Profile: Ooria

Ooria (also spelled Uria) is a mountainous nation in the southwest of Contel, on the planet Draco in its First Age. It contains almost no meadows or pastures for commercial farming, and conducts a great deal of trade with Seyona in the east for food. Its principle exports are stone and metal; however, these exports are largely from a few mines and quarries. Most of the population of the nation is spread out in relatively small townships, many of which are unreachable by normal means.

However, Ooria is not a nation of normal means. Its military is divided into two divisions: The Valkyries in the sky and the Earth Monks on the land. Each has a special form of magic that is unique on the continent; the Valkyries store weapons in extradimensional pouches, leap into the sky with air magic, and rain down blades on their enemy, while Earth Monks eschew the normal limitation on earth magic and manipulate stone and dirt at long distances.

Adding to this dichotomy, the Valkyries and Earth Monks face a sharp gender divide; the Valkyries are a female-only military branch, and the Earth Monks are a male-only branch. Institutionally, both are fully recognized and respected by the government, and both are respected and somewhat feared by the populace. There is also a grudging mutual respect between the two, but it is a respect that often comes with doubt, petty arguments, and other friction. The Valkyries are the only all-female military on the planet, and are given commensurate respect.

The Valkyries and Earth Monks both travel through the mountainous nation in order to hold it together. They intercept bandits, find missing people, deliver supplies and mail, assist those who need medicine, etc. For this reason, they are typically trained in many such tasks. The Valkyries are used more for carrying supplies, although the Earth Monks take over in particularly bad weather; the Earth Monks are better at tracking, foraging, medicine, and other tasks, although the Valkyries are trained in such things as well, and can be employed to cover very wide ground at once.

Ooria was by all accounts founded by an Offworlder, one of the few places where they're historically recorded. It is assumed that they came from Terra, but the details are lost to time. In addition to forcibly equalizing gender roles in the country, the founder also made a pact with a peculiar evoloid species, the Laras. Laras are winged humanoids that seem to gain energy or nutrition from wind or altitude; although they can survive at ground level, staying long causes them to waste away and die. Additionally, they are an aggressively empathic race, such that being touched by another living being--especially without permission--is very close to traumatic. They remain humanoid in appearance, and intelligent, but as a species have little interaction with humans.

The pact between Ooria and the Laras is one of necessity for the Laras; the Oorians agree to give them what food, material, and care they need, with minimal contact, in exchange for scavenged goods. Laras, not needing to rest, circulate around the entire continent; they tend to pick at battle sites, abandoned houses, and other untended places, picking up anything that seems valuable and returning it to some central storehouse only they know of. When they must trade something with the Oorians, they trade from this storehouse, or from their own individual stocks. They tend to trade a lot of armor and weapons (not knowing, or perhaps caring that the Oorians manufacture such, and value them less than most), but also may have rings, necklaces, books, bags, etc.

Cino, the capital of Ooria, is on a hollowed-out mountaintop, and is one of the few places on the continent high enough for Laras to live comfortably for long periods of time. It has many floors, all of stone and metal, with the monarch living at the very peak. The monarch's floor is triangular and has supports at its three corners, each leading to the roof of a building below; one building houses the Valkyries, one the Earth Monks, and one houses the civilian government. Although this was clearly done for philosophical reasons, everyone involved admits that the arrangement is exceedingly unpopular and impractical.

Cina more than most is a city that fears both weather and seismic events. They do not have much glass in the city, and the high winds allow rain to get through wooden walls or shutters if they are poorly made; they are also in excellent position to be struck by lightning, although they have sufficient grounding that it's not a problem most of the time. The biggest fear is an earthquake; they are high enough up that any shaking of the earth below creates great torque, quickly becoming powerful enough that no magical support is sufficient to prevent damage. For that reason, a great number of earth mages and Earth Monks are dispatched to the base of the mountain to constantly monitor, ward, and protect the city. By the end of the first era, the city had still been nearly wiped out twice by seismic events, but was rebuilt both times.

Profile: Blackhat City

Blackhat City is an enormous flying city in Terra during its first age, and continuing into the Terra-Draco wars. Built on top of a 2 mile radius plate of black iron, it has a wide 'brim' around its circumference, and a number of uniformly tall, black buildings in the center; designed, it is assumed, explicitly to look like a black stove pipe hat. It contained what was both the largest and most advanced power source of its era, a large fusion generator contained in a pocket dimension. Its fall marked, and indeed was a part of the apocalypse that spawned the Third Age. It is related to, but not the same as, the Blackhats, an organization of combat-specialist holographists stationed in the city under the direct command of Domino Effect himself.

