HISTORY ARCHIVES STARDATE 01.01.2000 - 01.01.3400
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"Computer, why don't we have online chat in the year 3300?"
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Online social chat was banned in the late 22nd Century in the Second Geneva Convention for internet conflict management. Events that led up to this ruling were the Gamergate attacks of 2014, the trolling troubles of 2017 and the fanboi wars of 2000 to the late 2050's. But it was the rampant proliferation of the Facebook and Twitter variant viruses that causes mass addiction to online social networking and turned huge swathes of the population into 'online zombies' unable to function socially or productively in real life, that finally caused governments to act. In 2120 social networking became a controlled activity under the law. In 2025 entire areas of the internet were quarantined into online ghettos. By 2050 the Online Social Intercourse Act was passed, which outlawed any online social activity not mediated through strictly supervised filters and protocols. Arguably by that time it was already too late. Historical records of this time are sketchy; the collapse of technologically advanced economies and all their industrial and electronic infrastructure means that many records were lost. As such, nobody knows exactly what led to the "Great Blackout". But it is known that it would take centuries before humanity would rebuild itself. As humanity finally rose from the dust once more and was able to reach for the stars again, it promised itself not to make the same mistake. There would be no online chat. Communication would be limited to conventional bulletin boards and radio transmissions and even the humble paper letter. Space pilots would venture into the big black alone and in silence, solitary wanderers in the void. Lone wolves. Individuality would be strength. Isolation would be endurance. Like the earliest hermit prophets seeking enlightenment through reclusion in the desert, humanity would attain purity and wisdom through becoming one with the silence of the stars.
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In space, no one can hear you chat.
