Expansion Age
Type: Era of rapid interstellar colonisation by humanity from Aerth. When: Beginning around the era of Mitchley Chang’s voidship arrival scene — plausibly ~619 A.L., roughly 500 years after the first generation-ship launches of ~119 A.L. (Jenny Dunne’s scene).
Summary
The period during which humanity transitions from slow generation-ship pioneering to routine arrival at alien worlds. Mitchley Chang stands at a porthole watching a new world come into view, and this single image is the book’s shorthand for the Expansion Age mood: colonists routinely reach destinations that an earlier generation had to be frozen for centuries to approach.
In Ch. 03 the Expansion Age is used as a dating pin: it comes after Jenny Dunne (the first generation-voidship launch) and long before K. Pasternak (the high empire), bracketing the middle of the wanderer’s millennia-long walk through history.
Appearances
- Ch. 02 — Timeline of The 500 Year Climb: Named era.
- Ch. 03 — For Every Dove a Bullet: Setting of the Mitchley Chang scene.
Related
- Galactic Human Empire, Aerth, Voidship, Generation Ship
- Jenny Dunne (preceding era), K. Pasternak (following era)
Open questions
- Exact bounds of the Expansion Age in A.L. years — unstated on-page in Ch. 03; the Timeline entry is the reference.