Formed by Domino Effect using advanced holography, Blackhat City was envisioned to be a worldwide, independent sanctuary for holography researchers, largely as a reaction to fearmongoring and sweeping legislation that was making all forms of such research criminal. Following its revelation, hostilities between him and nations worldwide threatened this ideal, at which point he created the Spare Change project and seeded holographic programs worldwide. These programs were used for both good and evil, but Domino, this city, and his enigmatic band of elites known as the Blackhats made every effort to maintain peace and punish misuse of the technology.

For many months following its inception, the city was empty, and often kept in storage (it maintains a pocket dimension as part of the function of its "engine"; this helps it hover and is used to warp around the planet). During this time, Domino did not have any political following and was widely regarded as an untrustworthy loose cannon at best, and a megalomaniacal terrorist at worst. However, following a sharp change in the political clime, Domino among others felt that many governments worldwide were threatening, kidnapping, torturing, or killing holography researchers, and stepped in repeatedly to save them and offer sanctuary. From that time, the city never sat in storage, preferring instead to warp over unpopulated areas or oceans if it had no legitimate destination. As time went on, it became clear both to refugees and outsiders that Domino had no ambitions of conquest or other malicious ends, and many joined either his city or his direct service of their own accord. The highest known count of the citizens of Blackhat City at any time was somewhere over 90,000.

The principle technologies of the city are its engine and power source, but they are by far not the most important or advanced. The city itself had the most powerful shielding capabilities ever known, and concealed many holographic weapons that made full use of the power source, though they were used but rarely, and only in self-defense. Additionally, it has holographic inhibitor arrays capable of shutting down unshielded holography within a radius of about a mile. It also had top-rate atomic-level fabrication, analysis, testing, and research facilities, along with large materials stockpiles largely acquired by disassembling garbage dumps. Its medical facilities, while added late, also would become top of their class. For the citizens living in it, food and water are unending and waste is completely handled, and various gardens and other places exist in extradimensional spaces.

When the city begins the process of warping, a disclike portal appears to one side of the city, and it begins to move into it using strictly horizontal slide. Depending on Domino's wishes, it may also rotate around the center of the city; this is usually the case when he, or the Blackhats, are at a place on the brim not facing the portal. The appearance of the portal on the other end is concurrent with a distinctive, low echoing boom and a number of electric pops and fizzles. (Domino has stated that the electric noises are a quality control issue originally, but that he likes the noise enough to not fix it.) The disappearance of the portal comes with similar electic spatter, but the noise is more implosive. The portal does not tend to give off much light of its own accord, although it is visible on dark nights, assuming that the other side of the portal is also dark. When warping to space, a modified form of the portal can be used to prevent air from bleeding around the corners of the city.

The city was also, on occasion, used to perform live concerts. Although Domino was not himself a musical performer, in conjunction with Mr. Stage, he became enthralled with the idea of communicating with and manipulating people by means of music. The latter was principally used only in combat conditions, but on occasion, Domino would simply park the city over a city, suburb, or other crowded region, play a selection of music (whatever entertained him at the time; usually inspirational music in genres like rock, metal, pop, etc), and he and his Stage magicians would choreograph their actions to it on the fly. Typically, this included a lot of lights, flying people, holographic graphics, etc. Although these events were impromptu and never announced in advance, and despite the imposing figure of Blackhat city, it is rumored (but never officially proclaimed) that these events never caused serious traffic accidents, fires, deaths, or other calamities.

The city is capable of travelling in hard vaccuum and surviving without outside resources or power, but it never did so for long periods. When it is in space, a crystalline dome covers the entire city, from the brim to the highest buildings. At Domino's whim, it has visited various places in the solar system, but (in offical canon) he never took it interstellar distances. Domino also maintained a few limited, manned research, mining, and storage facilities across the system, which helped recovery during the third age; however, he did not trust them enough to grant the occupants access to superior technology. While many of these facilities were only connected to Blackhat City by portal, some also had their own ships for emergency use.

