Timeline Chronology
In 1999 Starholder is an exact copy of our world, but that will change. It will drift from ours, slowly at first, but picking up speed until our two worlds diverge wildly, each pursuing their own destinies as they confront an accelerating networked future on the brink of ecological collapse.
Here we bring some order to the chaos, tracking its development in chronological order.
And You Don't Know What It Is (1999 - 2016)
The first period of the Timeline brings a dawning awareness that the strange is taking hold as technology and disaster capitalism play an increasingly large role in shaping our future.
Major Arcs
ISO - The End of History (1999 - 2003)
Set in California, our story begins with the founding of the Starholder Institute before shifting to the chaotic energy crisis caused by Enron's manipulation of the state's electricity markets. 9/11 shocks a state already engulfed in the LAPD's notorious, unchecked brutality, leading to an unprecedented recall of governor Gray Davis. Porn stars declare their candidacies, but it's the Terminator who triumphs.
Explore an era marked by local power struggles that served as a harbinger for national trends. California gets severely weird and the world follows as Starholder kicks off.
Global Fucking Catastrophe (2007)
The one where we severely screw the pooch and grind the global economy to a halt.
Corporation America (2016)
The period ends with the stunning election of the Zero Interest Rate President.
Minor Stories
On A Recorded Line (1999)
A story of theft, fraud and blackmail in a financial services firm at the turn of the millennium. On A Recorded Line celebrates the transitionary period in digital services when the phone was the primary means of communication and systems where still relatively siloed, interoperable, but needing a lot of human hand holding in the great chain of the marketplace.
Freedom Club: The Unabomber Podcast (2014)
Freedom Club is a biweekly podcast series that explores the life and ideology of Ted Kaczynski, also known as the "Unabomber." Created and hosted by Coyote Hill, a researcher at the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan, the show delves into Kaczynski's manifesto and its relevance in today's world of technology and environmental degradation.
Networked Life Intensifies (2017 - 2033)
A hivemind starts to emerge as all the networks experience major upgrades and then converge. Within this soup, the long awaited promise of AI comes to pass opening humanity's eyes to the possibility of world that exceeds them. We stand on the cusp of transformation, a divided, attention-starved mess of competing interests quite unfit for any notions of a singularity.
Major Arcs
REKT - A Crypto Hallucination (2017)
Set in the crypto bubble of 2017, REKT is a provocative page-turner that warps its characters to the destabilizing logic of life inside cryptomania. A partnership is tested as a trio of founders struggle to make their stablecoin legit, cash in on opportunity, and navigate what they owe to each other.
Follow Ryan, Nikola and Andy as white collar cons and a hustle at all costs mentality suck them into a complex game of criminal unreality that tests their love, loyalty and mental health. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime, but the trio find themselves in conflict and cracking up under pressure.
The Last Network (2023)
Technology has a terrible hold on us, and it’s only getting worse. It’s in our homes, it’s in our minds, but it wants more. It always wants more. With each new innovation, Silicon Valley peers deeper into our souls, taking control, and pushing us in ways we never imagined. Amoral and out for revenge, Rabbit Wilson, has created the world’s most powerful social network. The technology is mind blowing, and everyone wants it. The thing is, Rabbit is not the sharing type.
Minor Stories
The Shocking Truth of Cryptopunk #2890 (2022)
Released by the Starholder Institute's Exploration Team, the report makes an astounding claim that the NFT is actually a member of a substrate independent alien species who fled its home planet and took up residence on the Ethereum network. Cryptopunk #2890 verifies the report the following day, but no one in the white hot NFT market pays any attention to it.
It is only in 2051, after the Second Moon event is the report rediscovered and acknowledged as the first confirmation of an alien living among us.
Another Attempt To Bridge (2024)
A small meditative story about a father's naive techno-optimism as a form of magical play, offering his Finiliar up as a connection point between the cosmos, himself and his child.
The Baby Witch Event (2029)
The Baby Witch Event was a complex and multifaceted series of occurrences that captured the attention of the public and generated significant curiosity and speculation. At the center of the event was a baby witch, who under the guise of "magic" exploited a major flaw in the security of augmented reality advertising communication channels to manipulate the surroundings and experiences of a girl on an errand to get bread.
