Zenith and Nadir in The Third Horizon | World Anvil
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Zenith and Nadir

Many hundreds of years ago, two colossal colonization vessels left Earth. Their names were Zenith and Nadir, and their destination the star Aldebaran. The crews lived their lives aboard the ships, through centuries of deep space. One of the ships, the Nadir, was lost somewhere in the darkness during the voyage, without leaving any trace. The Zenith continued, alone, and after traversing the empty void, finally reached its destination. But the humans onboard discovered that they were not the first to arrive in the Third Horizon.   They arrived in an already colonized cluster of star systems, linked by ancient portals. A long time after the departure of Zenith, the ruling powers of Earth had discovered one of these portals, and through it a shortcut to what became known as the Third Horizon.

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The Old World

1000 BCC 301 BCC

  • -1000 BCC

    The Exodus
    Expedition

    A thousand years ago, the desperate leaders of Al-Ardha look to the stars for their salvation. Overpopulation and ecological disasters have made life on their home planet very hard.

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  • -980 BCC

    The Zenith and the Nadir
    Expedition

    Two of the colossal generation ships depart together - the Zenith and the Nadir - each carrying thousands of colonists in stasis towards a distant red star - Dabaran. The crew know that the journey will take nearly a millenium.

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    More reading
    Zenith and Nadir
  • -900 BCC

    Discovery of the Portals
    Discovery, Exploration

    Meanwhile, the people of Al-Ardha discover the remains of an ancient space-faring civilization. These Portalbuilders created a network of wormholes, enabling travel to far-flung star systems.   The closest cluster, the one we now call the First Horizon, is colonized.

  • -840 BCC

    The Second Horizon
    Discovery, Exploration

    A further cluster is discovered and colonized by the people of Al-Ardha.

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    Discovery of the Third Horizon
    Discovery, Exploration

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    The Third Horizon - and rising tensions
    Discovery, Exploration

    With the outer systems now well established, tensions rise between Al-Ardha and its colonies. Home-world authorities clamp down on dissenters and Horizon-Sympathisers.   When the Third Horizon is discovered, it is quickly colonized by radical free thinkers and religious groups fleeing prosecution in the core worlds. They call themselves The Firstcome.

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    Golden Age of the Third Horizon
    Construction beginning/end

    The Firstcome found many great colonies such as Mira, Dabaran and Algol. They find common ground in their worship of The Icons, a religion they brought from their ancestral home planet Al-Ardha.

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    -305 BCC

    The Portal Wars begin
    Military action

    As Proxy wars spill into the Third Horizon, rumours abound that some of its people are aiding the Second Horizon. The battle-hardened armadas of Al-Ardha finally enter the Third Horizon, and the Firstcome Factions - ill-prepared as they are - have no choice but to join the conflict. This conflict gains the name of "The Portal Wars". It becomes a long, drawn out conflict.

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    The Third Horizon unites

    After decades of infighting and military defeats, the Firstcome Factions unite under the leadership of the Order of the Pariah. United, they drive the enemy fleets into the thriving system of Odacon ...

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    The Battle of Odacon
    Military action

    A final battle emerges over Odacon - its Portal is the link to the First Horizon. The battle rages on and massive energies are unleashed, destroying hundreds of ships and disrupting the portal. The Order of the Pariah uses the same technology to destroy the portal to the Second Horizon.

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    Burning Bridges - the long night begins

    With the contact to the other Horizons broken, the Long Night begins. Technology relied on trade through the portals and the worlds of the Third Horizon, ravaged by the long war and divided amongst themselves, fall back into isolation.

The Long Night

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An age of darkness, isolation, and decay began. The portals connecting the systems of the Third Horizon still worked, but trade diminished rapidly. Many cultures became planet-bound. The dream of the stars that had been realized for such a short time was again just a dream. The advanced technology that many of the Horizon's wonders relied upon was forgotten, cities and outposts fell, and civilization receded.   The Long Night, as this period is known today, was an era without progress and with a declining population. Here and there, lights in the darkness struggled on: the university in the Icon City that never shut its doors, the temple city of Lotus in perpetual bloom, the Order's regime on Zalos that held their own against the dark with vigilance and strict discipline. But these are the exceptions – the story of the Long Night is one of famine, plague and despair – whole cultures vanished in the sands of time. The peoples feared that darkness had arrived to stay – until a strange ship suddenly arrived in the Dabaran system.