The destruction of Blackhat City came at the end of the Terra-Draco Wars, during a time known as the Reign of Fire. One criminal, having in their hands the full codebase Domino Effect had been using to perform all of his effects, started a campaign to wipe out all people from Draco on both worlds in an effort to purify them; his weapons were post-nuclear grade, meaning that their expected yields exceeded the capabilities of nuclear weapons. An assault team led by Deus Exterra located the criminal, but were unable to make enough progress to kill him; against all advice, Domino Effect brought Blackhat City in to assist, and by doing so turned the tide of the battle. However, the city's shields were no longer impenetrable, given the weapons the criminal was using, and the city was destroyed. As part of that, the reactor overloaded and destroyed a 50-mile wide spherical crater; as an unfortunate consequence, the blast destroyed a large part of the Dragon System that is the source of power for the people of Draco. Between these two events, dimensional effects appeared worldwide that interfered with the minds of all living things, causing insanity in virtually all cases. This led to the Third Age, and very nearly caused an extinction of all life on both planets. Additionally, Domino Effect, Deus Exterra, Erika Exterra, and many others perished.

Profile: Aelon College

The Yunian Society of Masters (Draco, first age) maintains an exclusive university in the mountains to the southeast of the port city of Aelon in Daeyul. It is a peculiar institution in that there are no requirements of merit, either as a condition of entry or as a condition of graduation; it is maintained as a public service. However, admittance is extremely limited, and students are only allowed to stay a maximum of five years.

All members of the Yunian Order are given one credit per year (at most one credit outstanding), which can be given to any human, humanoid, or other intelligent being the member desires, from esteemed warriors and craftsmen to orphans and common laborers. There is no explicit forbidding of criminals; however, there are Voidlings who oversee the admittance process and screen out applicants deemed to be dangerous.

It is not required that applicants arrive immediately, and indeed many do not; however, understandably, there are only so many slots for the incoming class. Since the total number of Yunians on the continent is quite low, and since the university has two active semesters, this is usually not a problem, but there have been times when some confluence of events caused a larger number of students to apply for entrance than the school than it could support. Where possible, students that cannot be accepted are turned back; the rest may apply for temporary housing--and temporary work to pay it off--until the next semester. The same deal is offered for students that arrive out of season, either too late in the semester to join an existing class or during the down periods without classes.

Classes at the college run the gamut of the Order's knowledge; notably, the school is authorized to teach things that might otherwise be restricted to particular nations, including access to nation-specific Dragons. Only the nation of Tiyoma refuses to give priveledged access, in accordance with their policy of protectionism. Because class sizes are small, it's generally the case that a particular class will have a lot of similar characteristics; for instance, they may have all trained in Demon weapons, or N-weapons, or Void mentalism, or the use of some more specific ability. In many cases, this is because one or a small number of exceptional students changes the normal classes to advanced ones, and others come along for the ride. They are not all equivalent in skill, nor will they all have the same set of skills, but certain similarities within a class will definitely appear.

While classes are not always taught by the absolute masters of any given skill, the teachers are expected to be knowledgeable, and are given first-class access to other Yunians when it comes to asking questions. Yunians are also encouraged to assist, for pay, whenever classes relevant to their expertise are ongoing.

Class selection is something of a haphazard arrangement; certain classes are always ongoing even if no students attend, because those classes are folded into the logistics of college life (farming, cooking, crafts, maintenance, cleaning, etc); students may work alongside the faculty and learn from them, or not, at their discretion. Basic martial and magical skills are likewise always offered; this encompasses wellness, self-defense, and general education in those areas. Other basic classes, like basic education (writing, math, logistics, etc) will be offered if even one student requests or requires it, but the instructors may not be on-call the whole semester if nobody does. Beyond that, more specialty classes tend to require a minimum number of students; only exceptional students can get advanced education without community interest. Classes are grouped by skill level, not student year; it is rare, but possible that a student in his final year will be learning alongside new students, and this effect can occasionally inflate the size of a few rare classes, some of which may only be taught every few years.

Classes with expensive tools or components--such as demon weapon use or various crafts--will usually have class-issue equipment that is rented to the students gratis for the duration. Students are encouraged to bring, buy, or craft their own equipment if they are studying seriously, and students with personal equipment may receive preferential treatment. However, in general, the classes are taught to prevent anyone from being left behind even if others are treated preferentially.

Military- and combat-oriented classes occasionally have outings, in an official capacity, either to deal with minor situations around the continent or to observe significant battles that are predicted or ongoing. Although there are frequently surprises during this trip, and students have sometimes died, it is by all accounts well looked forward to by most students as a practical application of their teachings.

