GENESIS: THE AGE OF STORED LIGHT The Sun puts out about 380 septillion watts. Earth catches less than a billionth of it, and all of humanity runs on roughly 20 terawatts. The rest pours off into empty space. In 1964, astronomer Kardashev proposed measuring a civilization by a single number: how much energy it can harness. Type I commands its planet. Type II commands its star. Genesis is the first step toward Type II. Around the first star, the sphere is rising. Each cell is a collector, drawing raw power from the star and banking it. Every second, the reserve grows. Even when a sphere seals and the epoch moves to a new star, the old cells keep harvesting the star they enclose. Genesis is the reserve. Everything after draws from it. The archives speak of what comes next: worlds that won't wake without power. Routes between stars that open only for those who can pay the toll in energy. And something out past the last sphere that has been waiting a very long time for someone to arrive with enough power to answer it. No one knows yet how much it will take. Those who stored energy during Genesis will be the first to find out.