A suggested Time Line for The Night Land future

And central story index.

This is derived from THE NIGHT LAND - you may wish to study this excerpt - and from THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, which encloses the former book in much the same way that Stapledon's STAR MAKER encloses LAST AND FIRST MEN. It assumes the Sun has a lifespan compatible with LordKelvin's calculations or about 30 million years.

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The Days Of Light	Today
	"a far vision, strangely hallowed with peacefulness and light" Nature is conquered, utopia achieved.	Across The Night Wall
	Three separate spacefaring civilisations pass. Encounter with the Eaters, between the stars, and flight back to Manhome.	The Door in the Wall










	The Sun cools and the Earth's rotation slows by tidal drag	Narcissus (starts)





	Earth's rotation slows to 1 day/year


The time when the Cities move always Westward	Cities move round the world on fixed roads, staying in the light	6 million AD

		Red Giant's Race











	Sun cools, darkens




The Cataclysm	A vast explosion bursts the world "along a great curve where it had weakness" An ocean falls into the rift and bursts into a super-Krakatoa. A great Valley, comparable to the Valles Marineris on Mars Massive dieoff and volcanic "nuclear winter".	8 million AD Narcissus (ends) Salvage
	Earth's rotation synchronous with orbit. One hemisphere in eternal night.

	The Valley cools and becomes habitable. The Valley has two branches, each 1000 miles long, with sides 100 miles deep. The first, from the West, heads in a South-East direction for 1000 miles, with the sun fixed at the western end, lighting it up with a "red gloom". The second, beginning where the first turned due North at the Bight, continues for 1000 miles as the "Valley of Shadows". The nation known as the Road Makers abandons technological sealed habitats and descends into the Valley. The descent takes thousands of years, perhaps because they must allow themselves to adapt to the Valley's denser and more toxic atmosphere. They spend many generations, slowly descending and adapting, and always building the Road from which they get their name downwards into the Valley.	8,500,000 AD? Above





		Children Of The Hive (starts)


		Low the Ascomycotan Sky
The Days Of The Darkening	The sun begins to die. The upward Earth grows quiet, cold and "not good to live upon". Humanity cannot survive without protective clothing anywhere. Last domesticated birds and mammals become extinct. Insects survive. Humans ake over the floor of the Valley, displacing the dominant species there. They build cities along the Valley to the Bight where it turns Northward and continue their colonisation Northward into the Shadow: but are repelled by the inhabitants of the Shadow, who are intelligent, though not human.	9 million AD?
		The Last Road Maker


	All biological life on the Earth's upper surface ends	10 million AD




	The Road Makers increase their population and come to a time of ease and some decadence. They investigate the Forces which hold them in a stalemate at the Bight. Exploration into time and other dimensions allows disasterous irruptions of other Outer forces	Eve of Evil

	The decadent consort with Outside forces and with beast-men. The first Giants appear.
	The Road Makers are attacked by the inhabitants of the Shadow, and driven back from the Bight. Pandemonaeum, and despair among the cities of the Valley.
	Telepathic gifts ("Sensitives") start to show up in humanity at moderate frequency.



The Second History Of The World	The Road Makers repel their enemies and construct a great arcology at the Bight, the Redoubt, drawing its power from geoelectricity Humanity retires within the Redoubt, continuing to tunnel down into the Earth to construct the Underground Fields.	12 million AD THE FOUNDING Red Twilight Ex Machina Devices Founder GOLD The Sky Is Full of Eyes Delight (multiple stories)

	Outside the Redoubt, the Unforgiven and the Hybrids continue to mix with Outside entities


	A rebellious sub-faction builds a second Redoubt, only 0.5% of the volume of the Great Redoubt, located far to the North.

	The Master-Word is encoded & fixed in human genetics


	Great Redoubt completed: the last of the Underground Fields hollowed and litten. Human population reaches 500 million	13 million AD



	Age of the Flying Ships. Humanity turns outward again and explores the unknown and forgotten world beyond the two Redoubts.

		Delight


	Unprecedented developments within the Night Land bring an end to the age of exploration. The first appearance of Pneumavores and other Dark Forces.	The Wreck of the Aetherwing


	The ability to project the Master-Word telepathically is now considered the major criterion of true humanity

Sundeath	End of Light. The Sun no longer visible to human eyes	16 million AD



The Watching	The North-West Watcher appears. The Redoubt is henceforth under seige.
	Foundation of the Guild of Monstruwacans

	Appearance of other Watchers
		yyyyy
	Monsters and Forces multiply within the Night Land. The Great Redoubt is attacked many times. The lower half-mile is abandoned and the The Air Clog (force-field) is put in place around the Redoubt at ground level.

		The Siege of Humanity
	South Watcher first sighted

		Embrace The Night

		Catharsis
		17 million AD


	South Watcher halted by the Glowing Dome	Children Of The Hive (ends)
		An Exhalation of Butterflies

		Imago


		A Mouse in the Walls of the Lesser Redoubt
The Dream Of X	Lesser Redoubt falls. X journeys out into the Night Land and rescues one woman. From X, the inhabitants of the Redoubt learn of habitable "Land of Seas and Volcanoes" in the old sea bed to the North.	20 million AD The Testament of Andros
The Rebirth	A new shaft is driven to tap the Earth Current, striking West under the ancient city of Usire. Circle rekindled, defences of the Redoubt greatly strengthened.	Awake In The Night
		The Cry of the Night Hound
		Meanwhile, She Dreams




	Some humans attempt to colonise the Land of Seas and Volcanoes	The Guild of the Last Migration
		Slope

The Scream	The heresy of Scyrr: the redoubt rejects the Land	Out Kiss Marks


		The Inward Seer
		Eater
		Jewel




	The Earth Current weakens The Watchers advance upon the Redoubt Glowing Dome broken	The Astronomer Minotaur Little Watcher Eikon
		Heaven Sent Beyond
		Silence of the Night
Fall of the Redoubt	The Earth Current fails Almost all the Millions suicide to avoid the Pneumavores. A few humans survive (as wild folk?) in the land of Seas and Volcanoes	25 million AD??





		Unknown years?



	Last True Human dies	30 million AD??
































	End of all life on Earth	? When ?












	(Billions of years pass, far more time than has been accounted for up till now)











The End Of The Earth	Earth falls into the dead Sun (from: The House On The Borderland)












	(Many hundreds of billions of years pass)













The End Of Eternity	The Sun falls into the great Central Star of the Universe. (from: The House On The Borderland)	The Last of all Suns



All lovers are reunited.

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