Timeline

This is a comprehensive history of the continent of Aurora from its beginning occupation by nomads and onwards to the modern civilizations of today. This goes through how Aurora was settled, how the peoples here evolved differently from their outside homosapien counterparts, the first civilizations and empires, and how the political and cultural structure changed into what it is today.

Index:

• Prehistoric Aurora (~800,000 B.C. - ~25,000 B.C.)
• Ancient Aurora (~25,000 B.C. - 9,000 B.C.)
• Pre-imperial Age (9,000 B.C. - 5,000 B.C)
• Imperial Age (5,000 B.C. - 300 A.D.)
• Post-imperial Age (300 A.D. - 700 A.D.)
• Here (700 A.D. - 1480 A.D.)
• Industrial Age (1480 A.D. - 1600 A.D.)
• Modern Age (1600 A.D. - 1750 A.D.)
• Post-Modern Age (1750 A.D. - 1830 A.D.)
-> mostly of social and economic reorganization. less techlological advance (ai, jobs, etc.)
• Cyber Age (1830 A.D. - 1980 A.D.)
• Neo-cyber Age (1980 A.D. - Present)

*Note: Dates have been converted to A.D./B.C. for the readability of outside users.

Prehistoric Aurora (~800,000 B.C. - ~45,000 B.C.)

Arrival on the Continent

Over 800,000 years ago, a semi-land/ice bridge existed between South America and Antarctica. It was around this time that groups of organisms crossed from the lands of South America into the land of the South Pole. While thick layers of ice and snow laid around the rim of the continent, the new inhabitants discovered a warm and green center within this cold basin. The reason that this was possible was because of the effect of mantle convection. In the center of Antarctica, there is part of the lithosphere that is thinner than other places on the earth, allowing convection from the mantle to radiate heat from the ground into the air. This warmer air would thus keep prevent the area from icing over and, in combination with Antarctica's lighter ozone layer, allowed vegetation and animal habitation to be on similar levels to the rest of the Earth. Thus uniquely the species of animals and plants adapted and evolved in isolation from most of the world, as well as new forms of intelligent life due to the unique environment of Aurora. Additionally, around 400,000 B.C. a group of pre-homo-sapiens that had recently arrived in South America would also venture over this bridge into Antarctica, inhabiting the land for several generations.

As the land-ice bridge would melt and be submerged, and and cold sea exploration wouldn't occur for thousands of years, the "human" and quadruped populations of the continent would evolve and go through their own age of civilization almost completely independently.

The First Intelligent Life

Contrary to what was originally hypothesized, there had existed life in the form similar to "homo-sapiens" living in South America before it was theorized that humans lived in the Americas. However, these forms of intelligent life were not homo-sapiens. They are classified as Homo-Exoticus, and had very similar features to humans. The greatest separator between homo-sapien and homo-exoticus was their somwhat differing genetic structure and their predisposition to faster genetic mutations and evolution. It was found in paleontological discoveries that in several generations, some descednants would even evolve at speeds many folds faster than the average homo-sapien would in the same time frame. While their physical features developed almost identically to their homo-sapien cousins (with some exceptions), they had increased intellect and perception while also maintaining many of their more animal-like senses (like good eye-sight and hearing, etc.) to some degree.

While genetically Homo-Exoticus evolved faster than homo-sapiens, it was further enhanced by the environment from Aurora itself. What was unique about this environment was how all species would within the continent would evolve faster than outside of it. Several species of animals as well as this new genus of humans migrated to the center of the continent. Within several generations, it was observed that species developed genes resulting from stimuli in the environment -- much faster that observed in almost every other part of the world. Another major observation was how many quadruped species would have at least one genetic branching over time that would show a predisposition to bipedal-ism. Thus a trend was observed where many quadruped organisms, many of which were mammals, would retain many of their features and traits, but would slowly evolved into bipedal creatures, much like humans. They would also develop intellectual traits just like humans, such as the ability to speak, form language, show emotion, think critically, and have intelligent awareness.

As time went on, the Homo-Exoticus species would seemingly disappear from South America and solely reside in Antartica (Aurora), and their old habitats eventually being claimed by the trailing homo-sapiens coming down from the North many years later. Thus, as the ice bridge slowly melted, the Homo-Exoticus species and these bipedal species would find themselves isolated and evolving together in the basin of Aurora. The diverse groups of species would find themselves intermingling -- developing languages, tribes, and cultures together. Accelerated evolution would allow these groups to become compatible with one-another, and the result would be the mixing of homo-exotica genes with bipedal ones, and vice-versa.

From the unique environment of Aurora and the intermingling between species, there would become three distinct main "branches" of life in Aurora:

1. "Auroran Humans": A homo-sapien-esque species (Homo-Exoticus-Antarcticus) with very similar features and behaviors to humans, but with a related but different genetic structure and different feature patterns. They developed from the result of intermingling between the Homo-Exoticus species and the Bipedal species. Eventually the Homo-Exoticus species would become completely out-evolved by this new genetic class.
2. Bipedals: Anthropomorphic bipedal creatures with the behaviorisms of "humans", but the characteristics of other mammals. Generally having fur and digitgrade apendages. These species had the ability to communicate, develop language, perceive things intelligently, and form nomadic groups even before intermingling with the Homo-Exoticus. However, much of the genetics from the Bipedals and the Homo-Exoticus would become infused as time went on, aiding them on developing intelligent traits. There are several subspecies and variants of this species.
3. Humanoids: Another human-like species that has both human features as well as non-human mammalistic features. An offshoot of the intermingling and co-evolution of humans and bipedals. A hybrid of the two, Humanoids were a bit of a "stepping stone" for the first few generations of intermingling. Because of their recessive traits however, humanoids had the tendancy to be bred out when continuously intermingling with members of one species or the other.

