← ANNEX

A Timeline

A historical reconstruction.
Compiled from public records, declassified documents, and recovered
correspondence. Reconstructor: W. Han.

Era I. The Ban

2029–2033
  1. 2029 AI displacement reaches political crisis. Office, media, logistics, education, and service jobs collapse across Western economies.
  2. 2030 Mass labor unrest. Coordinated strikes across sectors. Several economies stall.
  3. 2031 AI Labor Ban passes in most Western democracies. Foreign holdout states refuse to sign. FILE 001
  4. 2032 Auditing bureaucracy stands up. Narrow non-autonomous AI assistance permitted under heavy oversight.
  5. 2033 Western AI sector contracts. Labs shutter, pivot to compliance, or migrate to non-signatory states.

Era II. The Pandemic

2034–2037
  1. 2034 A novel neurotropic respiratory virus emerges. Clinical designation NCV-34.
  2. 2035 Global pandemic phase. Acute mortality ~0.4%.
  3. 2036 Acute phase recedes. The virus becomes endemic. 60–70% of the global population has been infected at least once.
  4. 2037 First clinical reports of persistent post-viral cognitive symptoms in a small subset of survivors. Treated as outlier.

Era III. The Mistaken Diagnosis

2038–2044
  1. 2038–2040 Cognitive impairment rises across the population. Attributed to lifestyle factors. Synthetic Environment Syndrome coined in 2040.
  2. 2041 Post-viral cohort develops accelerated cognitive symptoms but the connection is lost.
  3. 2042–2043 Healthcare system strained. Eldercare scandals begin.
  4. 2044 First strong scientific evidence linking 5–8% of cognitive decline to NCV-34 sequelae.

Era IV. The Recognition

2045–2049
  1. 2045 Researchers definitively connect the cognitive crisis to the 2034 pandemic. Three overlapping crises identified.
  2. 2046 Foreign unbanned states publicly demonstrate generational lead in AI capability.
  3. 2047 The Brussels Consensus Report on Cognitive Decline published.
  4. 2048 Workforce shortage and eldercare collapse at breaking point.
  5. 2049 Healthcare AI Exception debated under emergency conditions. Restorers form.

Era V. The Exception and the Surge

2050–2057
  1. 2050 Healthcare AI Exception Act passes. Medical research and patient care only. FILE 002
  2. 2051 Rapid deployment begins. Foreign AI capability imported; domestic underground research surfaces.
  3. 2052 Full industrial deployment in eldercare facilities.
  4. 2053 Exception extends to mental health, sleep regulation, behavioral disorders.
  5. 2054 "Cognitive rehabilitation" becomes a legal category.
  6. 2055–2057 Healthcare AI accumulates the majority of legally permitted Western compute.

Era VI. Discovery

2058–2064
  1. 2058 First stimulus-based aid discovered. Sleep induction via paired audio-visual stimulus.
  2. 2059 Sleep induction adopted in eldercare, insomnia clinics, prisons, emergency shelters.
  3. 2060 Multiple stimulus aids identified. Some paired with low-dose psilocybin or 5-MeO-DMT derivatives.
  4. 2061–2062 Sensory therapy becomes a dominant economic sector.
  5. 2063 First memory-recovery breakthrough. Dementia patients temporarily recognize family.
  6. 2064 The mechanism is named in classified state research.

Era VII. Side Effects and First Deaths

2065–2069
  1. 2065 Side effects accumulate. State research already tracking anomalous autonomic responses.
  2. 2066 First publicly-recorded fatal accident during a therapeutic trial. Filed as cardiac. Cover-up begins. FILE 003
  3. 2067 Stimulus injections formally classified under emergency security designation. FILE 004
  4. 2068 Triune Stimulus class identified.
  5. 2069 Black Bloom attack at Westmarket Central. ~14,000 deaths over six months. FILE 005

Era VIII. Adaptation

2070–2078
  1. 2070 Public response to Black Bloom. Stimulus Response police units form.
  2. 2071 AR censor goggles, scent masks, audio scrubbers become widespread. SSDO forms.
  3. 2072 Censor AI deployed. Contamination problem recognized internally.
  4. 2073 Censor's Hum incident. FILE 006
  5. 2074 Exposure Classification system standardized.
  6. 2075 Cognitive Dilution Protocols enter clinical practice.
  7. 2076 Folk dilution culture takes hold among the poor. LCI formally identified.
  8. 2077 Two-component memotoxins confirmed in classified state research.
  9. 2078 Memotoxin becomes the public term. Cognitive Exposure Passports deployed.

Era IX. The Present

2079–2080
  1. 2079 Verrick broadcast attack. First publicly-confirmed LCI exploit. ~14,000 deaths over six months.
  2. 2079 Estate incident. Three deaths inside a maximum-air-gap private residence.
  3. 2080 Story present. Marina Idris investigates. FILE 009
  4. 2080 Anonymous Class 4 patient at the bound-care clinic. FILE 007
  5. 2080 A teenage boy is interviewed by Amrit Ranjit. FILE 008
  6. 2080 Marina reads a document and dies. FILE 011
  7. 2080 Karl Olesen records an audio diary. FILE 012

Era X. After

mid-2080s onward
  1. 2086 Olesen audio diary released to public archive.
  2. 2087 Wei Han continues assembling the archive.
  3. 2089 Lihua Han dies.
  4. 2089 2067 Memo partially declassified.
  5. 2090s Wei Han publishes the archive. FILE 013