The story so far
- 2131–2150
The opening
A new gate opens a route to an untouched cluster of stars. Humanity calls it the Reach.
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For centuries, humanity's colonies stayed within a few light-years of home. That changed in 2118, when a deep-space probe found a stable anomaly at the edge of known space, and again in 2131, when the Meridian Gate, a nine-kilometre ring built around it, opened a stable route into a cluster of systems no one had reached before. The Meridian Accord, the alliance of governments that controlled the Gate, named the cluster the Reach and, in 2140, opened it to private settlement.
Ships cross the Reach by jumping between relay buoys, at about three light-years a day. From the Gate to Menhir took about a week.
- 2140–2190
The Charter Era
Five charter houses build five great worlds, each with a purpose and each depending on the others.
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The Accord couldn't afford to build colonies itself, so it sold charters: the right to settle a world in exchange for a share of everything it produced. Each of the five great worlds was built by a different charter house:
World Built by Its purpose Kharon IX Kharon Forge Combine Metal: the girders, pylons and hulls the whole Reach was built from Veyra Kessa Maritime Trust Luxury living, finance and leisure for the Reach's wealthy Brumara Aldane Institute Science: ice cores, deep drilling, and later Project Undertow Solace Hale & Verity Living Retirement: a paradise sold to the workers of every other world Menhir Accord Heritage Authority (public) Protecting and studying the monoliths The worlds depended on each other. Kharon's metal built Veyra's towers and Brumara's stations. Veyra's banks financed everything. Kharon's workers paid into pensions that bought them a terrace on Solace, and many of Solace's 900,000 retirees once worked the foundries. Brumara sold its research to everyone. Menhir sold nothing, but everyone wanted to see it.
- 2190–2238
The Golden Age
212 colonies thrive. Fog, concrete and lights in every window: a good life at the edge of known space.
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For half a century the Reach boomed. Two hundred and twelve colonies, many of them small outposts, spread across about 65 light-years. The architecture was brutalist by necessity: concrete and steel built to outlast storms, ash and ice. Life was good, and people came to love the style. A Reach childhood meant fog, concrete and lights left on in the windows.
- 2238–2261
The Long Note
A faint tone, the Hum, is heard on Menhir, then everywhere. People start to listen.
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In 2238, Heritage Authority surveyors on Menhir recorded a faint, steady tone, 55 Hz, coming from the monoliths. They filed it as "geological". In 2254 the same tone was detected on Kharon IX, then on Veyra. The Accord classified every report.
The people of the Reach didn't need reports. They could hear it. A movement grew among Menhir's pilgrims: the Listeners. They believed the Hum was not a sound but a voice, slowly tuning the worlds like an instrument. They had no priests and no scripture, only gatherings where people sat in silence and listened, or sang a single held note in harmony with it. By 2255 there were Listener circles on every world. The Accord considered them harmless.
In the last months before the Quiet, Listener gatherings everywhere grew quieter. Then they stopped singing altogether. Nobody wrote down why.
- 2261
The Quiet
In 41 days, every colony goes silent. No distress calls. No crewed ship leaves.
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On Day 0, Menhir stopped transmitting. Three days later, Kharon IX. Over the next 41 days, one colony after another went silent, until all 212 were gone.
The final transmissions were routine: weather reports, cargo schedules, a child's birthday message. There was no distress call. Departure logs show that no crewed ship left any world after the silence reached it, although dozens were fuelled and ready.
- 2261–2304
The Quarantine
The Gate is sealed for 43 years. Probes find every world intact, every light on, nobody there.
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The Accord sealed the Meridian Gate. For 43 years, only unmanned probes entered the Reach. They found every world intact, every light on, and nobody there. The probes' data was classified. Officially, the colonies had suffered "a cascading communications failure followed by an orderly relocation". Where everyone relocated to was never specified.
- 2304–now
The Resale
The Reach is for sale. Survey drones record every property, one by one. It is now 2311.
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In 2304 the Accord, facing the cost of maintaining an empty Reach, lifted the quarantine "for salvage and resale". The charter houses had dissolved, so their properties reverted to the Accord, which sold exclusive brokerage rights to a new company: Outer World Realty.
It is now 2311. OWR's unmanned Surveyors are cataloguing the Reach, one listing at a time. Sales have been slow. A few buyers have travelled out to inspect their new properties in person. The company prefers not to discuss them.