Atom Age Awakening: Setting Notes

The World as it Exists

The Earth is currently in a temperate phase between ice ages. As early as 10,000 years ago human beings could be found everywhere on the planet, formulating a diversity of cultures, religions and later nations and states to represent themselves. Rapid industrialization and population growth is transforming the surface of the planet, clearing the last old growth forests, draining wetlands, embarking rivers and establishing great flood defences to allow the great coastal cities to expand to unseen heights.

The Solar System

Has 9 major planets, a large number of moons and dwarf planets of interest to scientists.

SUN
Inner System

• Belenos, a small scorched planet closest to the sun.
• Andarta, a violent planet swept by corrosive storms and poisonous atmosphere. Closest to Earth in terms of gravity and other conditions. No moons.
• Earth
• Cernunnos, a cold and desolate planet with a gasping thin atmosphere, with a single smallish moon known as the Carnyx due to its irregular shape.

Outer System, separated by an Asteroid belt

• Taranis, a hot gas giant with a massive belt and many captive moons known collectively as the Taranids or the Bitrujian moons after their discoverer al-Bitruj. The Taranids are the some of the largest rocky bodies in the solar system, with many rivalling outright the size of the Earth.
• Epona, a somewhat cooler gas giant with a massive, ornate ring network and several moons. The rings are sometimes called the Trimarcsia or "three Horses" due to their apparent interval creating three distinctive zones, while the moons are called the Eponids or Equites.
• Sulis, the coolest of the system gas giants. Its atmosphere is apparently full of life-bearing compounds, though 'surface' temperatures are well bellow freezing.
• Nehalania and Nodens are the outermost planets of the system, both icy rocks only slightly smaller than the Earth's own Moon. Their orbits are erratic and show signs of several near misses over the eons, though none have been observed over the course of modern astronomy.

History

Prehistory

Humanity emerged in Afriqa during an ice age and spread laterally across land bridges to South Asios, Zeelandia and the westernmost tip of Central Cascadia. In a hothouse period, climate pressures forced people to flee to the polar extremes in search of better forage. The earliest attested agriculture was in the valleys of the eastern river deltas in Asios 10,000 years ago, though prior to that hybrid forage/agriculture of wild plants and semi-managed populations of herbivores by hunters existed potentially tens of thousands of years prior. Thulia is known to be the last continent to be settled, at the earliest 2200 years ago by exiles from Asios and Elysia.

Early History

Early history was dominated by city-states in a pre-modern context that blended civic pride, cultural identity, folk religion and position within an aristocratic-military-mercantile chain of command. The Nubian Empire, Ubellur Empire and Mahagouri Empires are some of the earliest attested by historical records and artifacts, but suffered collapse due to factors which are poorly understood, leaving behind dramatic artifacts. Significantly less sophisticated, but shockingly grandiose are the works of the tribal Celids who spread across Elysia and into well into Asios' interior, leaving famed stone circles and other megalithic constructions of seemingly impossible size.

The Celids seemingly insulated various fledgling states from one another, obstructing the formation of large tributary states other than those relating to the Celids themselves. In time these tribes settled into kingdoms, taking on the qualities of the people and territory they conquered and giving rise to many antecedents to early cultures that would survive into the modern era.

Middle History

Another ice age cuts off Thulea again, but creates land bridges between the Central Continents, Zealandia and Cascadia. The Byzan Empire stages several Crusades into Cascadia which produced admixed Elysian-Cascadian descendant cultures, under combined premise of securing Cascadian farmland around the equators, expending the excess population of Elysia and acquiring new honors for a laggard and indebted aristocratic class. The end result sees few permanent gains for Byzan and the slow, inevitable decline of the Empire. A new admixed Elysian-Cascadian culture along the eastern coast is the only significant result, and has all but but prevented further colonial projects until the age of gunpowder. Asios' various kingdoms rush for Zeelandia and similarly admix with local kingdoms.

Early Modern History

The ice age subsides. Thulea is reconnected with the world after long centuries of relative isolation. Elysia and Asios turn their attentions to it, but the rising powers compete fiercely over the valuable resources of the north: furs, old growth forest, whales and gold. The next few centuries see consolidation of ancient kingdoms into modern states, revolutions and an emerging dynamic of Elysia and Asios as major colonial powers attempting to exert control over the rest of the planet in extended competition. Colonial empires rise and dissolve, leaving revolutionary indigenous states in Thulea, Afriqa and Cascadia.

The World Wars

At the start of World War 1, the planet had been divided into the holdings of seven great powers:

• Einkorn Confederation
• Boreo-Thulean Empire
• Third Republic of Ranska
• Faka-Magnanisia
• Player Determinant #1:
• Player Determinant #2:
• Player Determinant #3:

World War 1

Fought with gas, trenches and shitty guns. It ends badly enough that a sequel is necessary to fix the plot.

World War 2

Ends with nukes.