View source for AEHU/Plot/12,001BG Background

<b>3,000,000 BG</b><br>
The date at which humanity first contacts the Frozen Flame. Recorded history begins several hundred thousand years later. Great wars erupt over control of the Frozen Flame.

<b>17,000BG</b><br>
The last of the great wars between peoples endowed with Elemental ability ends with the Creojeanne clan's victory over a formidable dark-skinned equatorial people. The Frozen Flame slips out of the Creojeanne family's hands during this conflict, its crimson aura lost to all but legend.

Jaya's original takes part in the events leading to the Frozen Flame's disappearance.

As an Ice Age sets in, the Creojeanne clan gathers all Elemental-endowed peoples under its leadership and together they erect the Sky Islands.

<b>12,026BG</b><br>
Derben Quintas and Demeria Simaelsus meet while attending Zeal's premier military training academy. Through Demeria, Derben meets Alphard, her laid-back younger brother. 

The Quintas family being known for its extreme liberalism, Derben introduces the Simaelsus siblings to the ideology of the fledgling Earthbound Empowerment movement. Alphard and Demeria are extremely receptive and their friendship with Derben deepens.

<b>12,025BG</b><br>
Derben and Demeria enter into an intense romance.

Alphard is introduced to Samele Creojeanne. Among her various suitors, Alphard appears favored due to their shared love of art and poetry.

Derben suggests transforming his private, dreamy chats with Alphard and Demeria about Earthbound liberation into bold action -- a student protest calling for an immediate end to Earthbound servitude. Demeria convinces Alphard out of it to salvage his chances with Samele, and Demeria also refuses in order to save her own reputation so that she may be Seneschal if her brother marries into the Creojeanne family. Demeria tries to talk Derben out of it too, but he accuses her of sacrificing her conscience for the sake of propriety.

Derben stands outside Enhasa shouting Earthbound Liberation slogans never before uttered publically and he is briefly arrested. The Quintas family suffers public humiliation. Derben and Demeria end their relationship out of mutual frustration with one another, though both remain perpetually single.

<b>12,022BG</b><br>
Alphard and Samele wed. Schala is born late in the year.

Demeria becomes Seneschal to the Royal Family.

<b>12,013BG</b><br>
Queen Zeal gives birth to Janus.

Tiring of being simply the queen's consort, Alphard uses his position to advocate Earthbound empowerment and expansion of Shadow elemental ability outside royal class families. He inspires ridicule among the Creojeannes but finds moral support from other corners, including the Quintas family. Nevertheless, he fails to acquire Queen Zeal's full support due to internal Creojeanne politics and his efforts are stonewalled.

<b>12,010BG</b><br>
Despite the sun's growing luminosity and the imminent end of the Ice Age, the Sun Stone begins to prove insufficient as a source of energy for the Zealian sky islands. As a result, Earthbound are assigned extra work as energy producers, mining dreamstone for aethyrelectric battery devices and manually working with piezioelectric and pyroelectric materials. A complex system beams energy produced in Algetty to the sky islands to supplement the Sun Stone.

Dr. Norstein Bekkler, near lifelong biologist, isolates the Creation Fibre, which is believed responsible for biological protein production - in short, it is the origin of all life. He hires on Assistant Valna and other scientists as he expands his genetic research.

<b>12,006BG</b><br>
Bekkler completes his symposium on the origin of the Shikari people, having confirmed that they are nearly identical to the Englightened living on the main sky islands but perhaps evolved slightly differently near the planet's equator, where the sun shone stronger in ages past. He turns his attention to the Earthbound and the Creojeanne family heavily monitors him.

Schala begins accompanying her father on Earthbound welfare missions. She gains the confidence of Earthbound children and quickly picks up the basics of their language.

<b>12,005BG</b><br>
Derben enters Alphard's service as a palace guard. Over time he becomes a trusted confidante and is welcomed into the royal family's inner circle, much to the Creojeanne family's chagrin. When the Creojeanne family withdraws funding from Bekkler's Earthbound research, Derben's family patronizes the doctor.

<b>12,004BG</b><br>
Dr. Bekkler completes his genetic profiling of the Earthbound race and finds that they are just as genetically similar to the Enlightened as the Elemental-capable Shikari. Seith Dragus Creojeanne leads a vehement political assault on his findings, going so far as to accuse Bekkler of treason and suing for removal of Bekkler's doctoral title. Alphard manages to postpone the hearing before the Royal Consulate until such point in time that Queen Zeal is unable to attend, thereby allowing her to save face while gaining full control over the decision. Bekkler's findings remain within Zeal's scientific community for further scrutiny, and Alphard welcomes the aging Bekkler to the palace to celebrate a small triumph of reason over traditional bigotry.

Alphard secures Bekkler's appointment as Guru of Life, igniting further firestorm among his Creojeanne inlaws.

<b>12,004BG ~ 12,001BG</b><br>
Guru Bekkler tries to uncover the extent of the relation between Earthbound and Enlightened, testing his hypothesis that they are genetic equals by going so far as to attempt "conversion" of Earthbound into Enlightened, but his attempt to flip whatever tiny genetic switch determines Elemental capability produces only warped creatures. The Creojeanne family and their political cohorts succeed in maintaining a general attitude that Earthbound are naturally inferior to the Enlightened, though conceding that Enlightened probably evolved from Earthbound.

The plight of the Earthbound grows in proportion to Zeal's exploding energy needs. Zealian energy scientists observe that at the prevailing Earthbound birth rate, even the entirety of Algetty will be unable to produce enough energy to keep the sky islands afloat within the next decade. Frequent security sweeps uncover stowed weapons among Earthbound communities from time to time, raising tensions.

Underwater expeditions for new energy resources uncover an Object of peculiar qualities. Its energy yield potential is determined immeasurable and the scientific community focuses on study of the Object.

[[AEHU/Plot]]