Comic:Beautiful Skies
From CGWiki
| Beautiful Skies | |
|---|---|
| Artist: | Author:Kilre |
| Writer: | Author:Kilre |
| Characters: | Cast |
| Updates: | Sunday, Thursay |
| Began: | March 24, 2005 |
| Ended: | Ongoing |
| Art style: | Comic_Book/Manga |
| Rating: | Web MA |
| Website | Website |
This page is Under Construction! This article is NOT a stub!
Beautiful Skies is a webcomic about the future of mankind, following thousands of years of horrible mistakes and violence against the whole of the galaxy, and the human race itself.
Contents |
Beautiful Skies: History
From A.D. 2100 to the Present
REWRITING HISTORY
Timeline Synopsis
2100-2144 A.D.: Terraforming of Venus and Mars; Colonization of Moon. Islamic fundamentalist revival.
2145-2151 A.D.: First Child of Lamarck: Lance; protests from fundamentalist groups; kidnapping and execution of Lance by extremist group, December 2148-2150 A.D.; Extremist group executed.
2152-2199 A.D.: Enlightenment: Christian revival; Zooist movement begins, 2152 A.D.; Persecution of scientists and clinics that perpetuate the Zooist genetic splicing; Religious sect set up in Russia, Mexico, Italy, and United States; Sect plans to start the next world war and take over in the aftermath. 2180 A.D. Interstellar Council is set up by Martian and Lunar colonists, with plans to bring Earth and Venus into the Council. Genetic splicing more prevalent in colonies than fundamentalist Earth; rift between Earth and colonies grows; colonization of Mars begins.
2200-2230 A.D.: Insurgence and War:
Earth history: Beginning of third World War, February 2200; 2202 Interstellar Council blockades Earth, shooting down ships that try to get offworld. Russia declares victory after nuking several countries into submission, 2203. War taxed resources, most countries left in poverty and ruin. New dark age begins on Earth as riots disrupt productions.
Offworld history: 2200Venus, Mars, and Lunar City supplies cut off as all resources are put into the war; Martian and Lunar supplies run thin; 2202 harvesting of asteroids for raw materials begins, production of additional farms, blockade of Earth; 2206 Colonies declare independence under the new government of the Interstellar Council; Mars set up as homeworld. 2210 Expeditions to Jupiter and Pluto to set up watch stations. 2230 Rift starts to grow between two factions of the Children of Larmarck: one to stay in the home system, the other to leave for the stars.
2230-2300: Colonial Expansion:
Earth history: 2235: Widespread diseases kill majority of the remaining world population. 2259: The boy who would begin the Fellowship is born. 2274: The Fellowship's founder starts receiving the Words and begins preaching to his village of his enlightenment.
Offworld history: Colonies set up on Pluto as refueling point for starships leaving the Solar System, 2231. Over half of the Interstellar Council leaves Sol System for other worlds, using experimental engines for faster travel. 2240: mining incident in the remains of the Asteroid Belt causes an asteroid to hit Mars, sending up dust clouds that block the Sun; the gardens that still relied on solar energy (60% of them) are left dead, and the Famine of 2241 begins.
History of the Geno-typers
The Genos are the descendants of the colonists who left the Interstellar Council to rot in the Solar System, and spread out along the arms of the Milky Way. They founded hundreds of colonies, improved starship engines to travel the stars, and put plasma casting weapons into common use. After several hundred years of relative peace, the agents of the Fellowship could be found preaching to the masses on almost every colony world, excepting the trash worlds like Constantine XII. The political refugees and dregs of society watched from hiding on Constantine XII as their galaxy slowly came under the rule of the Empyr from Earth.
After Constantine XII gained it's status as a colony world, renaming itself Beautiful Skies, the Empyr took notice of the untouched souls and sent preachers en masse. It was the first step towards war. The colonists of Beautiful Skies did not like the Empyr encroaching upon their freedoms, and rebelled barely 50 years after gaining colony status. It was not long before the other colony worlds started to follow Beautiful Skies' example; however, the other worlds did not have the defenses that Beautiful Skies had spent a century constructing, while it was still Constantine XII. The Geno rebels on Beautiful Skies watched as their fellow colony worlds were burned, all the while fighting small skirmishes with the Empyr, waiting and dreading their turn at the flames.
When the Empyr's fleets finally converged on the rebel world, they were utterly crushed, to the surprise of both sides. The Empyr limped back to the Sol System, the Genos in hot pursuit with every ship that could still fly. As the Geno armada passed the Empyr's colonies on Pluto, the Jovian moons, and Mars, they returned the favor and obliterated them. Cornering the Empyr in the skies over Earth, the Genos finished off their enemy and started to lay waste to Earth. Before they could finish the job, 7 of the Genos' generals mutinied. Having to fight their own forces taxed the remainder of the Geno fleet, now reduced to a few capital ships and fighters, and they left the Sol System to return to Beautiful Skies, broken and dispirited.