After several generations and tens of thousands of years of diversifying, all three branches would have some origination from the "homo" genus, but would have varying, distinct genetic structures from each other. Regardless, all three were able to cooperate and communicate on the same intellectual level as each other. These three species would be the first intelligent life to exist Antarctica (aka Aurora.)

The Environment

Because of Aurora's radiating heat phenomenon, the green basin of the continent was lush and biodiverse, with some of it's plant and microbiological life dating back to species from Pangaean times, and evolving since then. Aurora had a good mix of different biomes: from dense rainforests to wide open planes to river valleys, tundras, and mountain ranges. The only biomes that were lacking in number, but not enirely absent, were desert and other very dry-like regions due to Aurora's relative humidity. The most dominant environments were mostly hilly forests mixed in with valleys and plains. Aurora also had several mountain ranges, with the three largest having rivers extend from them, with the melting snow creating a fresh water supply for said rivers and benefiting several populations.

Early Nomads

Just like homo-sapiens, the first of the Antarctica inhabitants were social, nomadic creatures travelling in small groups. The center of Aurora, where the ice had long melted, contained many open plains as well as dense jungles, allowing for ample grounds for hunting and gathering. Inside the "basin" was a resource-rich habitat for foraging too, giving these nomads various food sources and allowing the population to grow rapidly. The several rivers that descended from the three main mountain ranges positioned around the center of Aurora allowed for fresh drinking water and fishing (since the ice walls still prevented them from fishing at sea). Just as in other cultures, these river valleys would result in different nomadic groups slowly congregating around them, forming small semi-stationary homes, and eventually permanent settlements.
The existing Bipedals were already nomadic in nature by the time the Homo-Exoticus arrived on the continent. As the two journeyed closer together, the two groups would begin to form connection. As time passed, many would start intermingling and forming mixed nomadic groups before settling into more permanent settlements and other habitations precursor to full-on settled societies.

Evolution and Adaptation

It is as these nomads became more stationary that the blending of the Bipedal and Homo-Exoticus species (as mentioned above) occurred. While they were not without conflict, as no doubt each saw one another as alien in first contact, their coincidental ability to communicate on a similar intelligent level allowed for cooperation and soon mutual inhabitation together. It would turn out that this mutual inhabitation would aid the survival of both specie groups. Given the unique skillsets (i.e. more keen senses, speed, strength, etc.) of each, the grouping of these intelligent organisms made survival and sustinece more tenable, and thus growth also became faster. Groupings of communities happened between the Homo-Exoticus and the different Bipedal subspecies, as well as the grouping of different Bipedal subspecies together.

With this grouping also resulted in the intermingling of these different species and subspecies. Thus, new Bipedal subspecies would emerge, as well as Humanoids and eventually the Homo-Exoticus-Antarcticus (or the Auroran Humans). The genetic diversity also greated aided all species involved, resulting in intelligent life with both capable thinking and perception, enhanced senses, and many unique traits being passed around.

First Civilizations

The earliest Human, Bipedal, and Humanoid civilizations would form around the Lupus and Vulpes rivers, later named after the strong population of Bipedals with those genetics living there at the time. They settled in river villages focused on fishing and agriculture, benefiting from the large fish population and abundance of clean water and silt for crops and irrigation. Several towns would be founded up and down the rivers, trading with one another and transitioning these groups slowly from nomads to settled peoples. Most of these fishing villages operated as loose tribal heircarchies with a chieftain, but functioned quite communally. This strong system of trading, self-sufficient city states soon allowed for "sister" towns to be build further away from the rivers, being supported by their parent fishing villages as populations rose and the need for other resources away from the rivers and the need for more land grew. With this, the first language and cultural groups of Aurora would be developed and evolve over the next several thousand years.

And it is with this spread of interconnected towns under the same communities that would birth the first "nation states" of Aurora -- essentially, the first organized countries on the continent.

Ancient Aurora (~45,000 B.C. - 20,000 B.C.)

The First Nations

While civilizations in Aurora had existed for many thousand years before this, 45,000 B.C. was the farthest back that archaeologists were able to discover and decipher evidence of officially namable societies. While several cultural groups existed by then, there were 5 prominent societal entities that had emerged by the 40,000s: (list them here)
(First unification of river vallies, swimming as travel then eventually ships. The melting of ice




Text (First nations: Predecessors of Reicha, Akuva, Etrusia, Norvisk, The Three Kingdoms (Zenchou, ???, ???)) (Kingdoms with simple rule) (Magical powers?) (Spreadout of land) (Slow diversification of lands)

(Earliest Nations -> First true nations -> Reicha/Akuva -> Three Kingdoms -> unification of three kingdoms -> A.F and split of kingdoms)

Spread and Diversification

Text

First Kingdoms

Text

Pre-imperial Age (20,000 B.C - TBD)

(Under construction)