Human technological development

A timeline of human technological development (and some bits of related context) throughout history, including major breakthroughs, to help conceptualize when given technologies should be available at a given time. As a further note, technologies can exist for years or decades in a form that is not feasible or cost-effective to reproduce on a mass scale, and it will only be with time that they mature to a useful state.

See also Human history and Reconciliation Era for the corresponding general timeline pages.

2000s

 * Energy: Thermonuclear fusion reactors show promise in laboratory conditions, though it would take time for fusion power to become efficient and cheap enough for mass usage. Throughout the 21st century, fusion development stalled and investments went into improving fission power due to the rapidly growing needs of spacecraft and spaceborne infrastructure. As a result, by the end of the century, nuclear fission was safer, more economical and more efficient than ever before, and the stigma involved with early failures had begun to wear off. Meanwhile, photovoltaics improved considerably in efficiency and manufacturability, particularly due to their ability to provide cheap and abundant power to space-based industry and spacecraft. Earthside, various alternate power sources were piloted, ranging from solar parks to tidal and marine current power as well as grandiose wind farms.


 * Orbital travel becomes increasingly viable, largely via private efforts; this "Second Space Race" spurs a rapid decrease in orbital launch costs. Equatorial countries increase in their strategic and commercial importance as the most viable launch sites. The gold rush for the riches of the Solar System begins with the mining of near-Earth asteroids. Expanding orbital infrastructure such as Goddard Station and various shipyards paves way for larger-scale efforts in space.


 * Revolutionary gene therapies are developed to enable humans to tolerate long-term spaceflight and microgravity without significant muscle loss or bone atrophy, making space habitation easier and more convenient.


 * Colonies are established on Luna, Mars, the asteroid belt, and the Jovian Moons as part of the century-long Golden Age of Space Colonization. Various technological advances usher in rapid growth on the colonies while deteriorating conditions on Earth spur waves of mass migration off-world. By the end of the 21st century millions of people already live and work in space.


 * Cryogenic suspension chambers are first used for months-long journeys between planets due to the need to conserve resources.


 * The first experiments with AIs and brain uploading. These early efforts are retroactively classified as being part of the first generation of smart AI.


 * Three-dimensional holographic displays are first adopted. Up until the 25th century, holograms require a refracting medium, usually a specialized gas mixture, onto which to project the image. Displaying intricate holograms such as tactical maps and readouts requires a transparent, enclosed vessel known as a "holotank", filled with refracting gas to achieve maximum fidelity; commercial holograms such as advertisements frequently settle for a cloud of water vapor sprayed in the air. By the 25th century, electromagnetic-based containment fields began to replace physical tanks as the containment vessels for the holo-mist, but the term "holotank" stuck well into the future.

2100s

 * By the end of the century, inoculations exist against virtually all forms of cancer. Through sweeping vaccination programs spearheaded by the UEG, most of the human population on Earth and throughout Sol is effectively immunized against cancer by the end of the 23rd century. These genetically engineered immune system boosters are hereditary, at least up to a point, though future generations are still vaccinated upon birth as their effects can weaken over multiple generations.


 * Despite various breakthroughs in drive technology (including the widespread adoption of nuclear fission rockets and advances in ion thrusters), interplanetary journeys still take from weeks to months.


 * The Interplanetary War ushers in various advances in space warfare and related technologies, which later have benefits in the civilian sector as well.


 * By the end of the century, the first fusion reactors become commercially viable; these would in time solve most of Earth's energy issues. By this point, however, fusion plants remain highly expensive and cumbersome devices, only fit for large surface-based facilities.


 * The nascent UEG announces the (NAME), an AI-controlled system of high-volume cargo and resource transport orbiters powered by solar sails and ion engines, to support the reconstruction of colonies on Mars, the Jovian Moons and around Saturn as well as facilitate the growth of those colonies to alleviate Earth's overpopulation. The first skyhooks are built in conjunction with this system over the next several decades. This also lays the foundations for what would later be known as the SolNet as a unified network, whose oldest components still survive in the 26th century.

2200s
The 23rd century was the last one humanity spent within the confines of the Solar System. It saw mankind truly settling into their home system and pioneering many later standard technologies and traditions of space-borne life. While it did not see singular armed conflicts on the scale or death toll of the Interplanetary War decades prior, the 23rd century was nonetheless marked by various crises. Among these were the Earth's still-ongoing ecological crisis and overpopulation, exacerbated by the devastation of the Rainforest Wars and the wider Interplanetary War, corruption within the UEG, and the rise of various megacorporations across the Outer System, all set against a backdrop of rapid technological advancement.