Graduates from Aelon College may be sought after by militaries, or may go back to civilian life. Some, previously destitute, return to being homeless and jobless out of comfort, but only rarely do graduates fail to make good on their education at some point. Some end up becoming members of the Yunians themselves, although it isn't all that frequent of an occurance. Aelon College maintains a list of alums who became Yunians in a magic-resistant wall on the premesis; although it has been damaged and altered, as far as anyone can tell it has been rebuilt without loss or error.

All graduates of the college can entitle themselves Collegiates for the rest of their lives. It is not as prestigious a title as Yunian, but it is well respected most places.

Profile: Azael

Azael is a nation on the planet Draco during its first age. Located in the northeast of Contel, it contains a lot of low, tropical coastlines, which fade into higher grasslands, then hills before finally reaching the high mountains separating it from Daeyul. The territory, though recognized as a nation, is in a stablized form of anarchy containing no governments greater than a township. Due to this, it is a favorite location for smugglers and others who breach minor laws in other nations; however, the people do not tend to accept violent criminals, which is largely enforced by the informal, bipartite militia.

The militia is generally understood to contain two castes, Azaca and Azule. Each caste has their own military traditions, philosohies, and place in society. Although most attempts to sum up their beliefs fail, most outsiders agree that 'liberal' and 'conservative' are about as much as they need to know unless they plan to live with them. Azuleans prefer to keep the peace and maintain order, while Azacans prefer to reform, experiment, and argue. They all agree, however, that so long as all or most people there respect the rest, there is little to no need for government.

Their shared creed, the Azalean Code, insists that citizens be earnest, honest, and forthright, and most citizens are more than happy to oblige. Outsiders often have a lot of bad things to say about Azael, but they all tend to agree it's a very cheerful place compared to most others.

Because of the lack of government, social services and sanitation vary widely, although most places have a community-oriented mindset that encourages cooperation. Little enough (excepting Azacan projects) is ever really planned or thought through; the only true exception is the vast network of roadways funded by foreign traders, without which many otherwise large townships might never have been found. Because of these roads, and because of the large number of traders from Seyona, the nation to the southeast, Azael is not a terribly backwards place, unlike some places in Alyon.

Azael also contains the closest ports to the continent of Anstra, and is frequently used as the last port before and first port after the trip between them. Because most other nations prefer the Evoloid-descendant races to stay out of their own borders, they tend to only settle on that continent; the people of Azael do not typically care, however, and so many settle there or travel between the two freely. The major exception are Laras, winged creatures that are rarely seen at low altitudes, who prefer the mountains of Ooria and Daeyul.

Azael contains the Fire Dragon Temple, and their magical traditions usually involve fire magic. However, they are better known for their militia, who are trained in martial arts only lightly enhanced by magic. The traditional design for elementalist dojos,two-story huts in which the instructor lives above the training space (where it will be endangered if they do not teach proper control) originated in Azael, and is most widely used by the Azulean order.

Because of the proximity to the Fire Dragon, the nation also contains many mana fountains. If a fire-user drinks from these fountains, they are able to manifest a small amount of more destructive fire energy than normal. Although these fountains pop up in other nations as well, they only really seem to affect the use of fire magic.

The Themes of the DSP

If there were one theme that explained the whole of the Demonsword Project, it would probably be engineering. The people of Draco developed a form of magic based on spirituality and centralized control; the people of Terra developed a form of holography based on computers and advanced physics. In other words, high-energy "magic" exists on both worlds, and in each case, it's because someone did the work to set up a system. Once the system was set up, they gathered users and information, and refined their techniques. In its own way, the Third Age represents a reboot of the two sides, allowing the collected knowledge to come together as one--although the costs were such that no-one would have done it on purpose.

However, when they do come together, it becomes clear to those who grow up in such times that they aren't two conflicting ideas. What, after all, is the difference between a technological scanner that reads your thoughts by algorithm, and a more naturally grown spiritual entity that learns to read human thoughts by experience? If they both perform the same act in the end, with the same level of control, were they ever really something separate to begin with?

