hasn’t done or created anything that will still be around then. And compared to the technology of the future (our future, the Ninth World’s past) we aren’t yet worth noticing, really. If you want to get really dark, you might think that our civilization peters out, or destroys itself, and isn’t even one of the eight civilizations at all. In fact, you might imagine that in between the eight, other minor civilizations could have risen and fallen. Because there’s enough time for that.
A billion years opens up so many possibilities. Almost all the possibilities, really.
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I looked at your kickstart and plan on joining on payday. Having examined everything I must say that you are a thoughtful person. And I don’t mean (in this instance) the way people normally use it. That you are kind. Rather you think. I can see the care you spent on this kickstart. Good luck. I am excited to own your game.
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What is great with science fantasy is that you can explain things in terms of plausible science, or deep fantasy. Its why I am going to add to the kickstarter. The creative juices can flow freely. For example, a completely plausible means of vegetation existing on the world in a period of time where it “scientifically” shouldnt be possible is that during one of the great civilisations of the past bio-engineers seeing what was coming genetically engineered plant life to make use of gravitons for “photosynthesis”, with the increase if gravimetric disturbances during a sudden expansion of Sol plant life grew out of control, covering the major oceans in plant life, killing off large portions of the food chain causing global famine and the death of that civilisation… and on and on the creative minds can go..
I look forward to running some games
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I did see some query the “Billion Years” premise on forums etc, but as you say, that span of time is so vast that nothing of our modern world, culture, technology, philosophy etc will remain. Any similarities will be due to recurring thoughts, not through the passing-on of ideas and knowledge. A billion years? I doubt humans would even be human. We evolved in less than 65 millions years. Our cultures, collectively, in – at most – a few hundred thousand? Our technology and it’s rapid rate of discovery a few hundred years, perhaps only a few decades really.
A billion years is a **** ton of time. I’m so looking forward to this.
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I love everything about this, and have signed up as an “interested patron”, keep up the fantastic work Monte! Can’t wait for the ball to start rolling on this project!
However, just out of interest and I’ve seen the quote elsewhere too, but I can’t see that the estimate of being able to colonise an entire galaxy in 50 million years is possible.
For example, our own galaxy has 200 – 400 billion stars, and of those it’s estimated about 10 billion have planets with the correct conditions to sustain life. This would mean in order to meet the 50 million year mark, 200 such planets would need to be colonised per year, and that assumes all 200 planets are right next to each other, rather than a minimum of a couple of light years apart, which then would automatically make it impossible to meet that timeframe.
But no matter, the concept rocks regardless
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Humans are still humans in this far future or they evolved to something else?
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Heck, for those who say that humans shouldn’t exist a billion years from now, for all we know the people of the Ninth World could be descended from colonists returning to Earth (now that would be an interesting twist – we the humans are the actual aliens on Earth), or some kind of time stasis capsules left over from previous civilizations, or even re-seeded temporal colonists who travel forward in time to escape some great calamity in the past (I’m thinking of either Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin/Axis/Vortex trilogy, or Charles Stross’ “Palimpsest” novella).
The luminosity of the sun could be managed by self-replicating clouds of nanites forming a one-way reflective shield between the Earth and the Sun, perhaps built for exactly that purpose by one of the previous civilizations. Or heck, maybe one of the previous civilizations moved Earth to a new orbit. Speaking of previous civilizations, can we expect any of them to take the shape of Great Old Ones, knowing your previous fascination with the Lovecraftian horros?
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You said “science fantasy” before you said one billion, so at that point I stopped asking technical questions. I don’t ask about how exactly John Carter teleported to Barsoom, and when I saw Star Wars I didn’t sit and contemplate the physics and mechanics of lightsabers.
If you’re writing science fantasy, I don’t want to read a meaningless technical journal. I want to read about adventure.
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What I mean is, if you tell me you’re blurring the line between magic and technology, I really hope the book doesn’t then go on to delineate the difference…because, by your instruction, I don’t care.
