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Humanity's life in the gas-giant shadow — the comfortable, slow, doomed century before the dual-vector foil arrives.
The Bunker Era is the century in which humanity actually moves into the lifeboats. The Bunker World is built in the shadow of Jupiter and Saturn; cultural and political life moves out from Earth permanently. The institutional choice — Bunker Plan over black-domain or lightspeed escape — is reaffirmed annually. AA awakens late in the era to help Luo Ji evacuate the Earth Civilization Museum to Pluto. Wade's secret curvature drive matures in Halo City. The era ends abruptly when the dual-vector foil arrives and the bunker shielding is revealed as the wrong defense.
An era of orbital habitats. Bunker cities lit warm against Jupiter's bands, Saturn's rings on the horizon. Earth a green-blue museum no one visits. Pluto a tiny gray dot at the rim where Luo Ji's archive grows. Holographic news feeds cycling through the same calm population statistics. The deep silence of being safe and knowing it is not enough.