World

The Era of Emend

Currently

Smaller villages have started to affiliate with the global network, allowing for the unification of long separated families and freer travel.
Underground facilities have expanded, a rise in processed and read-to-eat foods beginning to flood the markets, a relief to widespread hunger.
The adults who witnessed the Scourge are now reaching the ends of their races' lifespans, the cause of it becoming lost to time.
The children who survived the Scourge have grown up, and begin to take the reigns of what remains of civilization.
The four main hub cities, including the Drift, have united in standardizing laws, money currency, and rebuilding efforts.
The Drift has reaffirmed its identity as an unincorporated city, yet those with ambition can, and will, try to take power.

The Residuum Centenary

100 Years Ago

The global flooding ceases, resulting in barely 10,000 square kilometers of livable, farmable land.
Four major hub cities are built and begin to network for survival, the Drift, the Crest, the Bluffs, and the Spots.
Smaller villages, outposts, and flotillas try to survive with what can be salvaged, many dying off from starvation or integrating into the hubs.
To accommodate the growing population of refugees the Drift builds the first layer over the Ramshackle District and Aether Core.
Deep drilling into the mountains provides a stronger Aether presence, with caves widened for crop fields and meat factories.
Trade routes are established, beginning a new global economy and rebuilding society.

The Scourge

120 Years Ago

A meteor storm rips through the solar system, heavily impacting the only habitable planet, Atma.
The sister moons Mutu and Mana sustain damage as well, creating a debris field of shimmering moondust in Atma's atmosphere.
The sun is battered to the point of extinquishment, leaving only the Ranga nebula as a dim light source.
The meteor storm causes glaciers to melt, the space rocks filled with ice also melting which only worsened global flooding.
Over 70% of the population is wiped out in the first week, another 17% in the near twenty years of the storm.
The last 13% of the population makes for higher ground, building refugee routes and stations in hopes of survival.

The Gilded Age

400 Years Ago

Technology innovation creates cybernetics, hyper processors, and more powered by Aether accelerating society but rebuked by the religious.
Society begins to fracture, some embracing tech, others trying to safeguard magik, while the rest simply keep going on with life.
Economies rapidly expand, with industrial manufacturing and Aether mining having the largest workforces and financial gains.
Aerospace tech is born with plans rapidly expanding scope to include travel to the moons and beyond.
The Aether shivers, resulting in leaders of different religions to unify and speak with warning to diverge from the current path to destruction.
World powers, having become ludicrously rich, ignore their religious advisors in favor of keeping the good times rolling.

Year 7310

Currently

The second city layer has begun, many believe it is financially backed by Azrael Kirby himself. KISS has not confirmed nor denied.
A fresh influx of people have come from the Crest, revitalizing the labor force and putting strain on the life support systems.
Several districts have been overhauled, repurposing resources and building materials, allowing for the growth of smaller groups.
More buildings have been erected in the Hana District, with more civilian based markets popping up around the city.
The Aether Core has shown signs of erratic behaviors, the Architect giving a strong warning not to disturb the Aether based systems.
The Underdark Sector is carved out by those who deal in the black market, with long term servitude paid contracts spiking with new corpos.

Year 7300

10 Years Ago

The Architect conducts his own purge, assassinating several faction heads who had become too much of a resource sink.
Affected factions call for the Architect to be killed under the Retaliation law, while others quote the Jurisdiction law. Civil unrest shakes the city.
The Architect establishes the Community Center next to the residential towers, providing free food, water, and shelter for the needy.
The Ramshackle District promotes their own Warden, a singular voice for townhall meetings with other faction leaders and the Architect.
More apartment buildings are built to accommodate the growing population, especially families with children.
Rumors of a Scourge research team emerge, the belief being that the celestial event was more than pure coincidence.

Year 7290

20 Years Ago

City systems finally stabilize, standard utilities now readily available and free, such as electricity, clean water, and Net access.
The Net also stabilizes, with several archives started to document and stitch together information and knowledge fragmented by the Scourge.
The underground cave systems are made inaccessible to the public due to concerns of ill intent for the farm fields.
The entertainment industry begins to thrive again, with music, art, arcade games, movies, and tv shows providing both jobs and escapism.
Specialized small businesses emerge, filling in multiple gaps of citizen wants and needs.
A small turf war breaks out among factions, several groups disappearing at the hands of others, with an unknown number of casualties.

