The Titan
Printed pages 48–57. Records documented in this chapter; later article sections may include subsequent events.
Showing introductory records. Switch to Full archive above to include later names and revelations.
Artificial intelligences
Artificial intelligences operate ancient United Earth's starships and many later systems. Echo, Formidable, and Cylli display personal attachments, distress, preferences, and self-awareness.
Asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is a major source of mineral resources and the material used to build Cylli. Disputes over resources help drive the war between Earth and Mars.
Cylli
Cylli is a vast cylindrical space habitat near Jupiter, maintained by a conscious artificial intelligence. Its scale and sophistication draw the attention of Echo’s returning crew.
Earth
Earth is humanity’s homeworld and the birthplace of United Earth. Almost ten thousand years after Echo’s departure, it is divided by the war against Flaxen conquest.
Golden age
The golden age is the period of abundant prosperity following Venus's colonization. Energy abundance and automated production allow the three inhabited worlds to provide basic needs and much more to their citizens.
Helen Chute
Lieutenant Commander Helen Chute is Echo’s counselor. She supports the crew through the personal consequences of their displacement.
Hubritians
Hubritians is the name later societies give the people of the advanced pre-Titan civilization. Their legacy is interpreted first as an example of sinful arrogance and later as a model for scientific recovery.
Humans
Humans are the people descended from Earth whose civilization spreads to Mars and Venus. The Flaxens claim to have surpassed them and deny their own humanity.
Hyperspheres
Hyperspheres are four-dimensional structures generated by concentrating sufficient energy at a point in space. Sphere drives use them to extract energy from higher dimensions.
Kip Eastcott
Captain Kip Eastcott commands Echo on the Copious expedition. A veteran of the war with Mars, he leads a crew far removed from the world they knew.
Mars
Mars is the home of the Martian Confederacy. Its secession from United Earth leads to a six-year war before the Copious expedition.
Martian Confederacy
The Martian Confederacy is the independent political community formed by Mars's secession from United Earth. It fights a six-year war before later cooperating with Earth.
Mass accelerators
Mass accelerators are devices developed after Echo's departure to move material at extreme speeds. They play a central role in terraforming Venus.
Post-Titan Church
The post-Titan Church is the religious establishment that dominates Earth after civilization collapses. Related Christian fundamentalist rule also takes hold on Venus.
Saturn
Saturn is the planet orbited by Titan. Researchers studying its largest moon recover the organism that later devastates human civilization.
Solar nano mirrors
Solar nano mirrors regulate the amount of sunlight reaching Venus. A vast artificial intelligence coordinates trillions of tiny mirrors placed between the planet and the Sun.
Sphere drive
The sphere drive is Avalon Brookes's propulsion technology, which draws photonic energy from higher dimensions through a hypersphere. It is intended to propel the Copious expedition at eighty percent of light speed.
Telescope array
Cylli's telescope array is a large observing installation several thousand miles from the habitat. It allows Cylli to monitor the inhabited worlds after the Titan.
Terraforming of Venus
The terraforming of Venus is the joint Earth–Mars effort that turns Venus into a habitable world. It begins roughly a thousand years after the Copious expedition and takes approximately eight hundred years.
The Sun
The Sun is the star of Earth, Mars, and Venus, and an energy and material source for later planetary engineering. Echo returns toward it after the failed journey to Copious.
Titan
Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the source of the organism responsible for the Titan pandemic. Its lakes contain liquid methane and ethane.
Titan organism
The Titan organism is a simple prion-like life-form recovered from a lake on Saturn's moon Titan. Its adaptation to warm human environments triggers a catastrophic pandemic.
Titan pandemic
The Titan pandemic is the catastrophe that destroys the interconnected civilization of Earth, Mars, and Venus. An organism from Titan spreads from a Martian research facility and devastates the solar system within months.
United Earth (ancient)
Ancient United Earth is the interplanetary government under which Echo and Formidable begin their service. Its Senate authorizes the Copious expedition after the war with Mars.
Venus
Venus is the terraformed homeworld of the Flaxens. Earth and Mars transform it from an extreme environment into a habitable planet before the Titan.
Virtual worlds
Virtual worlds are immersive digital environments created during the golden age. Some are described as vast as the cosmos and experienced as vividly as the physical world.
William Walzack
William Walzack is a Martian research scientist identified as patient zero of the Titan pandemic. He becomes infected after Titan-derived organisms escape containment.