Corvo History

Modern corvo are the only extant members of the Corvacius Clade, a branch of great koomos characterised by erect posture and bipedal locomotion, manual dexterity, and increased tool use, and a general trend towards larger, more complex brains and societies.

The oldest specimen known in the corvo ancestry is about 120,000 years old. The Corvo began to exhibit evidence of behavioural modernity around 30,000 years ago, after which they soon occupied most of their planet. The spread of the Corvo had a profound impact on every environment they urbanised.

The general growth of the Corvosphere has always been exceptionally fast. This is because the Corvo are adept at finding new solutions to new problems: the exploitation of their planet’s resources was well underway when they set their eyes on asteroid mining and energies more efficient than fossil fuels. The corvo CEOs keep sight of the long term plans of their businesses - perhaps it was their long life expectancy that gave them the necessary perspective. This is why they understood the value of investing in R&D, and it was space that proved to be the bottomless mine that their economies needed.

> “The Corvo have created a new civilisation for a new millennium. They have taken their cities to space, where they can feed from what is virtually an eternal source of energy. No longer coerced by the weather, the availability of land, the changes in tectonic plates, the atmosphere or any other planetary problems. They expand without restraint through the Labyrinth, from where they can obtain any amount of resources whenever needed.
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> The Iz’kal accuse them of having unsustainable exponential growth, but with the discovery of the Labyrinth, growth is no longer a liability - it is a necessity. Who knows who else is out there? What species and what powers might one day come out of an unexplored region of the Labyrinth. The Corvo are doing what they must for their survival. Holding hands and rainbows are all fine until you are conquered by a stronger foe, after which the only thing your hands will hold will be a pick and a shovel, and you will be forced to terraform your lovely planet to some strange creatures’ climate, hoping that once you are done you might be able to at least breathe what they breathe.
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> The Iz’kal have to stop working with dated concepts from single-planet economies. The Labyrinth is the most dangerous thing to ever occur to our species, but it is also an opportunity. History will prove who is right. The Iz’kal should work harder if they want to write a few pages of it.” - excerpt from “A Free Society,” Abbas al Din, iz’kal dissident and statistician at The Union
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## Space Age

The Corvo began their space age 2,000 years ago when Liu Liwei became the first corvo to enter outer space. Five corporations of three different countries with a common vision signed a deal for long term collaboration. They were looking for what they thought would make them indispensable to the future of their species: an endless energy source. At least for the next billion years, which seemed like enough. Their plan was to establish a ring of solar powered satellites around the sun (a Dyson ring in human jargon) and send the energy back to their planet with a system of microwaves.  These satellites would receive solar energy every single second they were operative, with none of it being lost to the atmosphere nor to other celestial bodies that could stand in the way. Thousands of corvo workers and technicians moved to space bases that became part of the Dyson ring.

This new system was extremely costly, but it had transformed the corvo economy well before it was even completed. The five corporations merged into a single entity which eventually became the first corvo megacorp: it was known as Jiaoyang and it took over more than 60% of all businesses.

There was a complication. Each satellite could only provide so much energy, and the subsequent rapid expansion of the Corvo required more energy than what the Dyson ring could provide. Thus was the beginning of a great recession, known as Sundown. The public accused Jiaoyang of creating a monopoly over the Dyson ring’s energy production, which ultimately lead to the crisis. These accusations damaged their reputation and caused their stock prices to fall hard.

Jiaoyang could not continue to expand the Dyson ring. There was a shortage of materials which could only be provided by the two corporations that had taken over the real estate of the remaining rocky planets in the system. Jiaoyang had to agree to open the Dyson ring to other businesses, and the free commerce treaty that was signed set the basis for a truly free and competitive economy. On the other hand, the two corporations that had unilaterally claimed the land of two whole planets were found guilty of not operating within the free market, and they were sold for parts by their shareholders. Jiaoyang split into two companies: one that focused on the maintenance of the satellites and the workers’ bases, and another one in charge of providing services to new companies and workers that needed astronaut training and transportation to the Dyson ring.

