♫Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - The New Stone Age♫
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The end of the 18th Century on Gaia was marked by profound and diverse socioeconomical transformations granted by new scientific developments. Whether in agriculture, trade or engineering, there was an abrupt change of life-style, resulting in a massive exodus from the country people to the big cities, primarily the great nations of the continent. The flow was redirected by three of them, being the the Kindgom of Alexandria, home of classic and major Literacy, the Kindgom of Lindblum, known as the birthplace of new Inventions, or the Dark city of Treno, where homeless and paupers stand at a side by the river, watching the fluent and rich nobility at another. At the same time people were witnessing a technological development never saw before, where new consumption habits and artistic movements were born and interwine with each other, men both young and old dreamed that one day they could live the life of a nobleman, besides living in safety.
The fields where those people lived before they came to live at capitals of concrete are surrounded by an immense Mist. Historical registries, a few who remained, suggest that same Mist appeared a long time ago, before writing, and for this reason, the entire continent is also known as the Mist Continent. Rumours tell the Mist is responsible for the creation of a rampant number of monsters, for those souls who still believe in abiogenesis, as well as the conflicts between communities and civilizations are theorized to have been brought by same Mist discharged into the atmosphere. Tied to human history, perhaps its evolution as a whole, the old reigns dissapeared, crumbled apart into less than ruins, as its inhabitantes whose sight hindered by Mist and war travelled beyond the curtain, migrating from the lowest plains to the highest plateus, in which they founded their new Kingdoms. Lindblum's inhabitantes were the first to develop mist-powered engines, primarily used to power airships. Despite airships being limited to fly where there's Mist, same invention capable of converting what was once deemed as the main cause of conflicts between families of same blood into fuel, found on its plenty, radically revolutionzed all technologies avaliable at time, providing the engineers of Lindblum manufacture of other vehicles moved by steam, such as air cabs, exclusive of the capital, capable of transporting people from a district to another in less time than a walk.
These and other ground-breaking inventions lead Lindblum to a golden age, and its path to be self-declared the major nation of the whole Gaia. However, as the city population grew massively, several problems happened. The increased waste produced by growing populations eventually lead to potential health hazards, such as cholera or dysentery, both transmitted by contamined water. The rivers, used by the locals as a way to dispose of their waste, began to exude of an awful scent provided by layers of urine and feces, as it had not been since medieval times. Alexandria's window tax forced its people to cover their windows with bricks, blocking the sun out their homes. Workers spent journeys of 12 hours daily, and at the end of the day, they walked out the factories lke ghosts, back at homes with holes for the eyes.
Many people felt fooled by the failure of new technologies, which now seemed to only provide a good life based on abysmal and dehuman work conditions. The loss of a limb for a huge rolling gear didn't mattered, compared to the feeling of betrayal. Even the children were exposed to danger, alongside shame of being stuck inside a dirty chimney, not that shameful compared to losing sight and flair, as if they haven't lost enough on feverish labors, and later getting contaminated by respiratory diseases throught the remainig of their low-lifes wasn't enough of a punishment, or a reward as getting their ears carved with nails, a convincent motivation so they could continue the work, keep going forward.
The idea of an unreachable progress of those who were working hard in search for better living conditions at any cost eventually led to the rampant increase of alternative ways to escape the harsh reality they lived, throught alcoholism, prostitution and even suicide as a last, but not rare, resort. As if the situation was nowhere to be even worse, the internal crisis of each capital was followed by a geopolitical tension between Alexandria and Lindblum, two of the main powered nations of the entire continent. For years, the nobility of Alexandria demands the breaking of mist-fueled engines patent, secured by Zebolt institute, promoted by Lindblum's Regency of Cids. Despite the lukewarm reception of Alexandria, Cid Fabool VIII, actual leader of Lindblum, denies sealing up an agreement that basically makes his invention accessible to everyone, without the need or importance whatsoever of commodity charges.
While many people are occupied in search of riches, scientists and analyticals are worried, since the current leaders attitudes, combined with the grotesque difference between people and their finances, the agressive atmopshere of competition instaured, the individualist and escapist tendencies influenced by materialistic goals, the offering of brutal and cruel entertainment brought by the slaughter of beasts during Lindblum's Festival of Hunt, whose monopoly over mist-powered engines remains... all these factors could result into another inceaselessy war against the nations, but in a large scale, like never seem before.
Until today, Alexandria and Lindblum remain intact, in an endless cycle of threats to one another. However, beyond the heavy and mysterious sea of Mist, another nation remains forgotten by many, obscured as its own history, as well by the clouds...
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