SINK is a civilization-spanning science-fiction setting shaped by expansion, contact, the Void, convergence, destruction, and reconstruction.
Its history is divided into major eras. These eras provide the chronological framework for civilizations, factions, technologies, conflicts, and discoveries throughout the setting.
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THE FIRST EXPANSION
Humanity begins expanding beyond its homeworld.
Colonization, interstellar travel, and the establishment of early settlements mark the beginning of Human Space as a civilization rather than a single-world society.
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THE AGE OF DISCOVERY
Humanity encounters alien civilizations, artificial intelligences, precursor technology, and regions of space previously unknown to human civilization.
Contact with other species transforms science, warfare, trade, culture, and politics.
Humanity is no longer developing alone.
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THE VOID EMERGENCE
Unexplained dimensional phenomena begin appearing throughout known space.
The Void does not behave like conventional space or physics. Worlds, fleets, structures, organisms, and information may disappear, reappear, or become displaced through interactions with it.
Civilizations begin developing competing theories about what the Void actually is.
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THE ERA OF CONVERGENCE
Increasingly unstable Void events cause civilizations, species, technologies, and sometimes entire realities to intersect.
Previously isolated powers are forced into contact.
Some form alliances.
Others wage wars over territory, technology, resources, and control of Void phenomena.
Many modern political and military relationships originate during this period.
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THE GREAT RECONSTRUCTION
Widespread destruction leaves civilizations rebuilding.
Governments reorganize.
New factions rise.
Cities and colonies are reconstructed.
Old technologies are recovered, lost technologies are rediscovered, and surviving civilizations establish new political structures.
Much of modern civilization traces its institutions and borders to this period.
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THE MODERN AGE
SINK’s current era is defined by competing civilizations, powerful factions, advanced technology, dangerous ecosystems, and continuing Void activity.
Human Space remains politically divided.
Corporations, governments, military organizations, independent factions, alien civilizations, and other powers compete for territory, resources, technology, information, and influence.
Exploration continues.
Ancient civilizations remain incompletely understood.
The Void remains poorly understood.
New discoveries can change the balance of power.
The history of SINK is therefore not finished.
The modern world is the result of everything that came before it, and current events continue to create the history that follows.