Timeline

2033: Commercially Viable Fusion Energy

For most of the 21st century, it was thought that nuclear fusion would be the future of humanity's energy needs. After all, even with an energy efficiency of just 2%, a single vial of heavy water could power a home for over a decade. But even after over 150 years of research, the best fusion reactors could only reach an output of -30%.

In 2033, a new alloy, Kelvinium, is invented. It works like a solar panel, but is tuned to the infrared frequencies of light: those we perceive as heat. Thanks to this property, Kelvinium becomes the most efficient way to convert heat into electricity, and vice versa.

This invention allows fusion reactors to finally reach a positive yield, making them commercially viable. Construction began the same year, and completed 6 years later in 2034.

2035: The Discovery of Hardlight

Indonesian scientist Laban Bacha accidentally discovers a strange phenomenon: for just a fraction of a second, the photons that are created during a fusion reaction behave more like matter than like electromagnetic waves. They can clump together into a solid, which very quickly turns back into light.

By focusing the energy output of a fusion reactor into a beam, Bacha is able to create simple shapes, like a fast, but temporary 3D-printer. This discovery is dubbed "hardlight".

2042: Sub & Nexus Reactors

French researcher Juliette Moreau discovers that by aiming two opposing beams of hardlight at deuterium, the fuel for nuclear fusion, she could increase the pressure enough to trigger a cold fusion reaction.

This discovery is revolutionary. Until then, each fusion power plant was the size of a small town, and required hundreds of human operators to function. But with this new method, a reactor could fit inside of a car's engine, a backpack, or even a small watch.

A cold fusion reactor, called "sub-reactor" or just "sub", needs to be kick-started by the hardlight created by a hot fusion reactor, called a "nexus". But once it is running, a sub produces its own hardlight. This self-sustaining process can last for decades without the need of human intervention.

2042-2083: The Holo-Age

An era of quasi post-scarcity begins: a couple nexuses are enough to outfit every house and every office building with at least a few sub-reactors.

Thanks to the ubiquity of cold fusion reactors, technologies which were deemed too energy-vore to be commercially viable in the past, such as climate engineering, personal rapid transit or super-AI trained on yottabytes of data, all suddenly come into the realm of the possible.

Not only that, but now that hardlight could be created and maintained outside of a power plant, its applications expand to daily life: holographic entertainment, force fields, holo-limbs, and more, soon start to appear.

Hardlight is also virtually indestructible - or rather, any damage a construct takes, is undone after just a few microseconds by simply creating new hardlight to replace it. Thanks to this, hardlight is used to build mega-structures: skyscrapers over 5 miles high are built in Germany and South Africa, and space elevators are built in Brazil and Singapore.

2083: The Flare

One day, something went wrong. Every single piece of electronics around you either exploded, or caught on fire. A couple seconds later, you saw airplanes falling out of the sky. You were inside at the time - those who weren't, got sick and died after a couple months. But they might have been the lucky ones.

The next couple of months were the worst. Long range communication was impossible, so your government's response was uncoordinated and the supply chain broke down. As people grew hungry, they grew desperate. With desperation came violence.

It took a couple years for the people around you to understand what happened: a massive solar flare hit the Earth. The engineers in charge of the power grid had a couple failsafes in place, just in case something like this would happen: forced blackouts, just to protect the grid until the solar storm passes after a day or two. However, what they failed to account for, was that the flare caused the Earth's magnetosphere to start flipping - a process which will take thousands of years to complete, and during which the world will be bombarded by deadly radiation throughout the day.

2103: Present Day

This is where your story starts. Good luck.