Nejal Faj-set
The Horizon Consortium Da Ktol Sak-li Vej-gun
Overview
Thread: /nasfaqg/
Formal Name(s): The Horizon Consortium, The New Republic, The Eight Free Colonies
Shortened Name(s): The Eight Colonies, The Republic, The Expedition, Nejal
Demonym: Nejalite
Adjectives: Nejalian, Nejalic (rare), Nasfaqgian (archaic)
Official Languages: High Kat Nol (clerical, legal), Vulgar Amase (popular)
Official Religion: tbd
Capital: Yuvi Haggaja (/juvi ʌggʌʌʒʌ/)
Population: tbd
Meta Idea.
A nation build by a stranded multinational expedition from an alternate history timeline of Vitubia. The current tech level and aesthetics are late-steampubnk mixed with magitech. Think: Somewhere between Piltover and Zaun from League of Legends / Arcane.
Central themes revolve around the conflict between new and old; The central idea is a generational divide between the first settlers, many of whom are still alive due to their abuse of old chuubanite, and the newer generations who are much more in touch with the natural world of Viti. The old generations are completely unable to use the natural magic of Viti, while some of the younger generations are in turn naturally in tune with Viti magic, not unlike the Deadbeats of Morijigoku. Generally (96% of gen 8, much higher percentages of later generations) the Nejalites are Nulls, as their bodies are adapted and evolved to work with a different world and different laws of magic. Some Nejalites are even more averse to Viti magic, being dissonant with it. To these unfortunate few, the very essence of Viti is harmful and causes them pain both physical and spiritual, and on the flipside, their existence is also an anathema to the magical fields of Viti: These people exude a weak magic-disrupting field around themselves. Not enough to nullify magic, but enough to make it unstable and unpredictable.
At the current time, the youngest adult generation is the 8th generation.
History
Vitubia 1.6K
Magiluminous clouds heralding the coming shimmer-rains. Republic Owl, Circa 1300 VTE
A modern day or near future alternate history for Vitubia. Around 1150 VTE, rapid industrialization coupled with ever escalating economic and military competition between different powers led to over-exploitation of natural resources both mundane and magical. By 1400 VTE, a series of runaway ecological catastrophes had left large portions of the globe unsuitable for habitation or agriculture. Widespread chuubanitic pollution directly led to mass die-offs of marine and terrestrial life. Colour-madness and the black wither pandemic left societies all over the globe devastated. By the early 1500s VTE, the global non-schizo population had fallen from the peak of 16 billion to a mere 5 billion, reaching early-industrial levels. Many humanoid subspecies and races, especially aquatic ones, had become extinct on Vitubia by this point.
In a great irony, the only way the nations of Vitubia knew to mitigate the effects of the ecological devastation was to embrace that which had caused it; mass industry, both mundane and magical. Governments and corporations all over the globe formed alliances in an attempt to cope with and fix the damage. Most of these attempts failed as desperation and hunger drove allies to turn on each other. However, a few collaborations proved more successful.
Na Nejal Tezk - The Horizon Project
One such collaboration was "Na Nejal Tezk" or "The Horizon Project": A desperate, half mad attempt by a handful of nations on the eastern hemisphere of Vitubia to assemble a pre-schism 糸切断機関 ("Itosetsudankikan"), a mythological device capable of tearing holes through the fabric of reality, theoretically granting the operators direct access to the magical realm and it's energies.
However, as the device was turned on and the ito were severed, no inexhaustible source of energy was found. Instead the web of ito tangled with each other, regenerating the reality-fabric that the device had torn apart, but in a different shape: In front of the operators a tunnel of swirling colours was woven into existence. The structure was unstable, and within a manner of seconds it collapsed onto itself, but not before spitting out a single live cat-like animal. An autopsy done on the creature revealed that it's body was nearly free from heavy metals and PFAS, and most importantly, the creature was entirely free of chuubanitic toxins. These findings told the operators two things;
Firstly, that the structure was some sort of a gate leading to an unknown location.
