How to engagingly introduce a ton of history that happens in, subjectively, a moment?

Question

I have a character in science fiction who, for Plot Reasons, has to go into a half-conscious vegetative state for an indefinite period. The idea is that her brain is uniquely structured to solve spaceflight-related problems, and sacrificing herself to her people she went into an induced coma so that her scientists could use her now-cleared-out brain to help the Empire. The details are more specific, but the point is she falls asleep without any sensory input but kept perpetually alive for roughly 10,800 Earth years.

Of course as with any society her society changes over these ten millennia. Ten millennia ago, we were just starting to give up nomadic life after the Ice Age, and now we're beginning commercial space exploration. Ten millennia ago, this character's civilization had explored several different planets and had established interplanetary colonization, and now, the Reformed Commonwealth that her civilization had once been unified under has evolved into a Galactic Empire that worships her as a god for her super-brain, and rather than having 1980s-grade computer technology and societal norms (tech and social dichotomies have already been dealt with) anyone can be whoever they want at any time and computers have instant access to all knowledge, and rather than having only a few stars under their control they have five million and spread all the way across the galaxy.

These ten millennia are sort of glossed over, however. The story follows the main character fairly tightly, sometimes deviating to give half a chapter to another character's POV, but now the main character is totally-unconscious until a human programmer ten thousand years after she falls asleep points out a solution that lets them wake her up without collapsing the Empire.

But from the MC's perspective, she falls asleep one moment and, a short dream later, wakes up in an entirely-new world with thousands of years of history suddenly being dropped right on top of her.

How do I fill in the reader on what happens here in an engaging way that doesn't just feel like a massive useless infodump? The lifespans of the main character's species (of course not human) are ~150-200 years due to slower metabolisms, and through rebirth and advanced technologies it can get up to around 1,000 years, so I can't just pass the narrative torch to another character, because they'll be dead by the time the MC wakes up. And I definitely don't want someone to just come up and give the God-Empress a history lesson, because that feels boring and the reader will probably just skip that.

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To make it clear about how I'm asking is different from this question, which is decently similar: in this case, the character's backstory has already been given out in an engaging way (or so I hope), but in this case a massive amount of time has passed without her and there are many different storylines that have unfolded completely in the time she was gone. I don't necessarily need to provide the backstory to everything that happened while she was gone, as if I'm introducing new characters, but I'm specifically looking for a way to shift the time period forward by taking note of the historical events that took place while she was gone without just doing a history lesson.

Answer 1

You don't info-dump. Write a scene like this (off the top of my head):

Lara wakes, in a bed, and looks around. A fit man of about 30, in a white coat, with a stethoscope, is seated by her bed. She speaks to him.

"Why am I awake?"

He says, "Welcome back, Lara. Our services are no longer required, the council believes waking you is the humane thing to do."

Lara frowns. "How is that possible? Why are my services no longer required? I mean, 'our' services? What are 'our' services?"

"I am Gary, your attendant and reader. It has been nearly eleven thousand years, Lara. I have been your attendant for ten thousand of those years. Things have changed. We have been victorious, the empire controls the galaxy, we have robust civilizations around five million stars. Our job is done, we can retire now."

"Ten thousand? How can you be ten thousand years old? Are you immortal?"

Gary said, "I am nonbio, a non-biological citizen of the Empire. I do not age or suffer deterioration, but of course I can be destroyed by many means, accidental or intentional. I do not consider myself immortal."

He shrugs, and stands. "Of course, you have been alive longer than me, and you are bio. It is no longer unusual for citizens to live thousands of years."

Lara ponders, and looks around. "Retire. I never thought I would wake up. What is it even like out there? Will I recognize anything?"

"That is very unlikely. I have prepared an acclimation virtual reality package for you, a condensed version of growing up in the Empire."

Gary stands, and holds out a hand. "Shall we begin?"

Lara looked at him, and sighed. What choice did she have? She swung her legs out of the bed, and stood, surprised she felt fit.

"Wow, I thought I'd be weaker after lying in bed for that long."

Gary said, "I am responsible for your medical care, including keeping you physically fit. You are welcome."

Lara took his hand. It was warm. "Well thanks, Gary. Where is this virtual reality classroom?"

"We are in it."

As he spoke, the room melted and changed around him, and they were standing in a green field of wildflowers. Lara's eyes widened.

"Whoa, dude!"

End Chapter. Next chapter, jump forward in time, Lara is becoming acclimatized, and the reader along with her. Only cover elements of the history that are relevant to the plot.

If it is not relevant to the plot, nobody cares about the intrigues of politics or wars thousands of years ago.

As you grew up, you learned modern culture, science, society and everything else in maybe 15 years without even trying that hard. And a lot of what you learned you have already forgotten.

The vast majority of us don't know about most wars, or any wars more than two or three hundred years old. Don't recap that junk, it isn't important to the plot.

The Empire is the Empire, the tech is the tech, like kids we don't care how it works, it just works. You flip a switch, the light comes on. You step into this booth, pick your destination, press the button and you are transported 169 light years to another planet around another star system.

"How does that work, Gary?"

"I don't know exactly. You solved the hyper-fold problem, though. People were very impressed."

"Did I? Good for me."

Lara is a super-fast learner, and like any kid, she learns just enough to successfully navigate the society she has just been "born" into.

Answer 2

You fail to mention from what viewpoint you narrate your story, so I'm giving two answers in one:

Limited Viewpoint

If the story is told from the perspective of the character that wakes up in her far future (either in first or third person), then all you need to do is imagine how she would learn about the history that she has missed and how she would react to it.

It is unlikely that someone waking up 10,800 years in the furture would quietly sit listening to a three hour history lecture, memorize all the information calmly, and then go on unaffected with their new life. Rather, they would be disoriented, would be given the most important bits of information first (e.g. "it's the year 12,824"), they would react to that (e.g. she is shocked, sad about the loss of her friends etc.), they would then ask questions which would be answered in dialogue, etc.

That is, you don't have a long monologue full of historical facts, but those facts are revealed bit by bit while the characters interact with each other, they have emotions, they think thoughts, they observe their environment, they interact with the environment (dress, eat, walk etc.). In short:

You narrate how the person learns of that history and the consequences of that learning, and that learning takes place embedded in the ongoing lives of those characters and the events of your story.

Omniscient Viewpoint

If the story is told from an omniscient viewpoint (either in third or first person), you would insert a brief chapter or a few paragraphs about what happens between her falling asleep and her waking up.

That's not boring if the history is interesting. Leave out any unnecessary details, only recount what is relevant to the story.

This is frequently done in SFF.