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The Twilight Age - Tale of Post-Apocalyptic Mars

The Introduction
  • Terra Novan

    Well-known member
    Author
    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
     
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    The Mind Magic
  • Leave the fate of the rest of the worlds as a mystery so you can have characters suffer disappointment in a twist reveal.
    Well, I considered but decided against it. Earth is explicitly toast, ravaged by rampant magical spirits possessing the automated war machines of Humanity.

    Magic sounds cool. Maybe magic/psychic powers is the result of peak human acheivment pre-sorrow. Humanity learned to bend the cosmos to their will, and it seemed ascension was near. Aaand Sorrow. But magic/psychic powers were incorprated into the gene pool, and it resurfaced later.
    That's a good ideas. I'll somehow incorporate it into my current fluff regarding the emergence of magic:

    The Mind Magic:

    To hone your magical power is to immerse your mind into a world of Spirits, whose power allows the casters to realize the magical effect. To draw greater magical power, they must go deeper, with their mind and personality being locked into the certain patterns that create a brighter 'imprints' that draws Spirits to them like a beacon. Eventually, the magic becomes part of the Mage as if it always was, but they are forever changed by the experience.

    To use magic, the Mages must meditate, which allows them to enter trance or semi-trance state. All magical works are carried out in subconsciousness, with some casters living almost entirety of their life daydreaming and sleep-walking.

    P.S: Also, you people are already far more helpful than SV, where only one person ever showed interest in this. Many thanks.
     
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    Quick Facts: Technology
  • You can also make it the way that civilization is just fine, just Mars has been quarantined and they are led to believe they are only ones left, for a maximum twist. If there is story, it is probably not meant to reach off world anyway, so you can leave it the air so to speak
    Interesting. But I have made up my mind. Earth isn't going to be that important in my setting anyway. If she ever appears, I want to flip the Burroughs-Bradbury depiction of Earth and Mars and make Earth the old place full of ruins and declining, decadent Earthling.

    Here are some technical quick facts:

    Quick Facts: Technology

    General Technology
    - The general technological level is roughly comparable to that of the first decade of the 20th century, although there are several outliers.
    - Due to their reliance on ubiquitous computing and heavy integration of electronics, remaining pre-Sorrow technological items are entirely non-functional, nothing more than cultural artifacts and family heirlooms.

    Weapons and Armor
    - The Nerinese civilization has rediscovered smokeless powder, although some older guns and few modern weapons still use black powder.
    - Guns range from single-shot breechloading rifles (popular with civilian hunters and 2nd-line troops) to repeating rifles (main arms of regular troops) and self-loading rifles (the pinnacle of the Nerinese gunmaking). Fully automatic guns are rare, mostly experimental or not man-portable.
    - Machine guns are large, almost cannon-like contraptions with liquid cooling system and often carried on the same carriage as cannons.
    - Armored vehicles exist, ranging from lightweight scouting vehicles to fairly respectably armed and armored fighting vehicles. The threats of armored vehicles led to the development of man-portable countermeasures – loud, clumsy, and not very safe instruments, but useful in their roles.
    - Body armors, beyond some parade or ceremonial garbs, are not widespread in the Nerinese military; as shown repeatedly in history, armor is struggling to catch up advancing weapon technology. Still, they are seeing some uses outside of the regular military.
    - Melee weapons remain very low-key, often only used as part of dress uniforms.

    Information technology
    - Long-range communications are highly unreliable and reliant on telegraph networks. Radio technology is known but not used due to it's susceptibility to constant magical interference.
    - Military forces use couriers and heliographs for short-range communications.
    - 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.

    Power
    - Algal biodiesel is the primary fuel of the Nerinese civilization. As most of the fuel comes from the northern ocean of Nerio, industrialization on southern hemisphere is hampered compared to the north.
    - The algae used in fuel production are just one of the strains introduced before the Sorrow. There are other strains optimized for industrial uses and food production.
    - Wind and watermills are primary means for energy collection outside of algal fuel. Many ships have sails that also works as a windmill.

    Transportation
    - Heavier-than-air flight technology is still at infancy, so air transports are dominated by hydrogen airships. Many are capable of landing without a specialized docking tower, making them useful in carrying cargoes and passengers to remote locations.
    - Lacking centuries of build-ups and investments, rails and roads outside of cities are short, linking important resources and industrial centers but not much more than that.
    - The seas of Nerio freezes over during the winter, necessitating the use of big, tough icebreakers for sea travel. Most ships have prow rams to counter floating ices.
     