History of the Fellowship
The Religs, or, as they originally called themselves, the Fellowship, have a long history going back to just after the third World War, while Earth was landlocked by the Interstellar Council. In the cold wastes of Russia, a following arose around a boy preaching a better way to live, following 10 words passed from his God to the boy. Eventually, the new religion spread around the world, but not before the boy was martyred by fearful Christians. This action caused the already tense world, almost on the verge of a fourth World War between the remnants of the Christian and Islamic strongholds, to plunge headlong into the last major war that would take place on Earth soil for more than a thousand years, until the Genos would come to burn the world in the Empyr War.
The Fellowship came out as the leading power in the Fourth War, and began seeking a way for the stars that were denied them several hundred years previous. They would take their religion to the stars. And so they did, easily breaking past the ancient, and quite dead, orbital satellites and stations the Interstellar Council had left. It did not take long for the Fellowship to subvert the many colony worlds with their Words, and thus the Empyr was born. After Beautiful Skies, then Constantine XII, a trash planet, rebelled, and the First Interstellar War began, the Empyr rapidly began to lose it's hold on the colony worlds, and, in an act of desperation burned the colonies that rebelled. Only Beautiful Skies was able to survive the onslaught, and pushed the Fellowship back to Earth. Once there, the Genos burned Earth, but left it after 7 of their generals mutinied. The 7 generals were remembered by the Fellowship, and are now the patron saints of the religion.
After a thousand years of rebuilding, the Fellowship once again sought the stars, and, forgetting the lessons of the past, rapidly colonized the Solar System and the surrounding systems, trying desperately to relieve the over stressed resources of Earth. The Fellowship took their religion with them, dutifully founding new colonies in the name of the One Who Passed the Words, the One God. Eventually, the Fellowship found Beautiful Skies, still hurting from the Empyr War. The two sides met for the first time in a thousand years; the Genos remembered their enemy, but knew relief that the Fellowship didn't remember their feud. However, that was not to last. Access to the Geno's data nets soon revealed to the Fellowship that the Genos had caused their strife so many centuries ago; not only that, but a majority of the Genos were Godless heathens. It was a double blow. In a surprise attack, the Fellowship dropped nukes on the Geno megalopolis of Barrild, killing billions. War was immediately declared on both sides, and has been raging for the past 11 1/2 years.
Beautiful Skies: Planet Information
Beautiful Skies is located in a binary star system called Eta Cassiopeiae, roughly twice the distance to the Sol system as the Sirius system, if not moreso. The two stars are a yellow dwarf star and an orange dwarf that is much cooler.
The planet itself is hollow, a construct built long before any human habitation. Normal planetary functions, such as the flow of the magnetic field, and the changes in the weather, are completely a byproduct of the makeup of the interior scaffolding; the planet tips regularly in its orbit, moving from an axial tilt of 5? to an axial tilt of 20?, causing regular shifts in the weather patterns. There are many other planets floating around like this: they are the remnants left from a monstrous undertaking by some of the first Geno-typer explorers, specifically a faction that was both rather ahead in its technology for the time and one that was also mysteriously wiped out of existence not long after creating their machine planets. For the most part, this small subset of the Geno-typers did not ever get a chance to colonize their own planets. The giant machine planets were constructed to handle the normal tidal forces of gravity wells like any other celestial body, and also to recycle their surfaces not unlike tectonically active planets. The entire surface of the planet is held up by a series of giant pillars made of a hybrid of iron and silicates, heavily metamorphosed.
The ecosystem created by the makers was generally considered to be simple, in terms of the number of organisms, but it is complex enough to support itself. The druktakt, a giant centaur-like being, originally designed to be the top predator on the planet, was still alive by the time of the Last Enlightenment War, mainly because of the amazing viciousness and the fact that it does not bleed out when left to die. That, and the druktakt have litters of fifteen every few months.
The entire planet, once removed of all of the garbage that once covered it, is ringed by enormous lines of tree-like silicon-based organisms, called Compass Trees by the locals. They grow along the magnetic field lines of the planet, and are the only stable source of magnetism on the entire planet. The Compass Trees are also the projections, above the surface, of the artificial waterways--their "roots"--that run around the planet, between the surface and the cavernous interior. This waterway flows from the mountain ring on one side of the planet to the low point in the giant valley system on the opposite side; here it is heated and rises again through the system towards the distant mountain ring. The water cycles like this roughly once a week, and along the way several million gallons are shunted to the surface via the Compass Trees at each copse.
For many hundreds of years, the lines of trees were used as transport highways. After the Empyr War, cities tended to stay near or on the equator, negating the need for any sort of major highway north or south of the central belt of the planet. Small farming communities still existed outside of the cityline until the time of the Last Enlightenment War.
Geopolitical Map of the Planet
Definition of Terms
ANGEL: A relig soldier, usually male, with wings and the ability to use them to fly. They are specially trained for aerial combat, and are proud of their high status in the relig heirarchy.