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I just figured it was a bit of hyperbole. At the very least it avoids the issue that some Sci-fi runs into where in the real world surpasses the fictional timeline. Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 and 2010 have both come and gone. The far off future of the first Transformers Movie (the cartoon) was 2005. For sci-fi so insane that it makes magic look pansy, this only makes sense.
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Are humans as we know them sitll around, or did they evolve into another specie(s)?
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Perhaps the question should be, did humans evolve into something else, with then a whole new strain of humans evolve on the planet again? And again? A billion years gives room for so many possibilities.
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At one BILLION years, it’s not just galactic evolution you need to consider, but INTER-GALACTIC evolution as well. By that time, the Milky Way and Andromeda will have “collided”, which might, or might not, play havoc with individual solar systems. Planets might have been lost or added to the solar system. A supernova goes off too close, and it could wipe out all life on the planet. There is enough time for entirely new and different ecosystems to have evolved, based on different chemistrys, including time for a “rebirth” of the original (our) ecosystem.
And that ignores “human” intervention. Whether humans would exist is almost irrelvant, as there are already enough theories floating around out there that posit that once a species achieves a certain level of technology, they will CONTROL their evolution. Are “inorganic” technology and biologic “wet-ware” inseperable and indistinct?2 Are there wireless networks that link all intelligences into a hive mind? What is “human” at that point? And how many different species of humans might there be? To say nothing of alien intelligences.
There could be ringworlds built out of the asteroid belt, space stations in orbit, inter-galactic teleportation neworks,
and subteranean space ports waiting to be discovered. They might even be currently used or occupied. The moon will be much farther away than it is now, so the night sky won’t be as bright. The positions of the stars will have changed; some won’t even BE there anymore, and new ones will have appeared. The sheer enormity of the options available is both daunting and liberating; you can go in any direction, the trick is picking just one (or a few) at a time.One might even ask what makes Earth so special, since it would seem to have been easier for a civilization to leave Earth for more hospitable climes, rather than toughing it out to stay. Is there some special secret that makes Earth something to be held onto? Or something to be returned to?
The options are, literally, limitless. With such an ambitous idea, it’s inevitable that you’ll get some of the details “wrong”, or just plain overlook something. But so what? With enough tech, you can explain away almost anything, and it’s those “oversights” and “mistakes” that just might prove to be the most fertile ground for ideas.
For all your previous excellent work (I lived in Virginia and went to school at UVa (aerospace engineering, so I’m one of those “in the know”), so I’ve been a fan a LONG time), this might be your best work yet. It’s certainly the most ambitious. And to an extent, system neutral as well. I can hardly wait to see what your’re cooking up. No pun intended
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Yeah, the fact that Earth won’t even be in the same galaxy (technically) anymore just really makes it clear that we’re talking about someplace really, really different. And yet, the same.
Thanks for the comments and kind words!
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You’ve gotten ahead of yourself – the Milky Way-Andromeda collision won’t be until 4 billion years into the future
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You’re right.
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Meh. Details
Besides, whose to say that one of those previous civilizations didn’t do something to accelerate the process. And there are always the Megellance clouds …
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I think that it is a very ambitious and awesome premise to construct a TRPG. I just finished to read (again) the Book of New Sun, and your sneak preview capture that feeling precisely, and even go beyond that. The genre of the Post-human age Earth is great niche that no RPG ever did justice yet, and Monte is our best beat. Kieran’s art is beautiful and evocative; No doubt it will be a great game.
The premise is very interesting since you can add any sci-fi troupe easily in the context. Dyson Spheres, playable AI, virtual reality environments, part-alien part-bioengineered monsters, medieval-like isolated cities, genetic level triggerable adaptations on apparently normal humans, vacuum energy handguns, Greg Egan-like virtual personae; almost any idea can be adapted, with a layer of retro-tech and used future look. -
Hells yes, I love this, one of the things that attracts me to sci-fi is the willingness to go completely nuts with scale, a setting that spans a billion years? That’s awesome, in a very literal sense, I am *awed*. And I can’t wait.