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    The Planet: Three Faces of Nerio
  • The Three Faces of Nerio:

    - Red Nerio, or Marsland and Nerio Rubra, is the biome most similar to the pre-Terraforming. Now found only on the Tharsis Highlands where low atmospheric pressure and high radiations make it impossible for post-Terraforming lifeforms to survive. It is populated by 'first wave' Terraforming organisms, nothing more advanced than algae and lichens.
    - Purple Nerio is the seas of Nerio. The thriving algae give the water wine-dark colorings, hence the name. It is populated, most notably, by industrial algae, planktons, non-migratory fish colonies, kelps, and pinnipeds.
    - Green Nerio is the rest of the world. Although not all of them are green or bountiful, it is where Humans and modified Terran lifeforms can live without technological aids.

    A map for reference (actually an elevation map, but also work well as Terraformed Mars map):
    the_planet_mars___elevation_map_by_atlas_v7x-dbs7oud.jpg
    What are the rules about possession by spirit? Can't spirit posses the radio?
    Yeah, I think I wrote myself into a corner. I thought that was a clever idea, but I didn't think about actual details and rules. I am thinking about making mages able to control/suppress the spirit possessing the electronics, thus establishing the way to bypass that and the reason why the mages are important.

    Also, that bit about mages draining electricity was definitely a mistake because that would force the Nerinese to remain at pre-industrial. I'll drop it.

    Vehicles would require a precise manufacturing, and with in, at least early industrialization levels of technology and infrastructure, by bare minimum. Especially propulsion for airships, steam engines are too heavy for it, you need diesel engine at very least, which also require industrialization. You don't get there by building things in cottage
    Yes, you are right. From what I can see, industrialization would start, and mostly concentrate on the northern coastlines and Hellas basin because of the regular availability of algal fuel.

    And unless magic present involved matter manipulation on insane level, you can't skip technological requirements by magitek.
    Magitek is a baby step at the moment, so no handwavium. Although matter manipulation is an interesting idea.
     
    The Horizon DIsaster
  • The Horizon Disaster

    The Horizon Project was supposed to revolutionize the interplanetary travel, and possibly even open up the way to colonize beyond our Solar System. By allowing Humans to instantly travel between the planets, it would have allowed them to dramatically reduce the cost of the expansion, and overcome the tyranny of distance.

    Of course, it instead led to the worst disaster in the Human history, crashed the Nerinese civilization overnight in the Sorrow, and severed them from the rest of Humanity.

    What exactly went wrong is lost to the time and the Sorrow, but everyone knows that the disaster started at the Pandora Lab facility on Pavonis Mons. They know this because the large 300km wide spatial anomaly that covers the entire shield volcano, visible from the great distance. Most commonly called the Spirit Gate after the extradimensional entities that arrived alongside the anomaly, it is also known as the Pandora Rift or Horizon Disaster Ground Zero. The Gate is surrounded by the deadly levels of radiation combined with nearly perpetual dust and electric storms ravaging the area, making the already desolate Tharsis Highlands even more inhospitable and lethal.

    It is a commonly accepted theory that the Spirit Gate is a rift to the Spirits' home dimension, hence the name. But unbeknownst for everyone, including the Spirits, the truth is far more strange.

    The Horizon Disaster did NOT open a rift to the Spirit World, instead, it displaced the entire planet of Nerio into an alternate dimension that is close to the Spirit's home dimension, thus making it possible for the Spirits to project their consciousness and energy unto the Nerio, allowing their presence to interfere with physics and make Magery possible.

    That's the reason why no one from the rest of Humanity tried to reestablish contact with the Nerinese Humans - because there are no Humans outside Nerio in this universe, and why the electronics fail to work in this new world - because physics are altered by the Spirits' presence, although tech developments are slowly acclimatizing to this.

    As for where the rift leads to, no one knows for now.
     
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    The Spirits
  • The Spirits are perhaps the most bizarre lifeforms encountered by Humanity. They are incorporeal and invisible beings, capable of being perceived only by those with Magery talents in their blood. Perhaps they do have physical bodies in their home dimension but have long since learned how to free their consciousness and project them to a distant place, like Nerio. The Mages have described the Spirits as resembling "...twilling lights, with long, graceful tendrils."

