The origins of 4A can be traced back to the problems that were plaguing the Aoli as a species one decade (in Aoli decades, which is ten rotations of Aoli prime around the sun) before ascension, known in the Aoli calendar as 10 B.A (Before Ascension). About a century before the Aoli had world war which resulted in the surviving nations agreeing to merge into one democratic global super state. The following century was considered a golden age with a majority of the population having what would be considered middle class finances and technology in the 21st Century. However, this technology caused massive global warming. The Aoli were worried about how they could maintain their lifestyle without destroying their planet further.
Enter Zaynth Niktop, entrepreneur, philanthropist and scientist. Zaynth came from a rich family, however, unlike many members of his generation who came from a wealthy background, he was genuinely interested in working. He strived to go the best educational institutions and he strove to be the best there. And he succeeded.
Zaynth personally pioneered two technologies that solved the problem of energy for the Aoli. The first of those technologies was harvesting energy from Gas Giants, which was entirely clean and produced more energy than the entire planet could need. Zaynth used his wealth to construct the largest space station in the history of the Aoli, called Zaynth’s Pride. The second was the invention of micro wormholes, which allowed transfer of energy and data from Zaynth’s space station on Byz III to Byz Prime. This solved the energy issues and made Zaynth the richest Aoli alive.
Zaynth funded programs on Zaynth’s Pride for it to become a utopia of science. No one but Zaynth knew his full intentions however. For one thing had been motivating Zaynth for all his life, fear. Fear of death. So Zaynth tried to find a way to live forever…
On the year 0 A.A, the scientists on Zaynth’s Pride discovered a way to make Zaynth’s dream of immortality possible. They discovered a process that allowed a sentient being to upload their personality into a machine, allowing them to escape death and to Ascend. Along with advanced cloning techniques and ways to cyberneticly enhance the Aoli, Zaynth created a way to become immortal. And, instead of hording it for himself, he offered it to all of the Aoli and the many artificial intelligences they had constructed. However, many religions practiced by the Aoli stated that evading death was the greatest sin. So, while all known AI ascended, only a minority of the Aoli decided to ascend. Although this was a minority of the population, this was still the largest number of Aoli ever ascending in such a short time period. This mass ascension was referred to in history as the First Great Ascension.
To accommodate these people who were now Ascended, Zaynth had built Ascension City a few years beforehand. It was rumoured to be a techno-utopic metropolis that was intended for the rich and wealthy, until it was opened to the public and its true purpose was revealed. Ascension City was protected, maintained and enhanced by all the technology created on Zaynth’s Pride. They also had direct wormhole teleportation through to Zaynth’s Pride, meaning that many of the newly Ascended moved to Zaynth’s Pride.
Many of the people who Ascended were important for the maintenance of the Global Super State, so it collapsed after they ascended. Various warlords took control, which cause another World War. The Ascended were spared the chaos because of their superior defence technology and left the Aoli to fend for themselves, realising that there was nothing they could do to help the Aoli. This period of the history of 4A was known as the Troubled Times.
Because a majority of the scientists and engineers were either killed in the war or Ascended, the Aoli quickly regressed into an pre industrial society. However, people who knew how to grow food or how to husband animals were few and far between, which was causing the Aoli to die of starvation. This was when the Ascended started to intervene.
The Ascended, instead of leaving the Aoli alone like they had during the Troubled Times, provided medical and agricultural assistance. All the Ascended asked in return was to accept their form of government and allow people to join them if they pleased. Many of the Aoli were overjoyed at a chance to join the Ascended, starting the Second Great Ascension. Although this Great Ascension was smaller than the first, it required Ascension City to expand greatly, making larger in both population size and physical size than any city on Earth.
The remaining Aoli were highly religious and blamed technology for their woes. Thus they formed into the society they are today. Although they were apprehensive of the Ascended and their Advisors, the majority of the Aoli eventually accepted both of these things, leading to the warm relationship that they enjoy today.
4A remained in that stable equilibrium until the 9th Century A.A. The Aoli children who wanted to leave their parents houses to found new towns were finding it difficult to find enough room to create an independent township. The Ascended were also suffering, unique experiences were becoming harder and harder to find with so many people coming from the same environment, causing the Ascended to become desperate for new experiences. Even the occasional influx of Aoli from distant towns or a new coder creating a brand new Artificial did not prevent immortality from becoming stagnant. The majority of Artificials did not have this problem however, as most of them did not require the constant influx of experience that most biological organisms require and were generally more patient than the Ascended. Because the Artificials were sufferining the least during this crisis, it is interesting that one contributed so much to the solutions of this crisis.
Astro was an Artificial who was designed by a science fiction obsessed programmer who was interested in finding if there really was alien life out there. Although his programmer died before the First Great Ascension and most of 4A were uninterested in outer space, with knowledge of the cosmos being vastly inferior to even that of humans, Astro still enjoyed looking for alien life, as this was his original purpose, which made him unusual for Artificials because most of the Artificials created before Ascension had merged to become the Grand Artificial. Using the latest technology, Astro realised that there were a pattern to the communication signals that were in space. What Astro had discovered was the Great Link, the communication system that all space faring species use to communicate with each other. With the help of 4A’s greatest translators, Astro managed to crack the Great Link, allowing 4A to communicate to the rest of the galaxy.
Hearing the tales of intergalactic civilizations, the 4A decided to start colonizing new inhabitable planets. The Aoli wanted to inhabit new planets to allow their children to have new places to farm and the Ascended wanted to go to the new planets to have new experiences and to also to mine for more metal for use on their technology. Using newly created FTL technology, the first three Arkships were created, massive ships holding millions of people, both Ascended and Aoli, to find new inhabitable planets.
Arkship One failed to find any inhabitable planets in their projected system, only finding a system with various volcanic planets rich with minerals. This system was named Barren Ark (commonly referred to as the BArk System) and was later used by the Ascended to mine for minerals. Arkship Two had more luck and found a system with a planet that was well suited for life. This system was named Joyful Ark (commonly referred to as the JArk System) and both Arkships One and Two settled here, forming the first colony of 4A. Arkship Three had much less luck and tried to enter the core, resulting in them being destroyed. This was remarked as a tragedy amongst 4A.
After the tragedy of Arkship Three, a policy of sending small scouting parties manned by Ascended, whom for death is a temporary inconvenience, to scout out potential systems before sending Arkships. This policy is serving 4A well, as the immediate needs of the Aoli and the Ascended were being met by the JArk System.
As the year 1000 A.A dawns on Byz Prime, 4A makes its first steps into the interplanetary community of space faring nations. What great journeys will they have in the vastness of space?