Both the planets and the Dyson ring became places of investment and growth, resulting in the erasure of the previous patronage system. Thousands of companies started to work on the Dyson ring to produce energy, to perform maintenance work for the satellites, and to provide services to the ever-growing population of workers. Others worked on the mining sites of the neighbour planets, which were otherwise mere rocks where life could not exist.

## Tiantang, a Space Based Economy

With enough material to keep up with the expansion of the Dyson ring, its growth was almost exponential. The ring was finally completed, and it was named Tiantang. The Corvo had mined two planets to their core, and with a condensed ring of space stations and satellites at 1AU of their star, almost half the corvo population had chosen to move to live and work in Tiantang or nearby mining bases. Not only had the majority of the industry and services moved to space, but also their entire financial system. In a genius move by several megacorps, they had the stock and currency markets moved to Tiantang, which resulted in a delay of 3 light minutes as information travelled from Tiantang to Quanjie, and forced all planetary corporations to be unable to compete in the big leagues.

All the important and well paid jobs were in Tiantang, and many service companies moved to space stations in the ring. Quanjie was slowly but surely depleted of its most capable citizens and industries, as well as most of its resources.

The need for material things, for new software, entertainment, energy, and resources, was ever growing. The CEOs of the largest companies were well aware of what would happen to their economy if they could not keep up with their growth.

## The Artificial Wormhole

When it seemed like the corvo expansion had reached its limit, exhausting most of the resources available in their solar system, the great mind of Mehdi Ben and his team of scientists found a solution: they claimed that with enough energy output they could create a wormhole. Creating a wormhole is the summit of all technological advances in space travel engineering. No form of energy has ever been able to push the speed of a manned spaceship even close to of the speed of light, and thus wormholes were the only theoretical way to travel between star systems within the lifespan of any of the recognised sentient species.

The creation of a wormhole is the most complex task known today and can be highly dangerous. It requires the presence of matter with negative mass, which can be either created or found in regions of space known as N-regions, in which mass arbitrarily changes from positive to negative. Creating this form of matter is extremely expensive, and thus a relatively close N-region is normally sought when planning the creation of a new wormhole. It also needs an enormous amount of energy to be continuously fed into it in order to stay stable and not collapse upon itself.

Mehdi Ben convinced several megacorps to invest heavily into his concept. If it worked, they could create a door to a whole new star system, full of the resources and job opportunities they needed.

What Mehdi Ben did not tell his investors was that it was impossible for him to choose where the the wormhole would lead to. The only conclusion they could reach based on their experimental data was that the other end of the wormhole would open at a nearby N-Region. While they are scarce, most star systems have one of these regions within a week of subluminal travel. N-regions become more scarce the further you are from a star, though the reason for this relation has not been discovered yet.

This was enough assurance for Mehdi that the wormhole would take them close enough to another star system and its resources. He knew the risks of telling this to the shareholders, who would appreciate money more than a leap of faith, so he kept it a secret from everyone.

When the wormhole was created, something completely unexpected happened. Instead of taking them to an uncharted N-region, it took them to a natural wormhole that was connected to thousands of points throughout the Universe, thus creating an artificial connection between their location and countless others. This was a success beyond what their wildest theories had predicted. The corvo businesses and people now had an open door to the Universe, which they called the Labyrinth.

## Now

The Corvo now use the Labyrinth to create new colonies wherever they find habitable planets, and mine dozens of planets and asteroid rings for Tiantang, their ever growing Dyson ring. Some dream of creating a solid sphere around the star, which would allow them to collect virtually all of its energy output without any loss. Although this would require creating a surface area several billion times that of the surface of a planet, something scientists see as impossible now and highly unlikely in the future, the Corvo are not a people who take a no for an answer and the Dyson ring keeps growing every year.

The Corvo have expanded to other worlds in other star systems and have built new homes for their people. Millions of corvo inhabit hostile worlds where they spend their lives mining vital minerals. It is also believed that wonderful planets have been discovered, that are now inhabited by only the richest corvo.