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To me, the fact that it is a billion years in the future is daunting, since it means *anything* is possible – even magic can be explained by sufficiently advanced technology. There is no thread of continuity, no link, to the present day. Any set of design choices is as valid as any other, and I can’t help finding it discouraging rather than freeing. That’s more of a gut reaction, I supose.
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A billion does sound too long to me. Even with my willing suspension of disbelief fully engaged because of the “science fantasy” label, my scanty knowledge of science tells me that the world — and people — would be so different from present day that one might as well put it on an entirely different planet altogether. Heck, everything we know about life and evolution on Earth has happened pretty much since 600 million BCE with the Cambrian proliferation of life as we know it.
The things we’ve made won’t last a few thousand years, nevermind a billion. Even the pyramids of Egypt and South America will be reduced to dust by 10,000 AD, and probably sooner. Physics works terrific changes in timeframes of millions of years.
When they opened the tombs of the Pharoahs, they discovered that gold and lead has fused together. Just by sitting there. It’s called diffusion — the two separate metals had exchanged enough atoms to become a single piece. And that happened in just a couple thousand years. Those are the kind of things you have to consider.
So there’s no way anything we’ve built — or that any advanced civilization will build — can survive for millions of years and still be useable. Or recognizable, probably.
And I say this knowing full well that Numenera is an imaginary fantasy where real-world rules don’t apply. I just think real-world rules are COOLER than anything we can come up with. i mean, who would’ve thought that two metals can become one over time just because they were touching? That’s far more incredible than any imaginary world.
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I think the problem that you and a lot of people are having is that you’re assuming one continuous line of history. One civilization. In this sense, when I say “civilization” I mean “all of human history.” The name of the setting is the Ninth World. If we’re the “First World” (and that’s debatable on a couple of fronts) and we go on for another million years or so (again, debatable), that’s just one.
There’s time for us to die out, or evolve into another form of life, and whole new civilizations to come after us, and do the same. Over and over.
Is there a reason that the people of the Ninth World look a lot like modern humans (or at least, some of them do)? Yes. Is there a reason why a lot of the leftover remnants from the prior worlds don’t seem to have been made for humans? Yes.
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Loving what I am hearing so far.
A billion years gives so much possibilities both in planetary scope as well as interstellar, yet still within the projected lifespan of our sun (Baring tinkering). I am reminded, thematically of some of the bits I loved about Gamma World, and the premise under the Vampire Hunter D universes (Although you are talking a vastly larger time span) as well as some of my favorite tropes from SciFi and Fantasy of relics from legendary former civilizations. Looks like a potentially open ended setup for both cannon adventures as well as plenty of room for GMs to fit in their own wondrous creations. -
The game u described seems to be really interesting and really great to play. Seems like its gonna awesome
Thumbs up and best of luck for the success of this game. I would really love to own this game enjoy playing it. -
A billion years …. Its fun to poke through Wikipedia and see what the Earth has been up to in the past billion years. Two supercontinents come and gone (Rodinia and Pangea). Free range to redo the map of the world (and the starmaps and even the solar system to a degree) but keep a familiar indestructible feature or two (a stub of Everest perhaps) …
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Hey monte, just wanted to let you know this write up made me way way more interested in your game than the first one. very cool man. looking forward to it.
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A billion years seems a bit overkill, but I understand the purpose for setting it so far in the future. You want there to be some sort of basis and connection to current humanity, but you want to put enough distance that people aren’t going to automatically assume any tropes. A hundred years, people are going to still want to work current world politics and bits in. A thousand years, people are still going to assume some reasonable limits to technological advancement and political variation. Ten thousand years, that’s still a multiple of time equatable to the whole existence of humans. Hundred thousand, it’s getting a bit difficult to assume anything. A million, a slim chance to draw conclusions and the planetary landscape has changed. A billion? Anything could have happened and most people have difficulty visualizing time of that scale.
