So this is my original setting, still very much in infancy. I request inputs and advice on the aspects of the setting, and how to proceed.
The Twilight Age
Tales of Post-Apocalyptic Dieselpunk Mars
History
Several hundred years into the future, Humanity has managed to Terraform Mars, and it was hailed as the Greatest Endeavor in Human History. The revived planet was renamed Nerio, after the lover of Mars, and was seen as new homeworld for Mankind, a place of the new beginning without the mistakes of the past.
Then suddenly, everything came crashing down. A teleportation experiment, codenamed the Horizon, resulted in an unforeseen cataclysm. In a matter of a day, the Nerinese Humans lost practically everything that defined their life and world – advanced technology was stripped away from Humanity, and all attempts at reviving them failed. Contacts with the Earth and the rest of the Solar System was severed, and it remains so to the present day. This cataclysm would be called the Sorrow.
The truth of the Sorrow is far more strange. The experiment tore a hole in reality, releasing otherworldly beings known as 'Spirits', for lack of better words; incorporeal beings from another plane of existence. While these beings are not malevolent by nature, their existence was inimical to advanced technology that the Humans were dependent on, and the Spirits themselves didn't understand how vital technology is for the Humans. Unfortunately, no Humans back then were capable of perceiving or contacting the Spirits, and without their Human 'anchors', the Spirits are unable to offer any helps, thus neither the Humans nor the Spirits were unable to prevent the Sorrow.
Despite the chaos and riots that defined the immediate aftermath of the Sorrow, true warfare didn't break out until over several decades after the Sorrow, when the polities of Nerio finally recovered. But when it finally came, it was a brutal and devastating affair, with millions dying in the trench in the first mechanized warfare. In the midst of that horrible war, named the Great War afterward, a particularly virulent and deadly disease broke out, using the mass movement of men and materials to spread rapidly. None of the major nations were able to withstand the twin catastrophe of war and plague, and many broke down from the strain of war and plague, birthing many successor states and free cities in the process.
The Plague: Called "The Reaping" by general populace, it was a variant strain of Yersinia Pestis, and reaped a horrifying toll on the peoples of Nerio, decimating all sides of the conflict in almost equal measures, with 10% of global population succumbing, especially on the front where sanitary condition was abysmal and medical treatments were lacking. The mortality rates among the soldiers reached up to 60% in some areas, and this effectively ended the Great War with no clear winners – with so many of their soldiers dead from the plague, the warring nations were robbed of the forces and ability to project it.
The present day is an era of declining empires, feuding successor states, and struggling free cities. The rest of the planet is infested with bandits and warlords, who survives by plundering the badlands and preying on the civilized people. The rebuilding of trade routes opened a new road to prosperity for many polities, but also attracted attention from marauding bandits, who are becoming even more of a threat than usual. Meanwhile, many of the polities themselves face revolts and unrest from within, and crimes and corruptions are rampant.
This is the world in age of fragmentation, the Twilight Age.
Technology
The general technological level is comparable to that of the early 20th century, roughly around 1900s-10, but the circumstances that lead to the Sorrow prevent certain technologies, like computers, from advancing, while other technological fields, like medicines, benefit from the Humanity's accumulated knowledge.
The Algal Fuel: During the late stage of Terraforming, several strains of genetically modified algae were introduced on newly-formed northern and southern seas of Nerio. They were intended to boost atmospheric oxygen level, provide the nutrient base for the Humans and Nerio's burgeoning aquatic ecosystem, and to provide raw materials for chemical industries that were expected to prop up.
Those plans obviously went to the grave with the Sorrow, but the algae are still there and thriving. They are extensively harvested by coastal powers, to be processed (albeit inefficiently compared to the pre-Sorrow era) into various useful forms, such as food, fertilizer, plastics, and most importantly, fuel. On the fuel-starved world of Nerio, with no naturally occurring coal or oil deposits, they are a very important resource – woods are too precious to burn, and water and windmills can only do so much.
Firearms: The Nerinese civilization has rediscovered smokeless powder; some older guns and few modern weapons still use black powder. The firearms of the Nerinese civilization won't be out of place in the Earth's early 20th century, but self-loading rifles are more advanced than the comparable era, while fully automatic weapons are lagging behind.
Airships: Heavier-than-air flight technology is still at infancy, and the Nerinese civilization lacks rail and road network built over many centuries, so long-range transportation is dominated by hydrogen airships. Most of them are capable of landing on the reasonably flat ground without using specialized docking towers and masts, alloying the airships to transport people and cargo to remote locations without such infrastructures.