However, it seems in the world we live in that mind and technology, spirituality and computation are discrete things. Call it left- and right-brain, if you will; art and logic, religion and science; or in DSP terms, "Mystic and Chaos". The Mystic side--those who gain power by trusting in the spiritual side of things--learn to do a great deal by trusting powers within them, by communicating with them, and by forming bonds. The Chaos side--the term being taken from Chaos Theory, a branch of advanced math--trust in knowledge, logic, and design. The Chaos side, however, will often fear the Mystic; for trust often means a hands-off approach, one where you never truly know your tools, but can only have faith. The Mystics, in response, will often fear those of Chaos, who never develop empathy, and who never communicate with their heart or soul; how can one come to trust those who forever shut themselves off from you?

Both sides have legitimate fears, and for those who have only ever known half the equation, it can be difficult to switch. However, the DSP also has one additional philosophical point to make, and one which I strongly believe in. It is a concept that the people of Draco call "Void;" it is an element associated with clarity, sensing, and divination. However, its powers are not innate; they are a combination of the other six elements, a combination that must be carefully balanced.

The philosophy of the Void is this: If you are predisposed to walk down any path, or are afraid to walk down any path, there will come a time when you aren't prepared to do what you have to. Indeed, to a Voidling, the sensory ability of that element is simply senses born of the other six elements, all combined into one. Knowing the boundaries of each, keeping them separate, and understanding their relations, allows you to see a great deal more than anyone who can only see a few elements.

It is a strong philosophy in other ways, and that leads me into the last theme of the Demonsword Project, the six elements. They aren't perfect, and in fact I can't say for certain they'll be arranged the same way when the project is finished and ready for launch as they are right now. They're a complex mess of philosophy and associations, but having created them, I respect the balance they represent. I'm sure it's too highfalutin (or crazy) for most people to consider a real philosophy, but I do. The elemental system of the Demonsword Project has been a major factor in how fun I find the project to work on, and as such, it's part of the reason I've kept going at it as long as I have. Even if it's changed, tweaked, or screwed with, I suspect it will continue to exist in some form for as long as the Project exists.

The History of Terra-Draco

This isn't the full history of the setting, but it is a decent summary.

The two planets, Terra and Draco, both awakened from the Zero Age with a few peculiarities. Terra, a well-developed planet with a population of millions, found that its entire population had been sleepwalking, sleepeating... without explanation, they had walked through their daily lives for an unknowable period of time. Part of their planet's history seemed to be missing in every form--book, electronic, and biological memory. With little choice, virtually all of them went back to their daily life, trusting that it would all make sense someday.

Draco, a developing planet with far less history, marked the end of the Zero Age by coming out of an age of civil war. Of principle interest, towards the end of that civil war, a mysterious figure had traversed the world, building temples that repelled anyone too feral to think for themselves. As the buildings were completed, people began to be born with mystic powers, powers divided up into seven elements. These powers, they began to understand, were bound to powerful spiritual creatures that dwelled in the temples, which they called Dragons. Awed by the powers they were awakening to, they split their entire continent into seven enormous nations, one temple apiece, and swore off total war forever, for fear of ruining the land itself. They did not, however, swear off combat, and indeed warriors continued to struggle and fight, both in small measure and in clashes between nations.

In this way, Draco continued through their First Age, learning about and expanding upon the Dragon System. Nations began to create their own Dragons, sometimes for good, sometimes to create powerful warriors. The Yunian Society of Masters arose, as did the Void Followers, and many other factions. The personalities of the nations stabilized, and their borders never wavered more than a few dozen miles. The Great Earth Temple was constructed in Daeyul, a giant stone building that stretched to the skies, containing a wealth of mystic and mundane knowledge that would never be rivaled.

Terra, however, had a far different life in its first act. In the First Age, holography began to take off as a means of direct energy manipulation. At first, it was only industrial--creating static, solid structures and machines out of energy that were dangerous and hard to control. But with the first test of holographic weaponry, the entire world was stricken with fear. Not for nothing did it come to be known as "Post-Nuclear" weaponry; they were weapons without limit, capable of breaking the world apart. Legislation was suggested and widely passed, worldwide, to prevent amateurs from dabbling. But with the internet already in place, it was impossible to contain it, and enthusiasts the world over were simply driven into hiding, not defeated.