Secondly, and much more importantly, that the location in question was clean and habitable for organic life.
Da Nejal Faj-set - The Horizon Consortium
As soon as the news were relayed to the upper leadership of the Horizon Project, the participant powers hurried to act. They would funnel as many resources as necessary to fund research on how to stabilize the gate created by the Itosetsudankikan, while also trying to keep the new discovery a secret from the general public and rival powers. Despite their efforts, news about the gate leaked out into the public. The Horizon Project nations denied the existence of the gate, and publicly painted those who spread the story as dangerous conspiracy theorists. This did little to quell the public, as the vanishing existence of the gate and the promise of salvation it brought had become a societal obsession. Massive protests erupted in each but one of the participant nations, and within a few months the protests escalated into open popular revolts. All the while international pressure to reveal the technology behind the gate grew. The situation was rapidly becoming untenable.
The nail in the coffin of the national governments came when a considerable number of the internal factions of some national institutions and powerful civilian and corporate elements decided to step away from neutrality and enter the conflict on the side of the common people. The resulting civil war was quick but devastating. Politicians and priestesses perceived corrupt or as having lost the grace of the goddesses were replaced with loyal and virtuous ones from the ranks of the rebels and given the task to rule over the ashes of their homelands.
As the dust settled, the winning powers agreed to continue working on figuring a way to reopen and stabilize the gate. After some negotiations and organizing, the winning powers formed an entity whose task it would be to continue working on the Horizon Project. This entity, dubbed "The Horizon Consortium" was a loose alliance of wealthy merchant families, university departments, and megacorporations specializing in chuubanitic technology. The old researchers were given a chance to join or be banished out into the desolation outside the cities. Most chose to pledge their loyalties to the consortium.
The research on the gate continued, and after a couple of years the Horizon Consortium had figured out a way to stabilize the portal - at a great cost. It was discovered that the gate could be momentarily stabilized by a vitubic person releasing their innate energy in a constant high pressure, which created a standing shockwave between the energy and the supersonic ito collapsing onto themselves. The problem was that no vitubic person had enough energy to keep the gate stabilized for more than a handful of seconds, and if the person in question was still standing in front of the gate while it collapsed, their bodies would be crushed by the intense forces of the event.
The Horizon Consortium, after a few dozen attempts with natural vitubic persons, found a solution or perhaps more accurately a workaround to the problem: Attaching tubes into the cranium, vertebrae, and heart of the vitubic person and pumping highly enriched liquid chuubanite ("HELC") into them. This would inundate the person's entire body with vitubium, allowing them to release the energy of the HELC solution as if it was their own. A major upside of this solution was that it would allow even weak vitubic persons to be used for stabilizing the gate.
This process, named after it's inventor as "the Ralthise Process" or "the Ralthise Augments" when referring specifically to the modifications done to the vitubic person, was effective but extremely painful, especially on the spiritual level. Around 2/3rds of the vitubic persons entered catatonic states within hours of holding the gate open. It was decided that the gate would have to be attended by at least 11 augmented vitubic persons at all times. If one of them would fall, unable to continue, the others could cover for them while a replacement was fetched.
With the gate stabilized, the Horizon Consortium could focus on completing the next step of their plans.
Na Vere-li Tezk-set - The Expedition
The first to step through the gate were a small recon force comprised of four elite vitubic marines. Their mission was simple: Travel through the gate, and report back on what was on the other side, and whether what was on the other side was liveable to the people of Vitubia. The mission went without issues, and the marines that came back described having arrived on top of a sunny cliff overlooking a a beautiful vast and clean sea.
Having heard the reports of the four marines, the Horizon Consortium greenlit the sending of an initial wave of 400 settlers through the gate. The first wave was comprised of the best of the best workers the Horizon Consortium could recruit, and some of those who could pay to be included. No families would make their way through the gate yet, as the purpose of the first wave was to send scientists, and engineers to both survey the lands, and to start construction on what would eventually grow to become the City of Yuvi Haggaja.
