The Sons of Ether had been seeing the signs of the coming destruction for years, and tried to warn the other factions (even their old contacts in the Technocracy) before it was too late. They were almost universally ignored and even laughed at. This was not an unexpected reaction toward the Sons of Ether, so they didn't press the matter.
Instead, the Tradition gathered nearly every known active Scientist and met in the Gernsback Continuum to discuss the problem. Being the highly opinionated people they were, they argued for weeks about how to solve the problem, but were unable to come up with a good plan that everyone could agree on (unsurprisingly). About 90% of the Tradition formed factions around the three most popular proposals, while the remaining few decided to strike out on their own.
Since the death of Earth, the attitudes of the Sons of Ether have gradually grown more enlightened and less stuffy than they were. It was almost as if some positive ideas from the Technocracy dominated 20th Century (i.e., sexual equality) had been avoided more because of their source than because of the ideas themselves. In the process, the Scientists dropped their old tradition name in favor of something a little more gender-neutral. Though there is still disagreement about what the name should be, it has been quieted down to a dull roar. The current officially recognized name is "The Etherian League", although "Team Ether" and "The Persons of Ether" still have strong followings. For some reason, names that completely abandoned "Ether" (such as "The Futurians") seem to have dropped off the radar, so to speak.
The reformist faction argued that the Scientists should do everything in their power to halt the destruction of Earth, even if it meant sacrificing their own lives in the process. What was the point of Science, they argued, if not for the benefit of mankind?
They built their Phlogistatic Wave Engines and Pollutant Reprocessing systems in an attempt to reverse the coming destruction, while the other traditions and conventions tried to save themselves like drowning rats. Surprisingly, had it not been for the self-centered attitude of the others, the reformists might have succeeded.
Most of the surviving Mages today refuse to admit it, but if it were not for the efforts of the reformers, the darkness would have come far more swiftly and nobody would have escaped Earth's last days. To this day, the descendants of the Euthanatos remember these Etherites with a fondness that the Death Mages of Earth's time did not share. Victoria Station, once a thriving etheric port of call, now stands as a monument to the Reformists, and is tended by the Euthanatos in the area.
The Starlifter faction, like the technocratic conventions and the other traditions, built large space Rockets (with the assistance of sympathetic Void Engineers), and tried to save as many people as they could. Unlike the craft of most other groups, these ships were not reserved for those people that followed the etheric paradigm; passage was given to anyone that could get to them.
Soon after evacuation, Starlifter Arks made several clandestine trips into areas controlled by other Traditions to drop off people sympathetic to those Traditions. In the confusion of the situation, very few people noticed that the number of refugees was higher than expected, and no one questioned them enough to learn of the Etherite fleet.
Once this task was completed, the space arks were dismantled and rebuilt into a fleet of ships, which the Starlifters and their followers took out of charted space on an exploration mission. There have been no further reports from the fleet since it departed, but then again nobody that stayed behind really knew much about it in the first place.
The third faction also tried to save as many people as possible, but they took a different course of action. Instead of spaceships, they researched methods of traveling to new dimensions. Much like the Iterators, the Etherites discovered a way to create an artificial Soulgate. However, unlike the Iterators, they did not try to create it from nothing. They used something that they already knew intimately: The Gernsback Continuum. They constructed hundreds of robotic Von Neumann (self-replicating/repairing) probes of all shapes and sizes, and sent them hurtling through space to seek out strong sources of quintessence, and link them to the Gernsback Continuum automatically.
Great dirigibles, saucers, submarine boats, and other bizarre craft were sent to evacuate as many people as possible to the Gerns. Unlike the Starlifters, the Gernsback contingent did not bother with dropping people off at planets with similar beliefs; they needed to form a self-sufficient community, and didn't have the long-range/high-capacity ships that the Starlifters had.
While all this was being implemented, a large device called a "De-Sitter Space Antiphase Matter Transition Drive" was constructed in the center of the Gernsback Continuum, along with several redundant auxiliary units on the fringes. Using the Quintessence stream provided by the Von Neumann probes, this enormous and hideously complex device began to maintain the reality of the Gernsback Continuum, and translated it into a different level of existence (i.e., makes it behave like a Soulgate).
The Independents are those Scientists who decided to pursue their own agendas when Earth died rather than join one of the other groups. To most of the various Factions in this setting, they are all that remain of the Sons of Ether. They are stereotyped as a bunch of solitary maniacs who roam space pursuing odd experiments, but are not strong enough to form a faction of their own.
There has been a bit of a shift in terminology since the Continuum gained its independence from Earth's reality. "The Gerns" refers to the planet that was the original Horizon Realm, while "The Gernsback Continuum", or simply "The Continuum" usually refers to the peculiar artificial reality it inhabits. The Gerns is now a planetary body in a 1930's pulp-comic version of outer space.
There are no distinct cities. Civilization and Nature are completely integrated here and at peace with one another. There are simply regions where the buildings are more numerous than the trees, and vice versa. The Gerns is every bit the benevolent Utopia that the Sons would have wanted for Earth.
The Gerns has somehow (probably due to manipulations in the design during the conversion from Horizon Realm to independent reality) acquired a hollow interior, which is an untamed wilderness area reminiscent of the Son's beloved Hollow Earth. Finally, among the Sons and their unawakened companions, there are persistent rumors that certain areas of the Gernsback Continuum do not connect with the Tellurian they left behind, but with another, stranger place . . . .
The Etherians rarely if ever leave the Gernsback Continuum, making it seem to outsiders as if the Tradition has all but completely died out, leaving only the Independents. Nobody is aware of the secret home base of the thriving Scientists, and for the most part the Sons are content to stay there and pursue their research in peace. Only recently have certain members of the Tradition grown curious about what is going on outside, and begun constructing ships to explore the greater universe once again.