Amerikano era

The "Amerikano era" refers to a period in the future history of the overall Revelation Space universe. The era was marked by early, usually unmanned efforts at interstellar colonisation, predominantly by a future United States and its then-existing space exploration and settlement authorities.

The adjective "Amerikano" is also used to refer to events, people and concepts from this earlier period of humanity's interstellar expansion.

Most of the interstellar exploration and settlement in the Amerikano era, especially its earlier phase, seems to have been conducted by automated starships, based on the Von Neumann probe concept. After a decades long journey to a habitable planet in a planetary system near the the Solar System, an automated ship would send down a lander to the planet surface. The automated lander would then gradually build the first colonial base around itself and also gestate the frozen human embryos from Earth it carried aboard. Once born, the base would take care of the colonists' everyday needs, their upbringing and education, until they reached adulthood and could perform settlement and research tasks.

However, later visits to planets settled by the Von Neumann probe method showed that many of the planet-born human colonists were prone to developmental issues, including a tendency towards mental instability and mental illness. The icy planet Diadem was an example of both colonisation by this method, and an example of a planetary colony that ultimately failed.

The planet Yellowstone in the Epsilon Eridani system was one of the major footholds of later Amerikano colonisation, but ultimately didn't last. The remnants of that colonisation attempt were later reused by the new wave of Demarchist colonists, originally from the Europan Demarchy on Europa in the Solar System, who arrived to the Epsilon Eridani system mostly by lighthuggers. Due to the relatively small Amerikano presence on Yellowstone, the planet was effectivelly recolonised or colonised anew by the Demarchist faction.

Timeline of events

• 2050 – 2080: period of great expansion into the solar system. By 2069 twelve million people live off Earth; mainly around Earth and the Moon. Smaller settlements dotted around whole system, out to fringes of Kuiper Belt. Political fragmentation and social unrest follows massive breakthroughs in bio-sciences.

• 2081: increasingly violent police actions against rogue states lead to retaliatory actions; onset of war. Emergence of “chimeric” factions: heavily bio-engineered and cyborgized human splinter groups.

• 2083: ceasefire. Departure of flotilla of colony ships for 61 Cygni-A. At 1/8th of the speed of light, they will not arrive until the twenty-third century.

• 2090 – 2110: establishment of early colonies on a number of extrasolar planets via Von Neumann robots carrying fertilised human cells. Most such societies fail within two or three generations. End of so-called Amerikano era.

• (...)

• 2205 – Galiana’s Conjoiners escape from Mars. First relativistic starship constructed and launched from Mars orbit.

• 2205 – 2250; period of great expansion; numerous interstellar colonies established; recontact with surviving settlements from Amerikano era.

• 2217 – Conjoiner expedition to Diadem. Discovery of Setterholm’s Worms.

Notable planets first settled in the era

• Diadem (Ross 248 system, 10.3 light years from Earth)
• Glacier (unknown system, unknown amount of light years from Earth)
• Grand Teton (unknown system, unknown amount of light years from Earth)
• Yosemite (unknown system, unknown amount of light years from Earth)
• Yellowstone (Epsilon Eridani system, 10.5 light years from Earth)

Notable figures of the period

• Marco Ferris - major historical (and semi-legendary) figure in the early history of Yellowstone settlement, with several landmarks and local terms named after him
• John Brannigan - the captain of the Nostalgia for Infinity is said to have been born in an era when the later colonisation of Mars was still underway, and might have even worked for a future NASA; later, he was a member of the Coalition for Neural Purity

Notes

• Though it is never stated outright, the ortography of the term "Amerikano" might have been influenced by two different future languages appearing in the setting - Russish (a Russian-English creole) and/or Norte (a creole of North American English and North American Spanish). It is distinct from the current Spanish term Americano (with a "c") and the current Russian term amerikanskiy ("American", with a "k", but a different suffix).

See also

• Norte - An enduring lingua franca language of the Revelation Space universe, with roots in North American English and North American Spanish. Its name is derived from the term Norte Americano, "North American".
• Timeline - General official overview of the future history of the Revelation Space universe, provided by Alastair Reynolds on his official website.