Year 7210

100 Years Ago

The Architects make themselves known, the inception of hub cities for refugees becoming a reality, each city having their own Architect.
The Ramshackle District is quickly overrun, the rapid expansion of the city giving it a patchwork appearance as building goes upward.
To protect the Aether Core that powers all life support systems it is fragmented and strung down into a hollowed out system underground.
With such a massive influx of people the building labor helps actuate the Architect's plans, with safety not exactly a priority.
Underground grow fields are established, magik expediting the grow season to help stave off starvation. Such practice becomes standard.
The cult takes root, the whispers of their purpose being safeguarding Aether and magik unable to be verified due to their secrecy.

The peaks of the Palana mountain range provide a natural barrier from inclement weather, ocean surges, deep sea leviathans, and rogue waves. It is the northern most hub, stacking upon itself over a single Aether core with two habitable layers, with a third being constructed. Due to other cities rotting away the Drift is now the most populous and stable of all, even returning viability to luxury industries, the arts, and more. The hub is globally recognized as the most stable habitation despite constant shifts of power among its citizens. The Drift's exports are four times that of its imports, being the main global provider of charged Aether crystals which has become used in nearly every facet of life.

The net positive economy is used to provide housing, food, water, necessities, and childcare at no cost, thus homelessness is nearly non-existent and all needs are fulfilled. The socialist systems are to encourage the growth of families and bolster the chances to come back from the edge of extinction. The children's ward is beneath the surface just like the farms and cannot be accessed by the population save for parents, educators, and other providers. In fact, all of the major machinery for the life support systems, Aether mining, farming, and children's wards are kept underground for the highest security measures.

The Drift is overseen by Lahara, one of the three still living Architects.

The hub city was once perched atop Aunla Tipsa, the three highest peaks of a single mountain for the entire planet. Each peak was a central pillar for construction with far reaching walkways connecting the city sectors together, the winds and weather often making travel perilous inside of its own architecture. Three different factions all fought for control for centuries, the mutually assured destruction becoming inevitable. The Architect desperately tried to gain control yet was killed in an all out battle among the henchmen, soldiers, and cultists that vied for power. Within a month the support systems collapsed, forcing the populace to seek refuge elsewhere or die.

There are few who remain within the crumbling concrete walls and rusting aluminum walkways, refusing to relocate either due to the belief that they will be saved by another or that they no longer wish to delay their arrival to a grave. Those that do leave are subject to long travel across the waters, subject to predatory fleets if they pay their way or risk their own lives by sailing themselves. The lucky few who manage to negotiate a place within one of the Spots' ships immigrate to Bluffs, the Drift, or stay aboard the Spots indefinitely. All know though, the Crest was doomed by simple greed.

The Crest was overseen by Kurakura, now one of seven permanently dead Architects.

The tectonic shifts due to meteoric impacts created the Bluffs, which is the largest habitable landmass and has the smallest population. A benevolent cult works in tandem with the Architects to be the largest provider of fresh and manufactured food, from produce and animal husbandry to snacks and sweet treats. The white cliffs resemble a beehive, a massive labyrinth under the surface that houses all the farmlands and machinery. On the surface are the housing, Aether socket fields, and shipping yards, with docks worked around the clock to ensure the rest of the planet is fed.

The city is widely known as the only society free of all evils, most crediting the instilled fear of the religious cult for being its own protection. Those that commit crimes, even to the most minor degree, are presented with the option of exile or death. Most choose the former. Some leave on their own volition for their own personal reasons, and by the cult's law they are considered treasonous deserters and are never allowed to return.

The Bluffs are overseen by Maya and Heracara, the other two of three last living Architects.

The only city not made by the Architects is the Spots, the collection of fleets constantly morphing in size as they join and split off from each other. The flotillas have their own miniature systems for water desalination and purifying, Aether power distribution for electrical, and more in their shared ecosystem. While each ship is more or less self-sufficient there are some that are specialized, such as medical and deep sea salvaging, depending on the family that lives aboard. Families that are either blood related or chosen, or a mix of both.

The Spots sail continuously across the globe, constantly seeking out the calmest waters, best fishing, and safest dive depths. Occasionally they visit the Drift and the Bluffs for trade, though they often bring partying more than anything else. With their constantly shifting locations, sizes, and priorities they are difficult to track by outsiders. On a handful of specific radio frequencies they communicate with each other using internally crafted lingo, which can vary from fleet to fleet.

With no Architect at all they are left to their own devices.

All systems that keep a populace alive are not to be tampered, threatened, hindered, truncated, harmed, destroyed, or interfered with in any matter. This includes but is not limited to water desalination and purifying, the electrical grid, city foundations and infrastructure, crop farming and distribution, and any other system that supports the populace.

Any of the above is punishable by the Law of Retaliation from the city's Architect, whether purposeful or accidental.

Any harm, no matter how minor, to the Aether Core will not be tolerated.

Crimes of such are punishable by death by the city's Architect.

WORLD