Valois - An Immortality Project (2034)
Valois introduces the concept of eternal opinionated capital in which wealthy people leave their assets in a trust to be managed by an AI operating in the style and personality of a particular person.
Ephochists (2035)
The story follows a group of young revolutionaries, known as the "Epochists", who seek to dismantle the gerontocracy and create a new world order that embraces the benefits of technology and the end of scarcity. They believe that the time has come for humanity to transition from a society driven by competition and accumulation to one of cooperation and shared abundance.
The Great Disruption (2034 - 2051)
As AI and automation takes a firm grip on the physical world, we are all carried along for the ride whether we like it or not. Humanity is forced to grapple with the great questions as we find ourselves spending more and more time in the world of the machines, a world of our own creation.
Major Arcs
The Four Moons of America (2036)
The Four Moons of America emerges as both a next generation gaming world and a glimpse into post scarcity society as government programs of UBI and digital speculation attempt to prop late capitalism up by paying people to create, spectate and speculate in the digital realm. With state sponsored play the new norm, humanity embrace their second selves and a migration is underway where people do not live their physical homes but take on new digital ones on top of it.
All Purpose Bees (2051)
The novel focuses on three Central Valley almond producing families who are neighbors, the Nezerjian, Ortega and Wilson clans as they try to manage their operations against a backdrop of climate and generational change. The three neighboring families are among the last of the independent operators in the area, and face an uncertain future as both the supply of pollinating bee colonies dwindles and the current generation of operators approaches retirement age.
Only Part One of the novel was produced. The author, Damien Dojoz, was in the act of writing All Purpose Bees when the Second Moon event occurred. Like billions of others, news reports alerted him to the presence of a large dark red second moon looming in the night sky behind our moon. Dojoz looked out his window in awe, realizing that the world had changed forever and no one would have any interest in reading a Steinbeck inspired meditation on change in farming communities.
- All Purpose Bees is a lightly fictionalized account of the events in the Nezerjian, Ortega and Wilson families. The Wilson controlled Octus Spacecraft Corporation goes on to be one of the leading producers of private spacecraft which flood the solar system in the 2050s as a response to wormhole energy blasts caused in conjunction with the Second Moon event.
Minor Stories
Aetheric Ephemera Movement (2046)
The Aetheric Ephemera movement focuses on the creation of art that is both ephemeral and enduring, existing in the spaces between the physical and the ethereal. This art is characterized by its use of unconventional materials, techniques, and concepts, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.
Chrono Gardner (2055)
The Chrono-Gardening story follows a brilliant scientist, Dr. Aislinn O'Shea, who develops a revolutionary technology that allows her to plant "seeds" of time to restore or alter past events. As the practice of Chrono-Gardening evolves into a movement, known as the Regenerative Time Seeding Movement (RTSM), gardens are sent back in time, inspiring awe, curiosity, and skepticism. The Recursive Chrono-Gardening Subculture (RCGS) emerges as a dedicated group, sending Tiffany Gardens progressively deeper into the past through multi-hop chrono-seeding assist chains, including a quest to replace the biblical Garden of Eden with a Tiffany Garden, recursively hopped back to the moment of human inception.
We Are Not Alone (2052 - 2079)
The Second Moon event is upon us. As an era of man-machine integration ramps up, we are suddenly reoriented to the heavens to confront the appearance of a large second moon looming eerily in orbit behind ours. Who put it there? What do they want? How should we live in a world where we are no longer alone? First contact is here, only the visitors do not say a word to us.
Major Arcs
Mesh Economics (2073)
The mesh social economic model that is being developed in the Starholder Timeline is a radical departure from the capitalist system that dominates our own world. At its core, this model is based on the principles of mutualism, mesh anarchism, and participation in public life, and it seeks to create a more harmonious and equitable society that is better equipped to address the challenges and complexities of the modern world.
Minor Stories
Driftwood Composer (2057)
In 2057, a reclusive and eccentric inventor named Felix, living in a remote coastal town, discovers a peculiar phenomenon: driftwood that washes ashore contains unique patterns of microscopic minerals that, when exposed to certain frequencies, emit strange and ethereal sounds.
The Impending Collapse (2080 - 2099)
The Starholder Timeline is threatened.
Major Arcs
holder...
Minor Stories
yo....