You can find the TIMELINE here!

Below you will find a brief description of the world we have created.

This information barely scratches the surface of the overall world, but it
does give you a sense of that world.  We hope this information will give
you insight into what the Rise of Aester world is all about.  For more
detailed information, have a look at the timeline.  The Timeline will give
you a year by year description of the events that have brought us to the
current year of PAe80.  It will also give you some ideas of the forces that
have acted to bring about current the world.



OUR WORLD

THE BEGINNING

It all began in 1862, over 80 years ago, when sudden and catastrophic

changes began to alter the Earth. Sea levels rose to unprecedented heights

and a shift in the Earth’s magnetosphere caused compasses to spin uselessly

bringing shipping to a virtual standstill.

Over the next twenty years, the map of the world itself had to be redrawn

as flooding engulfed entire countries and the mass migration of populations

and governments changed the political makeup of the globe.

Of all these changes, the Rise of the Æster is the one event that altered the

history of our world the most dramatically. An oppressive layer of darkness

hung over the world like a shroud. Its inexorable, decades-long march

from the poles toward the equator carried with it a plethora of dangers from

exposure.

Millions died during these years. Some estimates say that as much as half

of all humanity succumbed to the rising tides, famine, disease, and darkness,

as well as the terrible wars that were fought for scarce arable lands that

still received the sun and held whatever resources remained.

Once the Æster stabilized, humanity fought back, and from near obliteration

they forged into the darkness to reclaim what was theirs. A movement

began called the City of Light, where safe havens of industry and commerce

were created. This is the world of Rise of Æster, a world where mankind

is ascending after near eradication. Steam, iron, and technology, uncompromised

acts of will and bravery, and the power of human ingenuity have

brought us back from the brink into a world of unparalleled possibility.


THE ÆSTER

Our world is defined by the Æster itself. It is the substance that

makes our story both possible and challenging. It allows heavier

than air ships to fly, platforms to remain aloft, and has given rise to the

current political map of the world.

The Æster is most dense at the poles, growing steadily thinner as it

approaches the equator. No sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface whatsoever

from 40 degrees pole ward, North and South latitudes. From 40

degrees to the Tropics some sunlight makes it through, but this area is

considered to exist in perpetual twilight.

The equatorial band between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic

of Cancer has no Æster cover at all to speak of and it is here that crops

unable to be grown in the Cities of Light’s greenhouses are produced.

A variety of things come about as a result of the lack of Æster at the

equator. Heavier than air vessels and platforms can only operate where

the Æster is dense enough to keep them aloft so along the sunny equator

no true Æster ships exist, nor are there any floating platforms.


ÆSTER MADNESS

The most common effect of exposure to the Æster without protection is

what is called Æster Madness. Its cause is poorly understood but its

effect is generally always the same; violent psychosis that can come on in a

matter of minutes after exposure. The Æster Mad become savage and will

attack nearly anything or anyone around them, including each another. The

Æster Mad are both feared and pitied. Their behavior, vicious and brutal as

it may be, is no choice of their own. It is the “Vapors,” the physical manifestation

of the Æster as a cloudy, vaporous gas, that causes them to turn on

strangers, friends, and even family members.

Many ships in the Æster have a policy that those who become Æster Mad

are simply put down; they are too dangerous to try and manage. Only certain

crews and units of the military specifically take on the risks and expense

to try and recover those who have gone Æster Mad. Even then, the

cost and danger in dealing with the Æster Mad can be extreme. Those who

can be subdued have a difficult road to recovery, if it comes at all. The most

common treatment is months in a Sanitarium under heavy sedation to see

if they will come out of the madness through time and the body and mind’s

own resources. At a certain point, if these unfortunates do not recover,

they are moved to what is colloquially known as a “Howling House.” Here,

they are kept entirely sedated and restrained and only occasionally brought

to consciousness to look for signs of recovery. Since they can only be tube

fed or fed intravenously, the prognosis for many of these unfortunates is

grim. They generally wither and die over time.

The only other option is what is known as “The Procedure;” essentially a

lobotomy where the frontal lobe is severed through the use of a long sharpened

probe pushed through the back of the eye socket. This process renders

the recipient passive and is the only known way to permanently stop the

profoundly Æster Mad’s violence. This process is used only as a last resort.