The Information Technology: If there is one field that is notably behind the others, it would be the information technology. The constant magical interference prevents the information technology from advancing beyond a certain point, and so far, no reliable way to bypass this has been found.
Unable to access the hyper-advanced pre-Sorrow computers, the Nerinese civilization was forced to develop basic mechanical calculators. Primitive and stagnant, it is unlikely that these 'computers' would ever match the capabilities of our modern computers, much less their pre-Sorrow counterparts, unless some breakthroughs in warding out magical interference are made. Also, long-range communications are highly unreliable and reliant on telegraph networks as radio technology is known but not used due to it's susceptibility to magical interference.
People
Discounting the non-corporeal Spirits, Humans are the only known sapient species on Nerio, regardless of some wild rumors. Human genetic engineering was widespread before The Sorrow and even modern Humans still carry many of upgrades and trickled-down legacies of that era, resulting in healthier and longer-lived population despite their technological limitations, as well as some other perks. Many animals have also been the subject of genetic modifications, both to adapt them to the environment of Nerio and to Uplift them. The latter, although failed to produce Human-like intelligence, still left the animals of Nerio with some interesting legacies and useful traits.
The World
Despite being turned into a 'second Earth', complete with thicker atmosphere, northern ocean and smaller bodies of water, and a greenery over once red landscape, the Nerinese ecosystem are still very distinct from that of Earth. Low gravity encourages gigantism among lifeforms, while the selective imports and gene-crafting during the Terraforming created an unusual ecosystem and biome not found on anywhere on Earth. For example, no dangerous predators were imported from Earth, save the feral dogs (although they can get quite big and cunning thanks to past genetic engineering), and gene-crafted traits are present on almost every lifeform on the planet.
The Twilight Age
There have been many achievements. New religions, ideologies, concepts, and conventions have risen up, questioning the old system of beliefs, challenging them, and even replacing them.
Magery is one of this development. The first Mages appeared after the generation that saw the Sorrow died out. At first, they were treated with some apprehension, as the awakening of Magery was often mistaken as an onset of madness, and few people believed in supernatural back then. But the Mages persisted, slowly developing their craft of contacting Spirits and drawing a power from them for over a century. Eventually, they were recognized as what they are after several generations, the memories and skepticism of the old world faded away, and now Magery is an important aspect in many Nerinese societies.
The Disciplines of Magery:
Mysticism, a discipline focused on communication with Spirit and obtaining the information. Viewing distance places, hearing distant words, calling upon knowledge all fall into mysticism. In a way, it is both easiest and hardest discipline to perform. Easy in the way that Mages, attuned to the spirit world, are flooded by information a normal human can't perceive almost constantly, and Spirits itself are almost always willing to communicate. Hard in a way that finding any useful information in the constant clutter and hum is a true challenge, and obtaining the direct answer is often costly, and there is always a danger of 'going too deep' as there is simply a limit to what a Mage's human brain can process.
Warding is focused around shielding the particular area, item or person from the magical influence, often temporarily, although a permanent shielding can be made with great effort and often at great cost, and even then it requires careful maintenance and periodic reconstitution. Markings usually have to be engraved around the object to mark the area of effect. This skill is in high demand and any Mage that is bound to receive the official education is pressed into learning this discipline, not everyone is able to master it.
Projection can produce light, force, electricity, set flammable materials of fire etc. is a common power Mage gain through the first contract with almost any random Spirit, often as a mean to harm the Mage's enemies, mostly in form of random raging uncorrected force, yet any meaningful application of the power is often a years and years of training away and true mastery doesn't come easy.
Enhancement is a subset of warding, and the newest discipline to be developed, only appearing just after the Great War. With it, Mage can enhance the function of the item, even imbuing it with a degree of automation, but said item need to be technically sound and working, and like warding, the effect is often temporary. Mages also found out that they could enhance the living being's natural healing process, assisting the first aid and long-term recovery.
All these make the Nerinese Civilization as walking on the thin edge between greatness and ruination. The 'present day', 80 Nerinese years after the Sorrow and 10 years after the Great War, is a time of great change, crisis, and dissolute decadence, but it is also a time of new possibilities and potential rebirth. Whether they would endure and blossom into the dawn of New Renaissance, or fall back into the long night of barbarism again, is not determined yet.
Major Inspirations
Emberverse series by S. M. Stirling.
These artworks.
Zor's Deviantart page.
References
The Darian calendar - Wikipedia article.