On this stage, a man received a strange package of information, one that contained a few necessary ideas and equations. Those ideas and equations, along with a few happy accidents, gave him access to holography in ways that had been impossible--including self-sustaining holographic computers, complete with tiny, fusion-based power supplies. Disgruntled by the worldwide panic and their willingness to persecute scientists for their curiosity, he used his power to remake himself into a nearly superhero-esque figure under the alias Domino Effect. He built a giant, flying city on a flying plate of black iron, and dubbed it Black Hat City; it was his sanctuary for all scientists and engineers, his Mecca in the sky.

His claim to infamy, however, was that he scattered coins across the world, coins made of holography. Anyone who picked one up was granted a wish; they may create any single piece of holographic equipment, including ones that gave them their own, limited superhero (or -villain)-like abilities. The coins were distributed absolutely at random, no matter to whom or where on the planet, so that (from his idealistic view) the governments of the world would never again be allowed to ignore the needs of the poor or homeless, or social minorities or wage-slaves, or any other caste whose life had been hell because of uneven distribution of power.

It worked, in a way. After several decades of horrible, bloody civil wars worldwide, most of the world had access to at least food, power, network access, and medicine. Law, however, was strict and draconian; despotic rule had returned, because military might was the only way to keep the world in order. Still, somehow, Domino kept distributing the coins, dubbed Pandora Keys, and--to his own credit--defending cities and innocents from people who would abuse them, wherever he could. And nobody seemed to be able to replicate his abilities; even with the coins in-hand, they lacked the few central concepts necessary to reverse-engineer them.

In the middle of all this, a long-forgotten project resurfaced. The HELIDER project, once believed to be a failed attempt at a power source, had since a while back been understood to be a portal generator. However, their first prototype vanished--along with everything in a mile-wide sphere. As they were conducting studies on its nature as a portal, they began to get anomalous readings, ones indicating the original prototype had re-activated--half a galaxy away. This, understandably, piqued the interest of the world. Although their new prototypes were damaged by the anomaly, they began to reconstruct them, and fine-tune them, hoping to bridge the gap and find out what had happened.

When they finally bridged that gap, a portal opened on Draco, and through that portal, a man returned to Terra after many years absence. He wasn't a part of the HELIDER project; he predated it, with memories of things that should have lied buried in the mysterious Zero Age. He also knew what Terrans were like, and didn't for a moment trust them with the planet Draco, which he had long considered his home. The dystopia, partially caused by Domino Effect, only heightened those feelings. After a series of blunders, even as the two worlds began to be connected by more and more portals, he sparked off a war between the two planets. He returned to Draco and took the name Deus Exterra, and with that name he fought to prevent tragedy wherever he could by attacking those who did evil. Perhaps strangely, he and Domino Effect never truly became enemies, and would sometimes consider each other friends, but they never were truly on the same side.

This was the Second Age. The long war that was fought began as Terra Vs. Draco, but splintered as both sides understood the humanity of the other. People of both worlds could easily fight together, if they believed in each other. However, the fighting lasted for well over a hundred years, as fear and paranoia ruled. Many people fought for good and stability, and for a long time, they were winning. However, in the end, that painful fear and frustration boiled over, and when at last Domino's equations and knowledge sneaked out, a warrior of pure darkness arose that wanted to destroy everything. In the last few battles, the final seals on both the dragon system and holography were unleashed, all in hopes of defending against the threat.

Insofar as they wanted to defend the world, they failed. The final blow shattered the minds of every person on both planets. Holography was iffy; the Dragon Systems were fragmented or destroyed. However, the humanoid races did not disappear, and the planets did not split apart; many of the surface portals had become truly welded shut. They all struggled for sanity for another century and a half, piecing together the knowledge that had been lost, and struggling just to keep alive. This was the Third Age, and it was hell. Scattered remnants of technology were their best bet for survival, but in addition, people began to awaken "shards" of the Dragon System in their own bodies, shards that required a "key" in order to activate. These shards had could restore sanity... but only enough to awaken a person from madness. If they fell back in of their own accord, oh well.

Long after the end, the Fourth Age would begin. It was a time when the world was recovering--plants returned, animals were reseeded from genomes. It was a world of frontiers and emptiness, marked by new potential--but also marked by struggles, struggles over territory and viewpoints and people, and history and life and death. This was a time when there was no distinction between users of magic and users of technology; they were both inheritances of the past, and there was no longer a division between them, much as the two planets had become one in the minds of the people. Whatever struggles they had, they were mundane ones--criminals and international squabbles, not world wars or attempts at genocide.

As for the future, the time beyond the Fourth Age, that story lies beyond the stars...