The Advent Era
The Advent was the great humbling of our time. My grandfather opened the WayHall and discovered that we were not alone. In time came to discover how much further our reach could be. It was through the Advent that we became a multi-solar empire, and it was the Advent which paved the way to the Bannercasting, and to today.
We are not easily humbled.
Our reach will find the WayHall's end.
The early years of the 22nd century were a grim and senseless time. Conquest, War, and Famine had left us shattered. Our home was dying. Our hearts were broken and full of rage.
We were awaiting the arrival of the fourth horseman, Death.
He arrived with a smile and a peace offering.
First contact came as a barrage of signals originating from the 3rd Lagrangian Point of Humanity's solar system. Most of these signals were incomprehensible, alien noise, but some signals, such as radio, were understood, and humanity found itself speaking to another intelligent life: Sazashi.
These Sazashi hailed from the Aempian Empire of the planet Jhoutai, and were eager to get to know humanity. As soon as a common dialog was established, discussions about visiting each other's worlds kicked off. Humanity, without much leverage to argue, ended up with the worse end of the deal—they could send teams of scientists to Jhoutai, while Aempis constructed an embassy and small town in several locations on earth. These would later become bases of operation during the Advent War.
As soon as it became evident that Aempis had little interest in peaceful alliance, and instead wanted to colonize Earth, war kicked off. Aempis framed it as an ideological war, while Humanity scrabbled just to survive against growing Aempian occupation. It dug its heels in, resisting
Humans in Ethnis know and understand about as much of our culture as we do of theirs. No matter how many articles, chatlogs, and songs you listen to, it will always just be one part of a whole, one side of a conversation in a crowded party. It's not something you're experiencing in a present tense. Only the broadest strokes and sharpest details come through.
On April 12th, 2286, humanity made first contact with alien life. The meeting was a surprise to both parties, and triggered the first rounds of uneasy negotiations and communications between species.
The representatives of Earth — a shaky alliance of international powers — established commonalities of language and gesture (of which there were mercifully many) enough to converse with this new life.
The aliens called themselves Aempians. They did not represent all of their home world (Jhoutai) but they did represent the Empire of Aempis, and no other nations would be involved.
These restrictions made for uneasy terms. Aempis spoke little of its neighbors back home, but managed to intercept and overhear enough messages to understand that Aempis was engaged in several turf wars back home, and that they were as surprised to have the wayhall opened as humanity. They had never encountered alien life before, though they did share their home world, Jhoutai, with another species: the Verin.
The Intel helped paint a picture of their new cosmic companions, but did nothing to help their ongoing predicament:
Humanity was dying. Her lungs had been turned to matchsticks and fire, her blood had turned to sludge with pollution. The powers of Earth weren't allies, nor were they necessarily enemies, they were survivors, the cities and nations who were already the most entrenched and best equipped.
They needed resources. They needed aid. They needed help.
The negotiations soon turned to trade, a language easy for both to speak.
The first trade convoys came. Humanity traded its tech for resources, frequently astonished by the questions the Sazashi asked — aspects of combustion, communication, and computation that any species as advanced as themselves should be able to answer.
Unawares that it was an alien concept to humanity, the Sazashi shared that much of their technology harnessed a natural energy pattern present in, they had assumed, any sophontic life.
They called it the Meta.
For all the capabilities this meta evidentially had (it could be converted, by will, into energy, kinetic force, and so much more) it was functionally magic — a descriptor which lingers to this day. The closest word we have to describe this sophontic energy is the soul, another adjective which stuck through time.
Even meta technology had its limits, however. It had been a crutch to the development of so many elements of their technological advancement, especially concerning transport and energy.
Aempis hungered for this technology. And it hungered for the resources of our world which weren't so plentiful on theirs: precious metals and gemstones, with a particular fondness for quartz.
Even the most tight fisted nations began opening their hands to the offerings of Aempis. What value was palladium when even the wealthy were lean and miserable? Who were they to feel better than when their servants were too I'll to tend to their whims.
Fine, take those old fishing trawlers, that retired cruiser, those cancelled space projects. Please, just do your magic and sieve the pollution from the sea and help bring back the ice caps?
The changes didn't come over night, but they came, and everyone felt it a bit. Rural communities and old ghost towns started seeing life again. Cities were no longer hiding in banks of smog. With even the wind and the waters lending an ear to the Sazashi that had forever been deaf to man, the clock began to roll back.
To commit these miracles took the work of a staggering occupation of Aempian psiolic and all the resources it took to maintain them — supply lines of meta from Jhoutai, and all the infrastructure to store it, families of the casters. Workers to maintain the infrastructure. Their families. Bankers. Their families. Judgmental. Janitorial. Mayoral. Their families, too.
The negotiations weren't strong. Humanity had the might of a world, but Aempis had food, and hope, and now a standing army of beings capable of carving the name AEMPIS into the very face of the earth, were they so provoked.
Some of the powers at the negotiations began to succumb. Backchanels began to open.
Treaties which came from small countries often came with a moving plea and as gratuitous an offer as could be extended.
Treaties from the larger countries tended to also offer the goods of those smaller countries. Shrewd Aempis soon established where the supply chains and what the political web looked like.
In a wager to buy trust and delay the storm beginning to brew on the horizon, Aempis allowed Earth to send scientists to Jhoutai, to explore the nation of Aempis — both commonwealth and colonies — and the wilderness to better understand them, and to find samples and creatures which might be beneficial to them.
Though the gesture was appreciated, and turned up finds which would prove invaluable with time, it did not placate the growing agitation of the human populace.
We have been colonized.
It wasn't so much being murmured in the streets as screamed from the rooftops. This experience had shaped an entire generation now.
Someone tried to be a hero, and took a shot at Aempis.
The negotiations stopped, abruptly, and became an ultimatum.
Stop them, or we will claim all future accusations from Earth by force rather than by trade.
Many were ready to try, but more were willing to help.
The Advent War began.
Aempis invites a multinational team of scientists to study Jhoutai, and sends an Aempian team to Earth.
Humanity resists the looming threat of Earth. Aempis responds with war.
After years of Humanity resisting all odds and
While Earth and Aempis are settling the terms of Earth's surrender, Valuser'rh attempts to sabotage the treaty by destroying Jerusalem with Iconoclast.
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