GURPS Mars
Mars Reborn
The Twilight Age
Tales of Post-Apocalyptic Dieselpunk Mars
History
Several hundred years into the future, Humanity has managed to Terraform Mars, and it was hailed as the Greatest Endeavor in Human History. The revived planet was renamed Nerio, after the lover of Mars, and was seen as new homeworld for Mankind, a place of the new beginning without the mistakes of the past.
Then suddenly, everything came crashing down. A teleportation experiment, codenamed the Horizon, resulted in an unforeseen cataclysm. In a matter of a day, the Nerinese Humans lost practically everything that defined their life and world – advanced technology was stripped away from Humanity, and all attempts at reviving them failed. Contacts with the Earth and the rest of the Solar System was severed, and it remains so to the present day. This cataclysm would be called the Sorrow.
The truth of the Sorrow is far more strange. The experiment tore a hole in reality, releasing otherworldly beings known as 'Spirits', for lack of better words; incorporeal beings from another plane of existence. While these beings are not malevolent by nature, their existence was inimical to advanced technology that the Humans were dependent on, and the Spirits themselves didn't understand how vital technology is for the Humans. Unfortunately, no Humans back then were capable of perceiving or contacting the Spirits, and without their Human 'anchors', the Spirits are unable to offer any helps, thus neither the Humans nor the Spirits were unable to prevent the Sorrow.
Despite the chaos and riots that defined the immediate aftermath of the Sorrow, true warfare didn't break out until over several decades after the Sorrow, when the polities of Nerio finally recovered. But when it finally came, it was a brutal and devastating affair, with millions dying in the trench in the first mechanized warfare. In the midst of that horrible war, named the Great War afterward, a particularly virulent and deadly disease broke out, using the mass movement of men and materials to spread rapidly. None of the major nations were able to withstand the twin catastrophe of war and plague, and many broke down from the strain of war and plague, birthing many successor states and free cities in the process.
The Plague: Called "The Reaping" by general populace, it was a variant strain of Yersinia Pestis, and reaped a horrifying toll on the peoples of Nerio, decimating all sides of the conflict in almost equal measures, with 10% of global population succumbing, especially on the front where sanitary condition was abysmal and medical treatments were lacking. The mortality rates among the soldiers reached up to 60% in some areas, and this effectively ended the Great War with no clear winners – with so many of their soldiers dead from the plague, the warring nations were robbed of the forces and ability to project it.
The present day is an era of declining empires, feuding successor states, and struggling free cities. The rest of the planet is infested with bandits and warlords, who survives by plundering the badlands and preying on the civilized people. The rebuilding of trade routes opened a new road to prosperity for many polities, but also attracted attention from marauding bandits, who are becoming even more of a threat than usual. Meanwhile, many of the polities themselves face revolts and unrest from within, and crimes and corruptions are rampant.
This is the world in age of fragmentation, the Twilight Age.
Technology
The general technological level is comparable to that of the early 20th century, roughly around 1900s-10, but the circumstances that lead to the Sorrow prevent certain technologies, like computers, from advancing, while other technological fields, like medicines, benefit from the Humanity's accumulated knowledge.
The Algal Fuel: During the late stage of Terraforming, several strains of genetically modified algae were introduced on newly-formed northern and southern seas of Nerio. They were intended to boost atmospheric oxygen level, provide the nutrient base for the Humans and Nerio's burgeoning aquatic ecosystem, and to provide raw materials for chemical industries that were expected to prop up.
Those plans obviously went to the grave with the Sorrow, but the algae are still there and thriving. They are extensively harvested by coastal powers, to be processed (albeit inefficiently compared to the pre-Sorrow era) into various useful forms, such as food, fertilizer, plastics, and most importantly, fuel. On the fuel-starved world of Nerio, with no naturally occurring coal or oil deposits, they are a very important resource – woods are too precious to burn, and water and windmills can only do so much.
Firearms: The Nerinese civilization has rediscovered smokeless powder; some older guns and few modern weapons still use black powder. The firearms of the Nerinese civilization won't be out of place in the Earth's early 20th century, but self-loading rifles are more advanced than the comparable era, while fully automatic weapons are lagging behind.
Airships: Heavier-than-air flight technology is still at infancy, and the Nerinese civilization lacks rail and road network built over many centuries, so long-range transportation is dominated by hydrogen airships. Most of them are capable of landing on the reasonably flat ground without using specialized docking towers and masts, alloying the airships to transport people and cargo to remote locations without such infrastructures.
