Timeline / Overheaven

This timeline is very much a work in progress.

• 1918: Reinhold von Lowitz is born.
• 1963: The Point of Divergence. Nikita Khrushchev forgets to include "outer space" as a place off-limits to nuclear weapons in the Partial Test-Ban Treaty.
• 1964: Brazil avoids the military coup it had OTL.
• 1967: The big POD. An alternate version of the Outer Space Treaty is signed which establishes a framework for nations making territorial claims in space.
• 1968: Work begins on the Rampart Dam and thus on Lake Kennedy.
• 1969: America puts a man on the moon - but shortly afterwards, Russia does too. The USSR voices its intent to build a permanent lunar settlement, which the USA responds to by unveiling its plans for nuclear missile platforms in orbit. The Space Race has been kicked into overdrive.
  • Alberto Fujimori is hit by a car while attending college in Milwaukee. He falls in love with his nurse and stays in America to marry her, never returning to Peru.
• 1970: Thanks to LBJ deciding to pull America out of Vietnam, The Vietnam War ends five years early.
• 1971: NASA starts the Columbiad Program.
• 1973: Augusto Pinochet comes down with a stomachache and misses the meeting that would've let him in on the plot to overthrow Salvador Allende.
  • Also in this year, the UK and Denmark decide not to join the European Economic Community.
• 1975: Argentina puts the first South American in space, beating Brazil.
• 1976: The American Ares-5 mission makes the first successful manned landing on Mars. The first man on Mars is Robert H. Lawrence. A young Hugo Chavez is too busy watching the landing on TV to discover a stash of leftist literature. He thus never goes into politics.
  • Also in this year, Reinhold von Lowitz takes a tourist flight around the Moon and has an epiphany, or possibly an LSD flashback. Whatever it was, it inspires him to build the Tannhäuser Gate.
  • Salvador Allende leaves office peacefully after an average-at-best run as president of Chile. His successor is Pinochet, who won the election fair and square and proves far less extreme than OTL in his policies.
  • Seward's Success, the world's first Arcology, located near Anchorage, Alaska, is completed.
• 1978: Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first human visitor to Venus.
  • Brazil successfully puts a man in space.
• 1979: The USA and its allies carve up Mars amongst themselves at the Houston Treaty. The Soviet bloc is allowed free rein on Venus.
• 1982: The Falklands War happens on schedule. Argentina loses even more decisively and their junta is subsequently overthrown in a popular revolt. The first-ever Space Battle takes place during this war, when Argentinian special forces go after a British orbital outpost, only to be killed by the Royal Space Force.
• 1984: Nelson Mandela dies in prison.
• 1986: Thanks to America deciding not to back the Contras, Daniel Ortega's leftist government wins the civil war in Nicaragua.
  • Also in this year, FARC attacks an American-built spaceport under construction in Colombia. FARC's leaders are subsequently assassinated by the Navy SEALs.
• 1987: Gaddafi's Libya has a brief and inconclusive missile exchange with Zaire.
• 1990: The Church of Scientology starts settling offworld. Under John Travolta (Tom Cruise is a Barsu in this timeline), they become very powerful in the Asteroid Belt.
• Sometime in the early 1990s: NATO dissolves.
• 1993-1997: The remnants of FARC wage the First Rainforest War against space industry development in the Amazon.
• 1994: The Columbiad Program launches its final rocket.
• 1995: The EU officially unites, becoming Eurofed.
  • Also in this year, Fidel Castro is forced to step down following massive protests. Cuba becomes a democracy.
  • Quebec secedes from Canada.
• 1997: South Africa carries out the Redekker Plan: a complete partition of the country along racial lines, white Cape from black Mzansi.
  • The Free Republic of Atlantis is founded.
• 1998: Frank Amadeo founds DinoTek, a shadowy corporation whose ultimate aim is to resurrect dinosaurs.
• 1999: With the Redekker Plan having gone predictably badly, the South African Wars begin.
• 2001: Japanese cancer patient Tsuru Yashima undergoes the procedure that will be named after her, becoming the world's first Full-Conversion Cyborg.
• 2002: Lazarus International, a biotech firm linked to the Raelian Church with the aim of cloning historical figures, is founded.
• 2003-2004: The Libyan War. Gaddafi fires hundreds of ballistic missiles at Eurofed, which responds by invading. Gaddafi is eventually defeated, captured and executed. A constitutional monarchy is installed in Libya, and Eurofed subsequently begins asserting itself as a superpower.
• 2005: Lazarus succeeds in creating a clone of Jesus - or at least, they think, and claim, that he's Jesus. Scientists and religious leaders are more skeptical.
  • Freedom Ship is launched.
• 2006: Christopher Reeve becomes the second person to undergo the Yashima Procedure.
• 2007: The Principality of Cloud 9 takes flight.
• 2009: The Punjab War between India and Pakistan goes nuclear. India collapses partially, and Pakistan, entirely. Refugees from the subcontinent, known as the Pravasi, scatter throughout the world (and sometimes off it), and a brief nuclear winter produces unrest and famine around the world.
• 2010: Venezuelan radio Conspiracy Theorist Ignacio Laguna goes missing. His followers subsequently develop into a UFO cult militantly opposed to the oil industry and the Venezuelan government.
  • On Mars, the Brazilian colony of Noachia votes to become a constitutional monarchy.
• 2011: The activation of the first nuclear fusion plants causes the price of oil to collapse. The ensuing panic, compounded by the ongoing Pravasi refugee crisis, kicks off the Fusion Spring. Many a petro-state will soon find itself a Failed State.
  • On Mars, following the uncovering of numerous infiltration networks and coup plans, the Church of Scientology is banned from the Red Planet by international treaty.
• 2016: ZOFA begins the Second Rainforest War.
• 2019: Lazarus' alleged Jesus clone, now going by Joshua, starts streaming on Twitch from his compound in Paraguay.
• 2020: The Terror Moon is set in this year.
  • Sophia, the first true artificial intelligence, is born at MIT.
• 2021: The Cosmic Twelve and Morning Stars are set in this year.
• 2022: E!22 is set in this year.
• 2023: Albania, Europe's last dictatorship, tries to invade its neighbors and is swiftly crushed. A democratic government is installed.
• 2150: E!2150 and Graveyard Earth are set in this year.
  • Hell Day. An unknown object from deep space, traveling at incredibly high speeds, impacts the Earth at Beijing. The great majority of Earth's population and civilization are wiped out. Most of Exonesia is destroyed by the debris, causing Kessler Syndrome and forcing the survivors to evacuate to the surface. In most cases, it's they who will inherit the Earth. Many Selenites are also killed by debris, though civilization as a whole on Luna survives. The space colonies, now on their own, will be deciding the future of human civilization.
• 2585: Age of Aquarius is set in this year.
  • The "present day" of the setting.