CITIES OF LIGHT

To deal with the constant darkness, Cities of Light were constructed;

enormous habitats and industrial and manufacturing powerhouses that

are Steampunk Arcologies. Immense farms and greenhouses surround the

Cities of Light to provide the staple crops that keep the residents alive.

These are lit by banks of thousands of fluorescent grow lights, but there

are some things that just can’t effectively be grown in these artificially lit

farms, such as citrus fruit. This means that part of the survival of the Cities

of Light is dependent on trade with the equator. The Cities of Light are connected

by high speed rail that allow goods and personnel to be quickly and efficiently

transported between these cities and other locations. The Night Train lines

were built on piers above the floodedformer glories of places like New York City.



Every City of Light also has an Aeroplex. This is a towering spire that provides

a docking tower for a myriad of non-Æster airships and is an anchor

point for the massive cables that run from the ground up to the platforms

in the Æster. Large floating platforms in the Æster were built to service the

ships that roamed there. These platforms were supplied by cable elevators

called Skyhooks that connected them to the Aeroplexes at the center of the

Cities of Light. These cables also allow cable-crawling elevators to transit

up and down carrying cargo, passengers, and even allowing the Æster ships

to move into and out of the Æster.


ÆSTER DISINTEGRATION

While this occurrence is unusual, it happens with sufficient regularity

to be truly terrifying to anyone working in or transiting the Æster.

Put simply, the corrosive effects of the Æster act so violently on some people

that they can be literally rendered to dust in minutes. Æster will often

leave burns like chemical burns, but this extreme manifestation literally

destroys the tissue so rapidly that there is nothing that can be done to stop

it. It can happen at the first exposure to Æster or after many years of minor

exposures. Æster Disintegration and Æster Madness are the two things that

anyone who works in or with the Æster fears the most.


THE DRAW

This phenomenon is what allows platforms and Æster ships to remain aloft. Once

a certain density of Æster is reached, the object will float or be drawn upward.

Metal is most affected by the phenomenon, but at a certain point all material will

be drawn, including flesh. This is a benefit and a curse. Allowing a heavier than

air warship to operate in the Æster is clearly a benefit, but the Draw never stops.

As you go higher, or deeper into the Æster, the Draw increases. At a certain point

the draw will overcome the ability of a ship’s engines to fight it and that vessel will

be drawn uncontrolled up into it. A vessel drawn into the Æster will be destroyed.

That much is known but little else is known because there have never been direct

observations of this for obvious reasons. The thing that is most disturbing is that

nothing ever comes back once drawn into the Æster. No bodies, no wreckage,

nothing. Whatever is drawn to its doom is consumed by the Æster wholly. Some

wonder at what might happen to the souls of those who are drawn to their deaths

in the Æster. Is it trapped their forever? This phenomenon like so many others having

to do with the Æster is a mystery that has yet to be explained in any meaningful

fashion. It is understood enough to make use of, but that is all.




THE BRITISH EMPIRE

In the Rise of Æster the British Empire stands as one of the colossi of

empires, spanning the entire globe with its holdings. The capital now lies

in Darwin, Australia, along the equator where the sun still shines. The first

five years of the Era of the Rise, saw the destruction of both the Union and

the Confederacy in America. Caught in the teeth of the Civil War when the

Rise began in 1862, neither government was in any way prepared to deal

with the changes that were wrought by the rising waters and coming darkness.

As a result, almost all of North America now is considered British

America. As the leadership of America came to recognize what was happening,

they soon realized that they, like so many other nations, would soon

fall victim to the Æster if they tried to stand alone. So, the bulk of America

rejoined the British Empire. There are only two exceptions to this. The first

is the Former Confederacy which occupies the lands east of the Great Mississippi

Bay and south of the Tennessee and South Carolina Border. They

chose to go their own way and have organized into a series of city states

but law and order doesn’t exist beyond the distance of a canon shot from

their walls. The other is the Republic of California, which now extends as

far north as the Canadian border and as far south as Mazatlan in western

Mexico, and is the last remnant of the former Union.