    The presence of the Spirits shaped the history of Nerio and its inhabitants. Their first incursion caused the Sorrow, and that stigma is still there albeit being faded by the passing of times and inability of Humans to affect Spirits in any meaningful way. Unfortunately, that stigma sometimes manifests as misguided distrust of Mages who could interact with Spirits and can be affected by other Humans.

    Their later contribution, the introduction of Magery, is much more appreciated. Considering that Magery includes the process of Warding that could hamper the activities of Spirits, their motive to grant Humans the Magery is much speculated. Some believe that Spirits simply saw it as a necessary sacrifice to sate their cravings for interaction with Humans, others see it as their gesture at reconciliation and few, mostly Mages, speculate with a hope that it is a sign of Spirits learning a measure of responsibility.

    Spirits naturally crave interaction with intelligent creatures and will, instinctively, try to interact with anything that even remotely resembles intelligence, which to Spirit's senses includes advanced electronics. This usually results in the destruction of an electronic device and was a primary cause of the Sorrow, and the reason for a current state of the world. What really causes electronic to burst out almost spontaneously, while humans, animals and generally delicate biological neural system to be unaffected, is not known. Spirits themselves do not understand this phenomenon, beyond the fact it does.

    Electronics can be prevented from being tampered on by a Spirit by the process of Warding. Warding prevents Spirits from entering a designated area, however, this is enforced by one of the Spirits the Mages made a contract with. However, no advanced electronic survived the Sorrow, and ability to actually make those have been lost to people of Nerio, hence it is not possible to verify whether advanced electronics work when warded.

    Spirits also interact with radio waves, causing massive interference, making simple radio unpractical for communication.

    Crude devices containing some electrical mechanism are usually beneath Spirit's interest and are safe to operate, and theoretically can be operated without any warding. Purely mechanical devices, or chemical processes. etc. aren't tampered with.

    Contrary to popular belief that Spirits only work through mage, they can also interact with almost anything in the physical plane, even with items that normally don't interest them. This allows them to enhance the functionality of a device, as long as that device is mechanically sound, like an engine. Limits associated with that are usually two-fold: First is Spirit's motivation in doing so, as they always prefer to seek the attention of living being that can perceive them. Second is lack of actual knowledge, mechanic or physical laws they try to imitate, Spirit doesn't understand the mechanics of the engine, so, in order to alter its function, they have to be guided by educated mage, which forces mages that want to deal with technology to be also educated in engineering, along with being very balanced mentally, as it involves guiding the Spirit carefully through the process.

    This process has been occasionally abused to create a magically-powered device. A spirit seems to be able to generate force or electrical current seemingly out of nowhere, and despite the fact it usually doesn't understand a limit or measurement of such force or current, it can be abused to theoretically create an infinite energy. This, however, has limits. There is no way to permanently imprison a Spirit without the assistance of another, hence Spirit powering the device must be willing and do so on its free will. Spirit can also be bored, and simply leave the device, which requires a mage to interact with Spirits, either through the duration of the process, or at least regularly if Spirit is especially patient.

    The constant interactions with Spirits can be very taxing to Mages. The Spirits are naturally inclined to gravitate toward a Mage in search for interactions, something that all Mages must deal with in their every waking moment throughout their life after their 'Awakening' into their talents.

    The newly-awakened young Mage is often incapacitated as their senses are suddenly overloaded by the maelstrom of audio and visual sensations, as every Spirits around him or her rush them to interact with them, to the point where it can be mistaken for a serious case of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses (and before the Magery was widely recognized as what it truly is, often treated as such). Even after they adapt to their newly awakened sixth sense and learn how to tune out and ignore much of sensations, it is still a very tiring life as Spirits does not have the Human limitation of stamina and exhaustion, and would never cease trying to interact with Mage if given a chance.

    Not surprisingly, Mages often suffer from migraines and seen by non-Mages as absent-minded and attention-deficient as they are forced to deal with Spirits and material world at the same time. Making a contract with a particular Spirit, or Spirits could serve as a mitigator and is a very basic part of Magery. Spirits take their contract very seriously and willing to dissuade other Spirits from annoying their contractor. Of course, that doesn't prevent Mage's contract Spirits from pestering Mage themselves. Sometimes Mage resorts to warding their personal space to escape from Spirits for a brief moment, despite it leaving them unable to access Magery.
     
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