Second Dawn:General Setting

From EryriWiki

This is a reference document for the LARP The Second Dawn.

Technology

Everything that could ever be invented has already been made, in the days of the Ancients. The hardiest of their tools survived the Cataclysm, but much of what is known today comes from books and blueprints found among the ruins of Ancient cities. From firearms to fusion engines, from seerstone calculators to welding torches, mankind and the Tinkers work with what sciences they can reclaim, and stand in awe of those still beyond their reach.

Coal and oil fuels are rare and expensive, and assembly line production is limited at best. As such, motorized personal transport is uncommon, though the Union has an excellent railroad system. The secret of steel is well-known, but most of the Ancients' advanced metals and materials can only be found, not made. Because of this and the weight of fusion engines, flying machines exist only as dangerous curiosities. In the Union, fusion power plants supply electric heat and lighting to the public, but electricity is used for little else.

Tinkers

A second, separate group lives alongside the people who make up the masses of the Eastern Union. The old words for them are "engineers" and "scientists", but most call them Tinkers today. They hold the secrets of design, most importantly the construction of the seerstone calculators that make so much else possible. Ethnically distinct, they number only a few thousand across the whole Union. Always separate, often mistrusted, they earn the suspicion of the common folk by the way they sometimes seem to skirt the edges of black science.

Black Science

If mankind is to avoid repeating the Ancients' mistakes and bringing down a new Cataclysm, the black science must be separated from the white. In their headlessness, the Ancients followed three paths of science that brought about the Cataclysm, which all wise people forbid today: the path of power, the path of demons, and the path of decay. Some consider the dangers of black science to be mere superstition, but all children learn to fear of their destructive power early and thoroughly.

The Shroud

Shooting stars are a common, almost daily phenomenon. The moon waxes and wanes, but always blurry and hazy, even on the clearest nights. Scholars say that the Ancients could see the moon crisply and clearly, that this Shroud covering the earth somehow came from the Cataclysm.

Religion

Three religions are well known on the American Continent. First and largest is Natural Theology, which holds that all information leads to consciousness, therefore all things have a simple form of thought and consciousness, and the universe itself is an infinite mind. Second most common are the Gaians, who believe that the Earth itself is alive and worthy of reverence and respect, more so than any other part of the universe. Least common is the old faith, usually called Christianity, believing in a transcendent god who judges and saves.

International Politics

Small independent communities exist in the unclaimed land between nations, such as the Great Lakes Pirates and the trappers of the White Mountains, often trading with or raiding border settlements. However, with no easy means of long-distance communication, few in the Eastern Union know about any major countries beyond the Union's three immediate neighbors. Rumors persist of fabulous oriental kingdoms on the far side of the world, a second Union on the continent's western edge, and utopian enclaves southwest of the Plains, but most people go their whole lives without ever seeing someone from such mysterious places. While the means to cross the Atlantic Ocean surely exist, nobody does so, and faraway lands such as "Europe" have gained a mythic stature on the edges of the old maps.

The Eastern Union

From the Massachusetts Bay to Lake Erie and the Columbia Wastelands, then from the southern side of the Columbia Wastelands to Charleston Bay, the people are united beneath the banner of the Eastern Union. Civilized and industrialized, the Union stands as a beacon of peace and prosperity for all across the continent. Its government is democratic, with Congress and the President elected on alternating four-year cycles. However, some few always grumble that the peoples' voices are ignored, and every few decades the government or army nullifies an election and forces a revote. The last such nullification happened in the year 312, but with the approaching elections in May, the political conflicts between the Capitalist and Socialist parties have grown increasingly bitter. Despite its troubles, the Union provides its tens of millions of citizens with stability and freedom unparalleled in the modern world.

The Plains States

A single generation ago, the Plains States were a nation only in name, with each of a dozen warlords ruling their independent domains. Over the past three decades, the Warlord of Minneapolis has begun to dominate, defeating and consuming the States of his neighbors and spreading across the Plains. While a few other warlords maintain some degree of independence, Minneapolis now effectively rules the entirety of the Plains States. None know yet whether this new autocrat will rule by the sword as his predecessors did, or bring his people closer to the prosperity and culture now found only in the Union.

The Maple Kingdom

North past the White Mountains lies another nation, with its capital on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. The Maple Kingdom is a Gaian theocracy, their harsh cold climate breeding a severe respect for the ways and will of the world. Though not considered a major military power, their lands were less devastated by the Cataclysm, and they are widely known to have more relics of irreplaceable Ancient technology than any of their neighbors, but the vehement Gaian stance against black science implies that they use only a fraction of what they have recovered.

The Appalachian Confederacy

Starting west of the Columbia Wastelands, the Appalachian mountains have carved out their own path. Hundreds of scattered rural towns relish their freedom from outside influence and any wide national government. These cities have banded together into the Appalachian Confederacy, a loose association of trade and mutual defense. Though they wish only to continue their quiet independence, their position on the border between the Union and the Plains, as well as their existence along the safest routes around the Columbia Wastelands, ensure that foreign eyes remain fixed on their hills.

The Second Dawn

The Second Dawn project has been nearly twelve years in the making, its idea at the heart of of the President's election campaign during his first win in 316. A tower of hand-welded steel plate and fusion engines, its launch into space will be not only a symbolic victory, but bring incredible practical benefits as well. The Second Dawn bears a payload, an artificial satellite that will make long-distance instantaneous communication possible for the first time since the days of the Ancients. Lastly, some hope that the Second Dawn will be able to restore contact with those descendants of the Ancients who lived out in space, beyond the reach of the Cataclysm; while many believe in such survivors, hard evidence is in short supply.

Only slightly late and over budget, it stands ready to launch on a March night in 328, barely two months before the next elections. As the years have passed and the bills mounted, public enthusiasm has waned, grown mixed. Patience for the vast expenses has worn thin; some Gaians and Christians believe that mankind was not meant to leave Earth; and fears that the satellite or Ancient survivors must use black science are no longer limited to whispered speculations. Nonetheless, the launch will continue, with a grand celebration the likes of which the industrial town of New Providence has rarely seen.