 * Aneutronic fusion becomes viable through the mastery of the deuterium-helium-3 reaction.


 * 2230s: the first-generation fusion drives are developed. This represents a quantum leap in sublight drive technology, enabling previously-unheard of efficiencies and making the Outer System much more easily reachable.


 * The UEG launches a large-scale climate engineering project on Earth to reverse the effects of global warming over the preceding two centuries, including deglaciation, elevated sea levels, desertification and extreme weather. While technologies developed over the past century have began to mitigate the ongoing damage to Earth's climate, the effects of the crisis persist. Still, it will take over two centuries for Earth's ecosystem to stabilize back to a roughly mid-20th century level.


 * Human life extension therapies and organ cloning begin to stabilize as mainstream technologies, extending the human lifespan in well-developed regions of Earth and the rest of the Solar System by several decades.


 * Early forms of antigravity plating are pioneered, though the technology never becomes widespread in its intended use - providing artificial gravity on ships and habitats - due to its mechanical complexity, usage risks and energy-inefficiency at the time.


 * The Venusian terraforming project begins. While run by a dedicated group with lofty goals, the effort would be abandoned around a century later with the discovery of FTL travel and the possibility of settling on Earthlike exoplanets. Still, Venus would retain some subsurface habitats and aerostat colonies in the upper atmosphere.


 * 2214: The first space elevator is completed on Mars. A major disaster decades later postpones the construction of space tethers on Earth.


 * 2263: Construction is completed on the SAGAN Grand Interferometric Array, a vast AI-networked series of multi-spectral telescopes spread across light-minutes on numerous Kuiper Belt objects and artificial platforms. Capable of surveying exoplanets with unprecedented detail, SAGAN would chart many planets in nearby stellar systems for later settlement.


 * 2291: the first functional prototype for the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine is unveiled, after decades of research, development and experimentation as well as over a century of theoretical basis. By this point, the theory of slipspace has existed for nearly two centuries, with solid proof of the para-dimensional realm existing since the late 2100s, but the trick of actually boring a hole into space-time and sending a human through in one piece turned out to be a challenge. Before Shaw and Fujikawa's breakthrough in 2291, many scientists had already given up on the possibility of a functioning slipspace incursion apparatus as a pipe dream. Had their group not succeeded, it is possible that the UEG and other powerful entities may have significantly cut the funding for slipspace projects and instead focused on the development of intra-Sol space habitat colonization as well as slower-than-light interstellar travel. By the time Shaw and Fujikawa break the news, the UEG's plans for the first interstellar colony ship are already underway, as is the vetting process for potential colonists. Still, the first slipspace drives are unreliable and inefficient, and it will take decades of further development for the technology to advance to a state enabling mass interstellar travel.


 * Corporate projects experiment with life extension, nanotechnology, the uplifting of simians and cetaceans, and even human cloning. However, as rampant alteration and genetic engineering—particularly by Martian and Jovian corporations—raise widespread concerns, particularly after the devastation wrought by such technologies in the Interplanetary War and its ancillary conflicts, laws are instated to curtail uncontrolled and potentially harmful development, especially in nanotechnology, bio-augmentation and uplifting.


 * Ideas
 * Failed interstellar slower-than-light torchship colonization efforts?
 * Biotech and/or cybernetics excesses?
 * Major data loss event/digi-cataclysm?

2300s

 * 2301: Earth's first space elevator is opened in Mombasa. Over the next century, East Africa becomes one of the hotspots of global commerce, along with South America, Cuba and the Southeast Asian archipelago.


 * 2310s: First extrasolar colonies. The colonization of what would later be known as the Inner Colonies begins with the launch of the UEG's first faster-than-light colony ship. Several more waves of colony ships would follow over the next five decades. With settlers carefully screened from among Earth's "best and the brightest", these early efforts are experimental and often risky endeavors, with several colonies struggling to maintain themselves or failing altogether. However, each colony site serves as a learning experience, and these learnings would give rise to plans for the next stage in interstellar colonization. Meanwhile, various ongoing terraforming and settlement projects in Sol die out with the flight of the the best and the brightest to the stars; only the largest worlds retain enough momentum to maintain themselves. In this era, even what would later be regarded as "short" slipspace jumps routinely take months, and starships are rare and priceless; this means for most colonists, the extrasolar journeys are one-way trips.


 * 2350s: a further breakthrough occurs in Shaw-Fujikawa drives, making them safer and more efficient, though even short jumps still take months. This spurs the launch of the UN-sponsored Odyssey Fleet in the 2360s. Still, regulations and restrictions abound for both colonists and contractor companies.