The first wave arrived to Viti on an overcast night. Some of the settlers, having learnt to rightfully fear rainclouds, felt terrified and wanted to return to Vitubia. Others were fascinated by the dark skies, having only heard mentions of the pre-devastation sky in universities. As the clouds grew heavier and flashes of lightning lit up the shores, the settlers immediately sought shelter and ingested the anti-vitoxin pills that were given to them for these cases. However, what came down from the clouds was not iridescent death nor grey acidic sludge, but clear water. Sighs of disbelief, awe, and relieved laughter broke the steadily growing sound of the rain as the settlers came from under whatever they had found as their panic shelter. Some begun to dance as they embraced the rain with all their heart and soul. A spontaneous dance party formed on the gate-cliff and the beach below it as the realization spread through the crowd. This place truly was the paradise they had been dreaming of ever since hearing about Horizon Project and the cat-like beast that stepped through the gate.
While the others danced and played in the shallow waters of the sea, those of a more stoic composition had begun to set up temporary shelters Having little sources of light outside of their lanterns and Vitulights, it was decided that the best course of action would be to stay near the cliff and the gate for their first night on Viti, and start working in the earnest at dawn.
The first wave would work on the site for two months, all the while small teams of geologists, alchemists, biologists and other scientists arrived through the gate to take measurements and set up auto-instruments around the settled area, before returning to Vitubia through the gate. Eventually a second wave of 400 people would be sent through the gate. This second wave comprised of administrative personnel, medical workers, and agricultural scientists. The goal of the second wave was to make the new settlement more self-sufficient. No longer would wounded or ill settlers have to be sent back to Vitubia through the gate, except in the rare very serious cases of injury of disease.
The settlers quickly came to realize that there was no chuubanite ore to be found in any easily accessible location near the settlement. This meant that most of the technology the settlers had grown accustomed to in their home and had come to already rely on on Viti would not be able to be recharged or repaired on Viti. This made the goal of making the settlement self-sufficient impossible, as large quantities of HELC and HEGC (Highly Enriched Gaseous Chuubanite) had to be transported through the gate in order to keep the settlement and the settler's tools and weapons powered.
Even after the third wave of 1200 settlers came with teams of geologic surveyors of both terrestrial and underwater environments the Horizon Consortium could not find chuubanite on Viti. It was accepted that the settlement would forever be dependent on imports of HELC and HEGC from Vitubia.
Over the next decade, a total of 111 waves of settlers arrived through the gate, totalling to around 180 000 Vitubian settlers. More of the coastlines were mapped out and settled. At some point, the term "Nejalite", referencing the Kat Nol name for the Horizon Consortium, started to be used to refer to the Vitubians living in Viti.
The New Collapse
About a decade after the first wave of settlers, early on a beautiful evening, the gate suddenly collapsed. The colonists did not have and still do not have any idea why the gate collapsed, or why it has not opened ever since. Lacking access to the Itosetsudankikan, the colonists have been unable to reopen the gate to this day, although many within the Nejalite society, especially the rich and powerful, are still trying to re-construct an Itosetsudankikan on Viti.
Modern Day - A summary from Viti perspective
About two hundred years ago a tear in reality opened on one of the northern continents of Viti. An expedition from an alien world stepped out of the rift, settling on the very shore they landed on. Over the next decade, more humanoids of various races and subspecies arrived through the gate and joined the growing Nejalite colonies. Suddenly one day the gate collapsed and it has not reopened ever since. Modern Nejalites live off of limited stockpiles of HELC and HEGC which they have been trying to supplement with local magical resources but to little success. Slowly over the decades the advanced magitech of the Nejalites deteriorated and broke down, forcing their society to regress to a lower level of technological advancement. What few functional tools and weapons still remain are treated as powerful mythical artefacts from the past.