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Post by Insano-Man on Mar 3, 2019 13:48:20 GMT -5
This topic is a child of the Set article directory.GET UP & LEAVEEvery once in a while, Set gets that itch. It looks around its neck of space and decides it's seen enough. It packs its bags, calls in the kids, and picks out a new spot in space to settle down in. It never skimps on real estate, either. It picks the place where the garden'll grow in the summer and where the rain'll fall in winter. It makes sure it's just radioactive enough to keep the kettle boiling without spoiling the roast. If someone doesn't like it, it's got the gravitational muscle to slap them out of the way. Set's picky. If it wasn't, it'd be an airless rock nobody would love. The sad fact about it all is that, as silly as it sounds, that's the best explanation anyone's ever come up with. No one knows why Set's wandering. No one knows how it wanders, how it finds a new home, or how it keeps itself habitable. No one knows when, where, or what it'll be orbiting. No one knows how long it's been doing it. No one knows how long it'll be before it does it again. It's one of the planet's great curses. If you're not there when it leaves, you'll never find it again. If you're onboard for the ride, you'll never find your way back. Whenever it's been responsible for dodging a bullet, it's usually because it jumped in front of it in the first place.
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Post by Insano-Man on Mar 3, 2019 13:49:58 GMT -5
JUMP PHASESWhen Set makes a move, it does it big. Tinglings, rumblings, and fireworks - nothing's left to the imagination. With all the time it spends waiting, it's not much of a surprise. Planetary jumps happen infrequently, usually at no quicker than once every 2 years and no slower than once every 100. Each jump places the planet in a new home system, never in the same place twice. Most scientists believe that Set's jumps are wormhole transits across the universe staged by some artificial effort. Some are even bold enough to say that it's thanks to the planet's core - and with the Gate of Legend hiding down there, it's not that crazy to believe. There are three major stages of any given jump, carried out like clockwork whenever it happens, with a fourth as a cartographical formality. Explaining them has kept scientists and archaeologists busy and bickering for at least a millennium and change. Whatever it is that keeps the planet ticking and travelling, all anyone has to go on are the results. The following is a list of jump phases and their effects, both on the planet and its inhabitants. No two jumps are alike, so some of these phases may be more potent on some jumps than others. - Each jump starts with a preparatory phase that lasts no more than three seconds on a slow day. Sprees of geodisplacements spring into effect all across the planet. Record checking on structures pulled up from the Chambers of Myth suggests that the appearance rate rapidly accelerates during this time. Phenomenon such as green lights dancing in deeper caverns are a common sighting. Terrorscape activity ramps up by orders of magnitude. Out in the meatscapes, monsters lose their appetite - even if it's only for a few seconds.
For people on the surface, the time before a jump comes with an awful feeling of anxiety, nausea, and a general loss of the senses. Electrical systems, especially in complex devices like computers, lose precision and reliability. These symptoms are the first inklings of jump sickness, the mystery ailment that affects most of the planet. In orbit and terrorscapes, jump sickness hits like a hammer by comparison. In the meatscapes, it's light as a feather - if anyone even notices. No research has ever born fruit on why jump sickness affects some areas more than others. The impact on wiring and electronics is an absolute mystery. - The transit phase is the jump itself. Viewed from outside, Set simply vanishes into a black puncture in the universe. It disappears from one location and appears instantaneously in another. Where it lands is so tightly controlled that even most scientists only have divinity as a plausible answer. In all jumps, without one failure, Set has landed in the thin habitable range appropriate for humanity and redworlders. It has maintained its relative velocity, orbital trajectory, axial tilt, and all other celestial attributes that define it as its own kind of Earth. Its parent star is never quite Sol, but Set's always known how to work around it.
Geodisplacement events happen at their most intense and immense at the precise moment of the jump. Entire continents can shift across the planet faster than the eye can blink. Oceans can flood orbit, chasms can rip open landmasses, and bad jokes like the Well of Japes can pop into existence. On most jumps, the game of musical chairs skews more on the side of caution, but there is never any guarantee on what might happen. Terrorscapes tend to move around more than placid terrain. Meatscapes - much to the majority of the planet's good fortune - usually stay static. Appearances in the Chambers of Myth follow suit; scores of structures and land formations appear right at the time of the jump.
