When TTI released the Transcendent Implant, that single technology shook the corporate space, but not since the GeoMat had a single technological innovation changed society so thoroughly… and perhaps never so quickly.
Transcendent Technology revised Vector understanding of reality. With not even a gesture, a Vector armed with transcendent tech could create destruction edging into “weapons of mass destruction” territory. Near-magical abilities like teleportation were suddenly possible, and strange creatures answered TTI’s calls, coming seemingly from no-where. And beyond these strange abilities, Transcendent Technology called energy from strange planes of existence, hinted at voids beyond our understanding…and to say that it was a barely understood technology is still an understatement 150 years later.
This sudden gap in Sol’s understanding, bizaare entities that sometimes obeyed their callers and rarely obeyed physics, the disturbing and nightmarish self-destruction that these implants could spawn, all indicated something beyond Sol. New cults and secret societies sprouted across Sol. Religion wasn’t common in Vector society until the Transcendent Age. As the universe became stranger and darker, it became a tool to help Vectors understand the world that seemed so tame a few decades before.
The Transcendent Age is a strange hodgepodge of powerful technological innovation, superstition and fad faiths, and a healthy dose of paranoia. It was gray and uncertain. Miracles were suddenly available for sale, and yet vectors were in some small way afraid to look to the stars, because of the hazy threat of what was beyond them. It slowly fades as the earth turns red and strange and violent events are reported on Europa, both of which take the luster out of the promise of Transcendence.