Dixotomia Timeline: From Decarbox to the Mine 17 Incident

The Dixotomia timeline runs from the isolation of decarbox in 2539 to the Mine 17 incident in August 2583, the year the game is set. In between come a published carbon cycle and a mineral named after Alessandro Dineri. Reynor "Ron" Adams reaches Karna in that same year, after five years in cryo.

This guide is spoiler-free. It covers the background dates only and leaves story events out.

The short version:

• Story year. 2583.
• Decarbox isolated. 2539.
• Mineral named. 2564, after Alessandro Dineri.
• Mine 17 incident. 13 August 2583.
• Game release. 22 January 2026 on Steam.

What are the key dates in the Dixotomia timeline?

Date	Event
2539	Decarbox is first isolated from dinerite ore
2541	The Dineri-Sugeno carbon cycle is published
2564	Alessandro Dineri dies, and the mineral is named for him
13 August 2583	The Mine 17 incident in Deep Shaft 17
2583	Reynor arrives on Karna after five years in cryo

The lore gives the arrival as a year rather than a day. It treats the Mine 17 incident as the point everything else dates from.

What happened before 2583?

Three dates build the world that the story walks into.

2539: decarbox is isolated

Decarbox is first isolated from dinerite ore. It is an amorphous dark brown substance that melts at 39°C and binds carbon out of carbon dioxide and methane at low temperature. That last property is what makes terraforming possible, and Tibet Innovations eventually holds the trade name and all rights to it.

The same compound is why it rains on Karna, as the post on why it rains liquid plastic explains.

2541: the carbon cycle is published

Two years later, the Dineri-Sugeno carbon cycle is published. The lore gives the name and the year and little else, so it is best read as a marker of how quickly the science moved: only two years separate the isolation of the compound from a published carbon cycle.

2564: the mineral gets its name

Alessandro Dineri dies, and the mineral is named for him. That is where the word dinerite comes from.

What happened at the Mine 17 incident?

On 13 August 2583, 28 of the 42 miners in Deep Shaft 17 come up with a fever of 40°C and no diagnosis. The lore treats this as the date everything else counts from, which is why this guide uses it as the anchor for the whole timeline.

The lore uses two names for the same place and event. Deep Shaft 17 is the shaft, and the Mine 17 incident is what happened there. It also writes dates day first, so 13 August 2583 appears as 13.08.2583.

The incident is the starting point of the story, not a footnote to it. The post on Deep Shaft 17 and the fever behind the story covers the setup without spoilers.

When does Reynor arrive on Karna?

Reynor comes back to Karna as cargo, after five years in cryo. For the sleeper, five years of flight is one instant, so everyone else has aged and he has not. The final stretch of the trip is slow: the braking cycle from hyperspace exit to the roadstead lasts 138 standard days.

The lore marks his arrival with a year, 2583, and not a precise date. For the planet he arrives on, read Karna explained: the company planet.

What technology does the timeline assume?

Three pieces of technology explain why the dates fall the way they do:

• Hyperspace transport. Ships cross the distance between star systems, but the trip to Karna still takes years.
• Cryo hibernation. Passengers and cargo alike travel frozen, which is how a five-year voyage can pass in a moment for the traveller.
• Achron communications. Faster-than-light messages travel through relays, so news can outrun any ship.

The contrast is built into the setting. A message can cross the gap quickly, while a person needs years and a freezer.

Which background events have no date?

Several pieces of background carry no year in the lore, so this timeline leaves them off the table:

• Viviana Eidenhart's inheritance. She inherited Karna at 24, and in the ten years that followed processing of the ore grew thousands of times.
• The Federation's cancelled plan. The idea of extending Attecor to a thousand worlds was dropped when it exceeded the available computing power.
• Reynor's career. He served eight years in the assault infantry before the story begins.

Putting these on a timeline would mean guessing, and a timeline built on guesses is worse than one with gaps.

How far apart are the dates?

Counting the gaps shows how long Tibet Innovations has had to build a business on one mineral:

Interval	Dates	Years apart
Isolation to carbon cycle	2539 to 2541	2
Carbon cycle to Dineri's death	2541 to 2564	23
Dineri's death to the incident	2564 to 2583	19
Isolation to the incident	2539 to 2583	44

In other words, decarbox had been known for 44 years by the time the miners fell ill.

When was the game itself released?

The in-world dates are only half of the picture. The release dates of the game are simpler:

Date	Event
9 January 2026	Dixotomia leaves Early Access on Meta Quest
22 January 2026	Dixotomia launches on Steam

The game is already out. It is on Steam, on the Meta Quest store and on itch.io, and it costs $19.99.

Why does the order of events matter?

Reading the dates in sequence shows a slow build: first the science, then the name, then the incident. The dates do not explain the fever, but they show that the story starts decades after the compound it revolves around was first isolated.

If you want to see where that chain leads, Dixotomia is on Steam, and the free demo guide explains how to try it first. If the game is new to you, what Dixotomia is is the best place to start.