Alcheregis & The Fall of Riesling
Alcheregis had been a pioneer project left over from a time prior to the Gun Wars, nearly 800 years ago. Back then, the planet had been under heavy development. Natural resoures were being extracted at an unprecedented rate, entire new cities were being built year by year and settled just as quickly. The population had more than tripled in mere decades, but it was divided. There was a certain sect which protested the extreme technological advances made by the same parent company which had spawned Alcheregis, a genetics research and development group.
This sect utilized much more primitive means of energy, tapping into the natural chaotic energy contained within the planet's core. As more technology came into widespread use, the dissident population began identifying themselves as Rougeon and quickly escalated from peaceful protests to outright eco-terrorism. They utilized native creatures to coalesce and expel this chaos energy into devastatingly effective attacks, often matching or outstripping the previously developed projectile weapons commonly used in battle. Sabatoge was rampant until finally, the planetary government declared war on the Rougeon terrorists and their supporters.
It began the biggest push military exercise since the planet's settlement. In an effort to match the Rougeon's use of native energy, the project group Alcheregis was commissioned and given the assignment of converting this power into a usable resource. It was here that the first studies of Bonded were conducted, and under the direct orders of the planetary government, no concessions were spared to the animals or their human counterparts which made use of them. The creatures were misnomered as "Burdensome Guns", the name taken from observing the cumbersome transformed states many of them used. Many of these captive Bonded pairs died under the extreme testing used, and the ones who survived were often so psychologically damaged that they were easy to manipulate. A twisted private army began to form in underground labs, the 'soldiers' often kept in solitary confinement and deplorable conditions no better than prisons. The race was on to secure as many of these precious creatures as possible, each side scouring the land for any sign of the elusive eggs.
A brilliant young geneticist named Vahe Param was promoted to the head of the Alcheregis project. He had a fresh and intuitive approach to understanding these strange creatures. Within his first year he'd determined that the amount of energy-spawned eggs, which he called Crowns (the names on the eggs, he'd seen, were almost always surrounded by a crown-shaped design) was directly correlated to where there planet's crust was thinner and therefore more of the core's energy seeped to the surface. He developed special techniques for measuring these energy emissions, and slowly the military gained the upper hand on the Rougeon resistance.
Param's second-in-command was a medical doctor by the name of Rylan Bian, a headstrong woman infamous for her disregard for safe medical practices. She firmly believed in the final product rather than the procedure to obtain it, and many whispered (though never within earshot) that she had let patients die simply to watch the progression of a disease. Together they were a formidable team combining genetics and medical
The war came to a head not long after that, with the largest battle taking place on the massive Plains of Mandolari. Natural Bonded pairs clashed against the artificial army of the Burdensome Guns, with the latter being backed by the full force of the planetary militia. The battle dragged on over several days as the Rougeon slowly lost ground. But just as their resistance was about to collapse, a greater power took hold. Every single Bonded pair -- real and artificial -- suffered an instant death whether they were wounded or not. The resulting upheaval was so great it shook the entire planet's structure.
It was an apocolyptic event with natural disasters of unprecedented mangitude spawning across the entire planet. Earthquakes rocked the continents and tore entire landmasses apart while massive tidal waves washed away cities. Every artificial source of energy was sapped dry in an instant, leaving what the population in complete blackout. Utter chaos took hold as the planetary government couldn't communicate with its citizens. Anarchy quickly took hold and the people who had survived the environmental disasters began dying in droves.
In the heart of Alcheregis' underground facility, a great gout of energy ripped through the buildings as the planet's core shifted. It flooded the labs and irradiated the people within. Cut off from their headquarters, Param gave the order to seal the facility and wait out the aftermath. Little did they know that from that day on their bodies would stop aging, freezing them in time as living relics as their world fell into ruin.
---
When all was said and done, only a fraction of the planet's original population remained. They had been scattered across the now-fractured landmasses and had no communication with each other. Much of their vaunted technology had been reduced to unusable metal relics and with it, their entire electronically recorded history was largely lost. The predominant society that began to rebuild was heavily influenced by the Rougeon mentality, with a heavy emphasis on the natural order of the planet and a near-reverence of Bonded, began to emerge. Eveything had to be developed again, even the calendar system. They reclaimed the planet as Aquavitae and the past era became referred to asRiesling, or the Lost World.
