To save you the trouble of reading through all those threads, I'll give you a quick rundown of past event which led us to this.
As Proggy mentioned, the current year in SS is 4000+ years after the manga ended. But you would think that there was a major growth in technology during that time frame but we stuck to the current technology we have. During that time frame a lot has happened including a war that reduced human technology to nothing. It's only just now that its picking up.
So when making a character, try not to reference it with characters in the manga/anime. That would only hinder your plot writing since you'd have to see what happens next in the series.