The Information Technology: If there is one field that is notably behind the others, it would be the information technology. The constant magical interference prevents the information technology from advancing beyond a certain point, and so far, no reliable way to bypass this has been found.
Unable to access the hyper-advanced pre-Sorrow computers, the Nerinese civilization was forced to develop basic mechanical calculators. Primitive and stagnant, it is unlikely that these 'computers' would ever match the capabilities of our modern computers, much less their pre-Sorrow counterparts, unless some breakthroughs in warding out magical interference are made. Also, long-range communications are highly unreliable and reliant on telegraph networks as radio technology is known but not used due to it's susceptibility to magical interference.
People
Discounting the non-corporeal Spirits, Humans are the only known sapient species on Nerio, regardless of some wild rumors. Human genetic engineering was widespread before The Sorrow and even modern Humans still carry many of upgrades and trickled-down legacies of that era, resulting in healthier and longer-lived population despite their technological limitations, as well as some other perks. Many animals have also been the subject of genetic modifications, both to adapt them to the environment of Nerio and to Uplift them. The latter, although failed to produce Human-like intelligence, still left the animals of Nerio with some interesting legacies and useful traits.
The World
Despite being turned into a 'second Earth', complete with thicker atmosphere, northern ocean and smaller bodies of water, and a greenery over once red landscape, the Nerinese ecosystem are still very distinct from that of Earth. Low gravity encourages gigantism among lifeforms, while the selective imports and gene-crafting during the Terraforming created an unusual ecosystem and biome not found on anywhere on Earth. For example, no dangerous predators were imported from Earth, save the feral dogs (although they can get quite big and cunning thanks to past genetic engineering), and gene-crafted traits are present on almost every lifeform on the planet.
The Twilight Age
There have been many achievements. New religions, ideologies, concepts, and conventions have risen up, questioning the old system of beliefs, challenging them, and even replacing them.
Magery is one of this development. The first Mages appeared after the generation that saw the Sorrow died out. At first, they were treated with some apprehension, as the awakening of Magery was often mistaken as an onset of madness, and few people believed in supernatural back then. But the Mages persisted, slowly developing their craft of contacting Spirits and drawing a power from them for over a century. Eventually, they were recognized as what they are after several generations, the memories and skepticism of the old world faded away, and now Magery is an important aspect in many Nerinese societies.
The Disciplines of Magery:
Mysticism, a discipline focused on communication with Spirit and obtaining the information. Viewing distance places, hearing distant words, calling upon knowledge all fall into mysticism. In a way, it is both easiest and hardest discipline to perform. Easy in the way that Mages, attuned to the spirit world, are flooded by information a normal human can't perceive almost constantly, and Spirits itself are almost always willing to communicate. Hard in a way that finding any useful information in the constant clutter and hum is a true challenge, and obtaining the direct answer is often costly, and there is always a danger of 'going too deep' as there is simply a limit to what a Mage's human brain can process.
Warding is focused around shielding the particular area, item or person from the magical influence, often temporarily, although a permanent shielding can be made with great effort and often at great cost, and even then it requires careful maintenance and periodic reconstitution. Markings usually have to be engraved around the object to mark the area of effect. This skill is in high demand and any Mage that is bound to receive the official education is pressed into learning this discipline, not everyone is able to master it.
Projection can produce light, force, electricity, set flammable materials of fire etc. is a common power Mage gain through the first contract with almost any random Spirit, often as a mean to harm the Mage's enemies, mostly in form of random raging uncorrected force, yet any meaningful application of the power is often a years and years of training away and true mastery doesn't come easy.
Enhancement is a subset of warding, and the newest discipline to be developed, only appearing just after the Great War. With it, Mage can enhance the function of the item, even imbuing it with a degree of automation, but said item need to be technically sound and working, and like warding, the effect is often temporary. Mages also found out that they could enhance the living being's natural healing process, assisting the first aid and long-term recovery.
All these make the Nerinese Civilization as walking on the thin edge between greatness and ruination. The 'present day', 80 Nerinese years after the Sorrow and 10 years after the Great War, is a time of great change, crisis, and dissolute decadence, but it is also a time of new possibilities and potential rebirth. Whether they would endure and blossom into the dawn of New Renaissance, or fall back into the long night of barbarism again, is not determined yet.
Major Inspirations
Emberverse series by S. M. Stirling.
These artworks.
Zor's Deviantart page.
References
The Darian calendar - Wikipedia article.
GURPS Mars
Mars Reborn
Last edited: