A BRIEF TIMELINE OF AENYAN HISTORY

Timeline of Aenyan History

by

Eldin

Key: 

BGM = Before the Greater Moon

AGM = After the Greater Moon

> 8,000,000,000 BGM ----- Solos forms in the Milky Way Galaxy, 3 billion years before Sol (the sun of Earth) a white star with thirteen planets. Among these are proto-Reptos, proto-Aenya, and the gas giant Infinity. As the rocky planets cool, the first microorganisms emerge, giving rise to Life. On Aenya, she will come to be known as the Goddess.

>100,000 BGM ----------- Early Aenya is covered with oceans and tropical forests. In this environment, a hairless child is born to an ape like creature. This "naked" child can shed heat more efficiently and run longer than any other animal. With weapons made of wood and obsidian, she becomes the greatest hunter on the planet. Her name is Ilma, and she is the first proto-human. Migrating quickly about the planet, the early proto-humans are hunters, gatherers, and farmers. They build fire, make simple domiciles of mud-brick, and use atlatls and throwing spears. Due to an idyllic climate, clothing is never developed. At around the same time, the more advanced, amphibious merquid species starts to build elaborate cities of coral beneath the oceans.      

>10,100 BGM ------------ On Reptos, the planet closest to Solos, a species known as the "Forgotten," or Xexaz, reaches a pinnacle of scientific and philosophical development. But as the centuries pass, the Xexaz become apathetic and slothful, and are conquered by a less advanced reptilian race, the Septhera.

10,000 – 9000 BGM ----- Solos begins to expand into a red giant, subsuming Reptos. Using borrowed technology, the Septhera escape their doomed world, settling on the neighboring sister planet of Aenya. Merquid escape Septheran rule by hiding in their underwater cities. But the primitive ilman, or proto-human, is quickly enslaved, though large numbers manage to escape into the Mountains of Nimbos, evolving into the avian race, while in the river valleys of Ukko, the ilman remain undiscovered for millennia, keeping to their simple traditions. Thus begins the Dark Age of Man.

9900 BGM ---------------- Batal martyrs himself fighting the Septhera, inspiring mankind to rebellion. Eldin dies millennia before his birth.

9800 BGM ---------------- After a century of warfare, the Septhera are exterminated. Humanity joins together under the banner of the Zo (named after the Goddess of Life) to form a more advanced society.

9000 — 2000 BGM ------ Civil war ravages the planet, as the Nova Knights, the military arm of the Zo, fight to dominate those who would remain without rule. In short time, every human is made to acknowledge the Zo governing body, the Ascendency. With peace restored, splendid cities spread globally, and the capital city of Tyrnael is founded at the pole, in the center of the Crown of Aenya Mountains.

c. 1999 — 200 BGM ---- Zo scientists re-engineer Xexaz technology for their own use, boasting mastery over physics. In the decades following, weapons of dead-sun matter are forged, and portals bridging space-time, Fantastigates, are opened.

c. 120 BGM --------------- Mathematician and historian Eldin becomes fascinated with filling gaps in the historical record. After his discovery of “strange angles in space-time” he disappears.

40 BGM ------------------- The Zo philosopher Kjus warns the Ascendancy against excesses of technology, which he believes harmful to human identity, arguing that, “Knowledge not tempered by wisdom sows destruction.” To achieve immortality, the Zo begin transferring their consciousnesses into golems.

5 BGM --------------------- Solos' expansion begins to heat up the planet. To save Aenya from falling into the sun's corona, Zo engineers create a mass piston at the core, using dead sun matter to swing Aenya into a more hospitable orbit, but the Zo lose faith in the project and choose, instead, to escape to a new world in an invincible golem known as Horde. After a heated debate with Kzell, a scientist and engineer, Kjus rejects the Zo Ascendancy and their plan, choosing to remain in exile, to age and in time, die as a mortal man.

0 AGM -------------------- Aenya is moved by the mass piston, but passes too closely to the gas giant, Infinity, falling under its gravitational influence to become “tidally locked”. Volcanoes, earthquakes, ash, and acid rain devastate the world’s ecosystems. The Ocean evaporates, becoming the Dead Zones. The Dark Hemisphere forms. Human civilization turns to ruin. At the same time, the Zo Ascendancy escapes in the body of Horde. This is known as the Great Cataclysm, and so begins the second Dark Age of Aenya. From everywhere on the planet, the gas giant can be seen in the sky. Historians mark this time as After the Greater Moon.

5 AGM ------------------- Kjus’ search for simplicity leads him to the valley of Ilmarinen, where he finds the Ilmar, a race untouched by time. He builds the Monastery of Alashiya in the Mountains of Ukko, to preserve the wisdom of the Zo, while safeguarding its technology from those who lack the wisdom to use it.

c. 40 AGM ---------------- Vegetation freezes in the Dark Hemisphere and burns away in the Dead Zones. Within forty years, ninety percent of all surface species perish. Mass migrations result, concentrated along the Potamis River, and the one remaining Sea. Other creatures remain in the Dark Hemisphere, to live under the planet’s crust, thriving off the heat of thermal vents and chemosynthetic vegetation. Underground cities reach as deep as the core, in tunnels left by Zo engineers. In the North, the descendants of the once great capital of Tyrnael, or Mythradanaiil, as it is known to the outside world, continue to thrive amidst the ruins.

c. 40 AGM — 4999 AGM ----- Continuous wars break out over resources. Humans from the Dark Hemisphere evolve into two distinct species, the bogren and the horg.

5000 AGM --------------- Having fallen to ruin, the island of Aea sends a convoy with a copy of Eldin’s history to find a new home on the coast of Sarnath. They mingle with the merquid natives, but as the immigrant population explodes, the merquid are pushed from their homes along the shore and into the Sea. Hedonia is founded.

6300 AGM --------------- Zogbak the Wrangler Chief's bogren armies sweep across Aenya to the Potamis River. Over a hundred villages are lost, including the fabled city-state of Kormingar. Zogbak’s rule comes to an end when a rival bogren party forms a truce with a legion of displaced Kormingans, including Jennick the Batal.

7000 AGM ---------------- Barbarians ransack Hedonia. This creates a mistrust of “uncivilized” peoples. The city later begins its expansion policy, based on securing its borders, subsuming other coastal states, which include Thetis and Thalassar, to form the Hedonian Empire.

7036 AGM --------------- At Sternbrow Hill, Barda and Atan meet for the last time, to conclude a twenty-seven year civil war. Hemon the Batal is said to have fought so valiantly as to inspire a lasting truce between the rival city-states.  

8600 AGM ---------------- Northern frontiersmen fashion Hoarfrost, an immense mead hall in the Crown of Aenya Mountains. Terraced settlements grow overnight. Walls are added to defend against subhuman invaders, resulting in the formation of the city of Northendell.

10,011 AGM -------------- Xandr is born.

10,035 AGM -------------- Radia Noora of Tyrnael assumes the throne of Aenya.