 * Surface-to-orbit transit continues to mature, and the first precursors to Pelican-style multi-use SSTO shuttles are developed to service nascent colonies and provide security.


 * 2380s: Artificial gravity: Functional artificial gravity generators unrelated to the prior "dead end" technology of gravity plating are first developed and soon installed on the first habitats, whereas at first their use on starships remains limited. Rather than localized artificial gravity, the generators create an entire gravitational environment across a station or ship, along with providing reliable and effective inertial compensation. This marks a major change in starship design, with the decks of artificial gravity-equipped ships arranged much like in traditional seagoing vessels, whereas spacecraft up until then had had their decks stacked perpendicular to drive thrust along with rotating carousel sections for simulating gravity while not under thrust. Most, if not all, ships introduced since would use the new design paradigm. Still, thrust and carousel gravity would remain in parallel use for over a century, depending on the manufacturer.


 * 2390s: a major revision of the UN Colonial Charter removes many of the strict regulations previously placed on colony contractors, and reduces the amount of UN involvement in colonization projects; the UEG having realized it had already stretched itself too thin with dozens of ongoing settlement projects, later known as the Inner Colonies. Coupled with the maturation of spacefaring and colonization technology, this makes star travel and the establishment of colonies far more available and attractive to the wider population and smaller, less stringently screened corporate operators. This is widely regarded as the birth of the Outer Colonies, though the directly UN-sponsored colony projects of the past decades continue, albeit at a much slower pace.


 * 2390s-2410s: the later-infamous Inner Colony Wars (although not known by that name at the time) are fought on several of the first extrasolar colonies, marking the first notable human conflicts to take place outside the Solar System.

2400s
Following the Inner Colony Wars, the early decades of this century were a time of relative peace and prosperity, with resources from the nascent Outer Colonies bringing wealth to the rapidly-growing Inner Colonies and Earth. The most optimistic Earther ideologues and academics termed this golden age the "Pax Humana" - a purported era of indefinite peace and prosperity among mankind. Belief in the UEG's unifying mission, which had begun to wane prior to the advent of interstellar travel, was now at an all-time high, and even many Outer Colonies enjoyed its benefits at first. However, by the last three decades, cracks already began to show in the gilded bubble.


 * During the 25th century, great strides were made in fusion power proliferation and miniaturization, especially in military contexts. This included the first fusion drive-powered fighter craft and missiles by the second half of the century.


 * Magnetic linear accelerators, formerly limited to massive fixed or semi-fixed infrastructure, are first installed on starships in the form of the spinal-mounted Magnetic Accelerator Cannon.


 * First vehicle-mounted railguns.


 * 2490s: the mounting Insurrection in the Outer Colonies spurs the rapid deployment of hitherto-untested space warfare technologies, such as the spinal-mounted MAC gun. While these are not the first space battles in human history, they are the first to be fought with modern propulsion, weapons, armor and inertial compensation technologies, and serve as the crucible in which the UNSC's space warfare technologies and doctrine are forged for decades to come. While some of the technological and tactical paradigms set by the Insurrection will serve the UNSC in the war against the Covenant, others will prove useless, even detrimental, against the aliens' weapons and tactics. Thus, the Covenant War ushers in another technological and doctrinal paradigm shift, albeit one that will only fully take effect over the three decades following the war.

2500s

 * 2500: The first MAC is mounted on a UNSC destroyer. Although it used a far smaller slug than later models (only 250 metric tons), and suffered from energy-storage limitations, its success would lead to similar systems being installed on all UNSC fleetships going forward.
 * 2506: The first successful flash cloning of the human brain and neural network.

2510s

 * 2511: The first successful human memory transfer to a flash-cloned "blank" brain.
 * 2514: New techniques used to construct 'cold' fusion reactors allow them to finally enter mainstream use, thanks to a reduction in cost and overall size.

2530s

 * The first trials of contragravity engines on UNSC warships.


 * Breakthroughs in quantum computing substrate technology allow a "smart" AI's Riemann matrix to be transferred on a small data chip for the first time. This makes smart AIs far more portable than before.


 * 2530: Project Zeus, the Office of Naval Intelligence's research and development program to create plasma weaponry, produces its first functional prototypes. Since maintaining electromagnetic containment of bolts of plasma over any appreciable distance remains out of humanity's technological capability, the Zeus prototypes take the form of specialized artillery shells containing a plasma-based payload designed to explode upon impact, somewhat similar to the Covenant's own plasma missile technology. While the usage of these artillery shells remains niche due to their high cost, volatility and the destruction of the specialized manufacturing plants that produced them on the colony world of Arcadia, offshoots of Project Zeus would later yield various advances, including spacecraft-borne plasma warheads in the later years of the war.


 * 2531: A breakthrough allows Section Three's Materials Group to decrypt PURPLE, one of the four prominent machine code types used by Covenant technology. PURPLE is not any one single code, but rather a family of assembly languages that have network protocols built into their architecture. The full intricacies of the languages will not be understood until well after the war, but this understanding allows Section 3 to code interfaces between Covenant and UNSC machinery.


 * 2534: The first generation of blast-resistant impact plating and combat uniforms developed specifically to counter directed-energy attacks, rather than ballistic strikes, first become standard-issue among the UNSC Marines and select Army units, having been tested over the previous years mostly by select units regularly engaged in high-intensity combat. The technology would undergo several developments over the following two decades, and old models remained in service alongside the new for years or decades on end in various units.


 * 2539: Plating-integrated reactive electromagnetic shields, or shock plates, show promising results in field tests. Shaped shielding remains unattainable, however, as do widespread rechargeable shields due to the expense of miniaturized fusion pack technology.

2540s
By this point, human technological development actually slowed down in some fields as procurement chains and specialist industries broke down, along with the destruction of many specialized ONI research and development plants across the colonies. This led to several war-era technologies being impromptu stopgaps rather than lasting solutions.


 * 2544: Non-nuclear plasma-based warheads are first deployed on spacecraft-borne missiles. These take the form of programmable munitions which ignite milliseconds prior to impact with the target. Designed to disrupt Covenant shielding, missiles bearing plasma warheads are deployed in initial salvos against ships with their shields still intact. Upon shield collapse, they are followed by further salvos of conventional munitions. Further refined models would also see use as point defense against incoming plasma torpedoes. However, plasma warheads would only see limited deployment during the war due to materials shortages and their relative expense in contrast to traditional munitions.


 * 2545: The first in-system FTL communicators are installed on early-warning buoys and remote scanning outposts in Epsilon Eridani and Sol, followed soon after by other Inner Colonies.


 * 2549: Short-range wavespace communicators are installed on the first UNSC Navy battle groups for in-system coordination.

2550s

 * 2551: First intersystem warning network utilizing wavespace installed at Reach, Earth and several remaining Inner Colonies.


 * 2552: Project: MJOLNIR reaches its fifth phase with the incorporation of an AI-processing crystal layer into the Mark V and its tandem project on Earth, dubbed the Mark VI. After this, Project MJOLNIR experiences no major generational upgrades for around three decades, though further Mark VI models and offshoots introduce various incremental advances.


 * The reprieve provided by the war's end allows the continued development of various technologies engineered during the war but never implemented en masse, as well as a handful of new discoveries; many of these will be implemented over the 2550s and 60s.


 * Salvaged Covenant technology and/or the express knowledge exchange with Covenant artificers in numerous independent and corporate operators begin a decades-long explosion of divergent and syncretic technology trees. Many such efforts never lead to anything viable or mass-produced, though some do.
 * 2554: Production of CODEN-IV SFTEs resumes at a new manufacturing facility near Mons Pico. Manufacturing within the UNSC was lost with the fall of Reach and the First Battle of Earth. Restoring this lost manufacturing capability was a tier-one priority for the UNSC, as they were dependent on a limited pool of surviving starships and the largesse of the Concorde for interstellar travel. CODEN-V production would not resume until 2559.


 * 2555: The release of the SPI Mark III, now widely known as the MIRAGE Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor, formalizes various upgrades made to the Mark II suits over the years, and becomes standard-issue for the remaining Spartan-IIIs. MIRAGE suits are issued to a handful of other units over the coming years, including unaugmented Naval Special Warfare teams and select ODST and space assault specialist units.

2560s
By the 2560s, human industries prioritized in the reconstruction have begun to recover somewhat, and various new technological innovations begin to emerge once again.


 * 2561: Production of most classes of AI resumes
 * 2568: First industrial production of rudimentary nanolaminate-like materials for various small-scale applications (e.g. state-of-the-art infantry and vehicle armor).


 * Virtually all Inner Colonies aligned with the Phoenix Initiative have operational in-system wavespace communication and sensor networks


 * The first true human-built plasma weapons are pioneered by the end of the decade, along with further innovations in laser weaponry derived from Project GUNGNIR.

2570s

 * By 2070, all Phoenix Initiative-aligned worlds are linked into the commercial Slipnet. Common citizens can now send messages to other colonies in a matter of hours or days at most, a feat that used to take weeks or months.


 * First industrial production of nanolaminate-like materials for starship armor.


 * Directed-energy weapons begin to see mainstream adoption within the UNSC military.