Hello and welcome to the Aethera Information Kiosk. As you are a resident of the Aethera system, I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain most of this to you but maybe you hit your head or something. Regardless, you came to me and I am legally required to answer your questions. I will have this job until I die and never get a raise, and I think you should feel bad about that. Let’s get this over with. What would you like to know?
1. The Progenitors
Exactly nothing is known for sure about the civilization which came before humanity. Signs indicate that ancient humans lived around the same time as the Progenitors to some extent, as they have populations on multiple worlds in the system. Aside from ancient, unusable (or occasionally usable but incredibly dangerous) technology found in ruins, there is no data detailing the Progenitors—not where they came from, what they looked like, where they went or why they left.
2. The Collapse
We know that before the Collapse the system was wildly different. Elemental energies appear to have been realigned between the planets, resulting in massive ecosystem changes. Worlds went through millennia worth of changes in a very short timespan. The Progenitors left, leaving behind technology which no longer functioned. People were abandoned to chance and survived by whatever means were available to them, sometimes resulting in drastic physical changes.
3. Aetherite
Aetherite is an important enough resource that’s it’s not much of a stretch to say it’s what keeps the planets spinning. Apparently it is flash-frozen magical ley lines which can be refined into a pretty amazing power source and widely accepted form of currency. It’s the reason we had flying vehicles almost immediately following the guy who invented the wheel being patted on the back for his discovery and then immediately forgotten from the annuls of history.
Aetherite also has many mystic uses, serving as fuel for magical enhancements and other powerful spellcraft. This stuff is also absurdly toxic, so don’t pick it up if you see some. Actually, if you are out in the world and come across some, go find a doctor. You might die or, worse, have your soul sucked out. I’m not kidding it’s horrible.
4. Aethertech
Originally hobbled together from long-lost Progenitor technology, aethertech keeps human society moving. Whether it be a radio or a spacefaring aethership, all of these devices run on the power of refined aetherite.
5. Gate Hub Network
The gate hubs enable near-instantaneous travel from one gate hub to another. They’re floating around all of the planets, which makes interplanetary travel a breeze if you like bureaucracy or smugglers. These things were left behind by the Progenitors before the Collapse and presumably more of them worked back then than they do now.
6. The Aethera System
The Aethera system is a binary star system with four planets and an asteroid belt. The stars are named Aethera and Ashra, and one is doing its best to consume the other. As best as we can tell, Aethera is also responsible for having crippled extradimensional movement in the ancient past.
- Akasaat: Once a world of endless oceans, this planet has all but dried up since the Collapse. Humanity has survived here through equal parts determination and religious oppression. Don’t tell the cantors I said that, I actually don’t hate this job as much as I pretend to.
- Kir-Sharaat: Forest world of the Erahthi, alien plant-folk with whom Akasaat waged a resource war for roughly one hundred years. They didn’t use aetherite as a power source until we came along with our war and ruined their planet up good, so I guess that’s irony.
- Orbis Aurea: Inhospitable ball of ice, monsters and aetherite accessible only by way of a space elevator controlled by the paragons (more on them later). Well, you can get there if you don’t use the elevator, but something in the atmosphere will cripple your ship and cause you to plummet and explode. Also, this is the home of the okanta, burly but incredibly savvy beastfolk. You probably won’t go here unless you are a prisoner bound for the aetherite mines or indentured military service.
- Amrita Asteroid Belt: Probably a planet at one point, this asteroid belt is home to people too free-spirited to hold down a soul-crushing desk job like mine. It’s not bad if you hate gravity and predictable food deliveries, but it’s awesome if you like being raided and kidnapped-for-eating by space monsters.
- Seraos: A gas giant of little description. Most of the action on this planet takes place on its dozen moons and plentiful space stations. Also, I’m pretty sure there’s something swimming just below the cloud layer.
7. People
Aethera has a respectably diverse assortment of species, some natives to their home planets, others the results of centuries of arcane interference and isolation after being abandoned by the Progenitors.
- Humans: People like you and me, probably the most populous species in the system.
- Erahthi: Denizens of Kir-Sharaat, these elemental plant people enjoy a unique connection to their world.
- Infused: Created during the century war for use in combat, their creation apparently involved torturous magical manipulation and a lot of aetherite.
- Okanta: Large, tribal, but incredibly adaptable to the harsh conditions of their homeworld Orbis Aurea.
- Phalanx: Progenitor tech which we hotwired with aetherite and accidentally made into sentient beings. Intended for service in the Century War, these beings have only just received individual rights.
- Others: Some lesser-known races are the paragons (the ultimate achievement of the torture-experiments which made the infused, though apparently there’s only a few of them left), zahajin (Kir-Sharaat’s underwater fey-tampered humans) and morlocks (Orbis Aurea’s mean cave-humans). There are also occurrences of people being born with a close association with the elemental plane tied to their planet of birth.
8. The Century War
While scrambling to replenish their dwindling aetherite supply to keep the lights on, the Akasaat Hierarchy accidentally started an interplanetary war. I mean, Kir-Sharaat started it, obviously, the Hierarchy can do no wrong believe you me. This war raged for nearly one hundred years before two very important things happened.
The first thing was that the Paragons, science experiments gone wrong who were shot at Orbis Aurea in hopes that they would explode and die, came back from Orbis Aurea with news of a near-limitless supply of aetherite. They monopolized it and bullied the Hierarchy into letting them control it, but aetherite’s aetherite and society is no longer in threat of collapse.
The second thing is that aliens showed up and stole a moon. I can not stress that part enough. The taur, cow-monsters from apparently nowhere, showed up, took a moon, and left with it. I’ll pause while you let that soak in. Good? Good. Also they left and we don’t know where they are based now. Apparently they like to attack Amrita colonies and steal all of their people, though, so at least we know that they are doing that.
After these two disparate events, the human and erahthi powers-that-be decided that they weren’t so different after all and should probably cooperate to prepare for an invasion by moon-thieving, bull-headed, cannibal murder-monsters from space.
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