Still think a million years would have covered the bases and maybe avoided some larger scale cosmological issues, but… A Billion years makes a more powerful tag line.
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A billion years pretty much rules out humans, Monte. Humans are, as a species, less than a million years old… in the last 5 million years, we became us, having started as, effectively, chimps. 10 million, perhaps we might make it that long – some dinosaurs lasted several million as an apparent species – sure. A hundred million years ago, we were effectively tree rats. Two hundred million, and we were either egg-laying or marsupial…
Hominids, sure, but not us… not without someone rebooting us from fossils.
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Perhaps humans are the extinct wolly mammoths that some future descendent of a cockroach discovered in a frozen chunk of amber and cloned us back into existence.
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Annals of the Former World by John McPhee is gives you a good nonfiction account of geological time (it won the Pultizer prize too).
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Do I smell a particularly strong “Dying Earth” influence here?
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Yes. Dying Earth, Dune, Hawkmoon, Book of the New Sun, C.A. Smith, Lovecraft, Olaf Stapleton, Dan Simmons, and Stephen Baxter, with a touch of Thundarr. I’m probably forgetting some on an early Sunday morning. This book is going to have a fun bibliography and “Recommended Reading/Viewing” section.
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Hi, Monte! I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this!
(And I’m sure Jack Vance would be proud)
Scott / Tarondor
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A billion years pretty much rules out any form of life we would recognize. A billion years ago, the most complex organism on the planet was algae! Heck, the Cambrian explosion was only a little more than 500 million years ago.
I’m going to be interpreting “a billion” to mean “arbitrary unfathomable-to-humans period of time.” I wish Monte hadn’t actually named a number, and had just left it at the far distant future.
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It needn’t be a bad thing. If no time had been suggested, people might still be trying to peg it to a number.
A billion years changes the continents, even provides the possibilty that life died out completely and re-appeared. Perhaps the world has been re-Shaped, Moved, and might not even be Earth in any sense of the word/facts we might cling to. With this sort of Fantasy, Earth could be a copy of Earth, or just the world that one of the last 8 Civs colonized and then called Earth, so evolutionary issues may not even be a concern. Time would be so deep as to render the fact meaningless, except as a meta-question for the players.
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Ok, this blog makes me throw some $$$ at the kickstarter – well played Cook … well played.
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Here is a nice write up of some of the stuff that might occur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth
Lee
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Player: “A billion years? Wait, that’s way too long…”
GM: “While you were standing around worrying about the age of the Earth, a cloud of rogue nanobots turned your head into… ” [sound of rolling dice] “… a Cthulhu plushie. Roll up a new character.” -
Hello,Monte!
There are limits in everything, including what we call today technology.It is not in bon-ton to say thoose days that some things are just limited.500 years ago you would be torture to death if you would say that humans can fly.We do the same mistake today, only that we are in the other extreeme, saying everything is possible.Technology is limited by his target: adaptation and happyness.If the Universe will not allow us to travel faster than light speed, no matter how many trillions of years will pass, humans will not be able to travel faster than light.Even if it is possible and there is no limit to a speed, will be a point when travel faster than that point will be simply useless.Today there are methods of conserving food for more than 1 million years.You will call evolution if we invent a method who will conserve it for 1 trillion yrs?Many of theese limits will be reach in next decades, many in next century and most of them in the next 1000 yrs.
Humans will take many phisical forms, but in essence they will be still humans, even if in some places of galaxy they will have 45 legs.They will be obsessed with the past, and yes, they will know about the 2nd world war or about Gabon.They will still be happy, sad, arrogant, stupid or smart.Technology and evolution as a whole doesn’t change that, just serves to thoose characteristics.
Even if my native language is not english, i think you understand me. -
This is good Monte. Very good. I cant wait to be in the world you guys will create. But somehow, 1.5 years looks very short time for the work. Even for the team to really comprehend the setting it will take, let us say, about 1 million years
I am prepared to wait but I am not sure you guys have discovered the immortality potion Good luck anyway!
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