So began the Era of Anjou.
This sect utilized much more primitive means of energy, tapping into the natural chaotic energy contained within the planet's core. As more technology came into widespread use, the dissident population began identifying themselves as Rougeon and quickly escalated from peaceful protests to outright eco-terrorism. They utilized native creatures to coalesce and expel this chaos energy into devastatingly effective attacks, often matching or outstripping the previously developed projectile weapons commonly used in battle. Sabatoge was rampant until finally, the planetary government declared war on the Rougeon terrorists and their supporters.
It began the biggest push military exercise since the planet's settlement. In an effort to match the Rougeon's use of native energy, the project group Alcheregis was commissioned and given the assignment of converting this power into a usable resource. It was here that the first studies of Bonded were conducted, and under the direct orders of the planetary government, no concessions were spared to the animals or their human counterparts which made use of them. The creatures were misnomered as "Burdensome Guns", the name taken from observing the cumbersome transformed states many of them used. Many of these captive Bonded pairs died under the extreme testing used, and the ones who survived were often so psychologically damaged that they were easy to manipulate. A twisted private army began to form in underground labs, the 'soldiers' often kept in solitary confinement and deplorable conditions no better than prisons. The race was on to secure as many of these precious creatures as possible, each side scouring the land for any sign of the elusive eggs.
A brilliant young geneticist named Vahe Param was promoted to the head of the Alcheregis project. He had a fresh and intuitive approach to understanding these strange creatures. Within his first year he'd determined that the amount of energy-spawned eggs, which he called Crowns (the names on the eggs, he'd seen, were almost always surrounded by a crown-shaped design) was directly correlated to where there planet's crust was thinner and therefore more of the core's energy seeped to the surface. He developed special techniques for measuring these energy emissions, and slowly the military gained the upper hand on the Rougeon resistance.
Param's second-in-command was a medical doctor by the name of Rylan Bian, a headstrong woman infamous for her disregard for safe medical practices. She firmly believed in the final product rather than the procedure to obtain it, and many whispered (though never within earshot) that she had let patients die simply to watch the progression of a disease. Together they were a formidable team combining genetics and medical
The war came to a head not long after that, with the largest battle taking place on the massive Plains of Mandolari. Natural Bonded pairs clashed against the artificial army of the Burdensome Guns, with the latter being backed by the full force of the planetary militia. The battle dragged on over several days as the Rougeon slowly lost ground. But just as their resistance was about to collapse, a greater power took hold. Every single Bonded pair -- real and artificial -- suffered an instant death whether they were wounded or not. The resulting upheaval was so great it shook the entire planet's structure.
It was an apocolyptic event with natural disasters of unprecedented mangitude spawning across the entire planet. Earthquakes rocked the continents and tore entire landmasses apart while massive tidal waves washed away cities. Every artificial source of energy was sapped dry in an instant, leaving what the population in complete blackout. Utter chaos took hold as the planetary government couldn't communicate with its citizens. Anarchy quickly took hold and the people who had survived the environmental disasters began dying in droves.
In the heart of Alcheregis' underground facility, a great gout of energy ripped through the buildings as the planet's core shifted. It flooded the labs and irradiated the people within. Cut off from their headquarters, Param gave the order to seal the facility and wait out the aftermath. Little did they know that from that day on their bodies would stop aging, freezing them in time as living relics as their world fell into ruin.
---
When all was said and done, only a fraction of the planet's original population remained. They had been scattered across the now-fractured landmasses and had no communication with each other. Much of their vaunted technology had been reduced to unusable metal relics and with it, their entire electronically recorded history was largely lost. The predominant society that began to rebuild was heavily influenced by the Rougeon mentality, with a heavy emphasis on the natural order of the planet and a near-reverence of Bonded, began to emerge. Eveything had to be developed again, even the calendar system. They reclaimed the planet as Aquavitae and the past era became referred to asRiesling, or the Lost World.
So began the Era of Anjou.