Jump sickness's worst symptoms happen right at the time of the jump. All across the planet, consciousness simply winks off. Nervous activity completely halts for an infinitesimal moment. Electrical systems shut down hard all the same. The unconsciousness lasts for roughly a minute. Most people claim an intimate feeling of cold, bleak death on waking. For the small slice of people who stay conscious, the experience has been described as existing as an infinitely long string of pain between two overlapping points in the universe. For the even smaller selection of people who've stayed conscious in orbit, most claim to have seen a green aura enveloping the planet at the moment of the jump. Some even claim to have seen golden lightning striking out from the meatscapes. - The stabilization phase is the terminus of a jump. This phase can last anywhere from a few minutes on up to several weeks. During jump stabilization, geodisplacements and Chambers appearances start winding down from their high during the transit phase. Geological activity shoots up, both on its own and in response to major geodisplacements. People and computers start waking back up, airplanes and spacecraft start falling out of the sky, and life tries to go back to normal. Terrorscapes stay feisty for days after.
During the stabilization phase, jump sickness's lasting effects start to take form. These impacts are collectively known as either "jump scars", for obvious reasons, or "reassembly glitches", after the MASTER network effects of the same style. Jump scars are an unpredictable array of molecular alterations to every living and non-living thing on the planet. In most cases, it's nothing more than a headache. In some cases, tumors, full-blown cancer, and other genetic malfunctions crop up. In unfortunate cases, vital organs and biochemical processes break down. In extreme and rare situations, people or hardware simply disintegrate or vanish from existence. - The aftermath phase is how people react to a jump. Practically speaking, it never ends. Charting geodisplacements, updating maps, and adapting to new politics - or new neighbors - is a game without a victory condition. Figuring out which planes have crashed, which spacecraft have burned up, and who's up and vanished are all mysteries that like to go unsolved. Parts replacement on jump-scarred hardware is a guessing game only patience has an answer for. Debugging and garbage hauler reboots stay ongoing for years after. Days, months, or years later, when buildings start popping out of the Chambers of Myth like an artillery barrage, it's all just par for the course.
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Post by Insano-Man on Mar 3, 2019 13:51:14 GMT -5
JUMP HISTORY
Set's jump history is long, cluttered, and mixed up six ways to Saturday by all the holes in the planet's past. To top it off, not every jump was memorable enough for people to note it down. Some didn't even come with a wave of jump sickness to let everyone know. The gaps and inconsistent impacts mean figuring out when - or even if - a jump happened is as much a matter of archaeology as it is book keeping. No one knows when it all started, when it might end, or when the next one is coming up. The following is a list, likely not exhaustive, of all jumps that made the cut for the history books.
- The First Jump (250-300 OSC)
- Jump #2 (Unknown)
- Jump #3 (Unknown)
- Jump #4 (Unknown)
- Xask's Destruction (380-550 OSC)
- Jump #6 (Unknown)
- Jump #7 (Unknown)
- Well of Japes' Formation (400-450 OSC)
- Jump #9 (Unknown)
- Unionites' Arrival (490-520 OSC)
- Patzaghd's Formation (550-580 OSC)
- Jump #12 (Unknown)
- Jump #13 (Unknown)
- Evispin's Eruption (680-720 OSC)
- Jump #15 (Unknown)
- Jump #16 (Unknown)
- Jump #17 (Unknown)
- Jump #18 (Unknown)
- Jump #19 (Unknown)
- Jump #20 (Unknown)
- Blackworlders' Arrival (770-830 OSC)
- Patzaghd-Evispin Merger (770-840 OSC)
- Splinter Wars Onset (780-850 OSC)
- Splinter Wars Conclusion (790-860 OSC)
- Jump #25 (Unknown)
- Jump #26 (Unknown)
- Jump #27 (Unknown)
- Jump #28 (820 OSC)
- Jump #29 (833 OSC)
- Jasinna's Detachment (990 OSC)
- Ventannen's Formation (1021 OSC)
- Jump #32 (1083 OSC)
- Jump #33 (1085 OSC)
- Jump #34 (1103 OSC)
- Jump #35 (1131 OSC)
- Jump #36 (1155 OSC)
- Darimesa's Formation (1251 OSC)
- Jump #38 (January 3rd, 1287 OSC)
- Jump #39 (August 10th, 1309 OSC)
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