  • 120 BCC

    Loss of the Nadir
    Disaster / Destruction

    The Zenith loses contact with the Nadir. She is never heard from again.

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    The Arrival of the Zenith

    Their voyage lasted nearly a full millennia, and at some point towards the end, contact with Nadir was lost. Alone, Zenith finally arrived in the Dabaran system to assess the conditions for colonization. They found that the system definitively could support human life – and that it already did. Mankind had already colonized the systems around the red giant more than five hundred years earlier!

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The New Area of Coriolis

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In the wake of the expeditions suddenly departing for destinations all across the Horizon, the Consortium began opening the trade routes again. Their proud bastion, Coriolis station, became a place where the Firstcome groups, long isolated from each other, could meet, and interact with the newcomers, the Zenithians. Powerful groups that had up until now lacked both the incentive and the resources to communicate off-world now suddenly had both. Soon, the courts of Dabaran traded as much with the theocrats of Sadaal as they did with each other, all thanks to the Consortium, and convoys from Mira, packed with supplies from their rich home world, became a regular sight in both these systems. With travel suddenly accessible again, the traditional pilgrimages resurged, and holy sites such as Lotus and Dabaran, the Icon City on Mira and the Dome of the Icons on Coriolis were soon flooded with believers from every system. The Monolith, home of the Quassars, quickly joined the flow of commerce through its dominance over the booming economy on primitive Kua. Goods from the surface of the planet were transported up to Coriolis and unloaded for distribution on the Net – the spindly skeleton of the Zenith, orbiting Kua as a sister satellite to the space station.

  • 0 CC

    The Gambler
    The Founding of Coriolis
    Founding

    After seeing that the Colonization Mission had become pointless, complete disorder seemed imminent, and the captain of the Zenith, Abarren Quassar, responded to the threat of mutiny by offering all crew and colonists the choice to go wherever they pleased and to bring with them the resources they needed for survival at their destinations.

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  • 59 CC

    The Judicators are formed

    The Judicators are formed with the aid of the Zenithian Hegemony, and go to work supported by new legislation against organized crime and anti-patriotic activity. The Popular Assembly removes Jalaman Ho as Governor through a vote of no confidence. Iria Shuliamaran becomes the eighth Governor of Coriolis.

  • 60 CC

    The Traveller
    The Arrival of the Emissaries
    Celestial

    The mysterious beings emerge from the gas planet of Xene.

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  • 60 CC

    37 The Faceless
    The Judge arrives
    Religious event

    During the Cyclade celebrations, the Bulletin transmits a special broadcast from the Foundation’s research station at Xene, where one of the five mysterious Emissaries has declared itself the Judge incarnate.

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    1 The Messenger
    The Messenger arrives
    Religious event

    Emissary Alam arrives at Coriolis in a Foundation cruiser escorted by two Legion battleships. The Governor of Coriolis makes a statement welcoming the Emissary to the Council of Factions, and it soon becomes known as the Messenger Emissary.

  • 61 CC

    10 The Messenger
    The Mystics' Disease
    Plague / Epidemic

    Soon after the arrival of the Emissaries, individuals all across the Third Horizon begin manifesting supernatural powers leading to persecution and religious hatred. Many of these so-called “new mystics” travel to Coriolis for protection, and to be closer to the Messenger Emissary, or to the Foundation’s Xene station to meet the Judge Emissary.

  • 61 CC

    The Dancer
    An Age of Possibilities

    The new era does however bring with it many new opportunities for adventurers like you and your group: trading with far-off systems, solving conflicts with your trusty Vulcan carbine, spying on shady corporations or factions, escorting travellers and pilgrims, delivering important messages as couriers, or searching for secrets in the ruins of old, be it the remnants of the Portal Builders or the looming wrecks from the Portal Wars. All this and much more is at your feet in Coriolis – The Third Horizon!   ]

    More reading
    An Age of Possibility
  • 61 CC

    4 The Gambler
    The Taoan Incident
    Disaster / Destruction

    The Mining Colony in the Taoan System sends a distress call. The Consortium scrambles a desperate rescue mission which ends in a disaster itself. The Taoan Portal to Hamura dissipates.

Article template
Generic article
World
The Third Horizon
Category
History
Author
Raldanash
Publication Date
17 Apr, 2020
Creation Date
22 Jul, 2019
Last Update Date
22 Jul, 2019
Visibility
Public
Views
291
Favorites
Comments
0
Work In Progress

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