BATTLE RIG: A mobile weapons platform, originally manufactured by the genos before the Last Enlightenment War, but in the opening stages the religs captured the only plant of battle rigs on the planet. Battle rigs are now used exclusively by the religs, which also helps genos with distinguishing targets. Battle rigs are immense treaded vehicles, designed to be troop and regiment carriers, as well as an aeroplane launch and a rocket base.
COMPASS TREE: A bioform native to Beautiful Skies that grows along the planet's magnetic field lines. It closely resembles the trees of Earth, but only visually. Its cellular makeup is closer to that of a rock than Earth plants.
CYBORG: Simply put, a fusion of organic and inorganic components, with the inorganic parts consisting of machinery and/or computer parts. However, like lycanthropy and vampirism, cybory is , contrary to popular belief, a viral contamination of a host organism. Invented before the Last Enlightenment War, the virus is a colony of nanomachines (nanites) that convert portions of the host organism into mechanical aparati. The nanomachines are programmable, but only by psychic interface; devastators carry nanomachines in their bodies that repair flesh and generate biological components, of course using their own cellular makeup to do so. Regular cyborgs are people who have either had a debilitating injury, or are reprogrammed criminals.
CYBORIC: Cyborg that came about via cybory.
CYBORY: A disease normally caused by out-of-control nanomachines in a host body. In worse cases, the host body suffers severe biomech changes that disrupt their normal functions, thus killing the host body. In rare cases, cybory is a sudden and rapid biomechanical change of the host body that alters it to some other, functional, form.
DEVASTATOR: A highly trained, elite kinetic soldier. Used by the Genos as a last-ditch effort to even the strengths of the two sides. Devastators are trained in the use of their abilities for the sole purpose of using them in combat situations, to great effect. In addition to being able to use their minds in combat, devastators are implanted with nanomachines, which they use to repair their bodies, among other things. Devastators are armies unto themselves, capable of decimating entire forces. Until recently, the devastator program was a closely guarded secret within the Genos.
EMPYR OF HUMAN BEINGS: Simply called the Empyr by many, this was the first interstellar and extrasolar government of the human race. It reached several thousand lightyears in diameter at it's height in 2940 A.D. (G 981). As with all goverments, it rotted from the inside over time, and was overthrown by one of it's colonies, Beautiful Skies, in A.D. 4305 (G 2346). The reason that it remained in power for so long was contributed to many factors, the most important of which was that almost all of the citizens, until Beautiful Skies rebelled, were of the same opinion and religion.
FURRY: Derogatory term for those with mammalian traits. Typically refers to a Relig.
GALACTIC DATE: Denoted with the unit G, the galactic calendar started in 1959, when the first man-made object landed on the moon. This dating system is used primarily by genos, and is the standard on Beautiful Skies. Religs use the Anno Domini dating system.
GEN: Slang used to describe an individual who can cause organic objects to grow, and move, with his or her mind. Most Gennis are used as medics, to regrow limbs, organs, tissues, nerves, or bones. Gennis before the war were considered master gardeners.
KINETIC: Slang used to describe an individual who can move objects with his or her mind. Typically large objects, such as spacecraft or cargo boxes. A special class of geno soldiers, the Devastators, are combat Kinetics; they are trained to use their ability in a combat situation.
LAMARCKIAN: Style of evolutionary theory, now defunct. The Lamarckian theory of evolution was that an environment actively changed an organism during its own lifetime, and the changes were passed on to the organism's young. An example of this is the giraffe, who would stretch it's neck to reach higher and higher leaves, and the neck would remain stretched. Therefore, Lamarckian evolution is a change in one organism over one lifetime that can be passed on to the next. An easier example is thus: if you run fast, your offspring, by Lamarck, should also sport long legs automatically, and be able to run fast off the bat. Of course, Lamarckian evolution does not affect the gametes, so compromising an early stab at evolutionary theory. However, it is Lamarckian theory that first surrounded genetic splicing; the hardest part was changing the gametes to carry on the new genes, thus making Lamarck's theory partly true. All animal-like humans existing now are "Children of Lamarck".
NANOMACHINE: A tiny robot, smaller than a nanometer, which operates on the molecular level. There are three classes of nanomachine: infectors, factories, and converters. Infector nanomachines are the basic cybory unit, similar to converters. Factories are common to both cybory and regular nanomachines: they produce more nanomachine from any nearby available materials; the factories either run out of material or are ordered to stop. Converters are the basic nanomachines common to medical units and devastators; they convert nearby material into a material designated by a controller.
PSYCHIC: An individual who can manipulate objects on the quantum level with his or her mind. This can also have two subclasses: Kinetic and Gen.
SCALY: Derogatory term for those with reptilian traits. Typically used to describe a Geno.
WITCH: A psychically gifted woman, usually burned at the stake in past times, but now used by the relig armies as advanced medics. Witches undergo extreme prejudicial training before reaching a battlefield. Many young relig girls kill themselves than go through the "indoctrination" training. Many do not even make it through the training itself. Those that do are immediately shipped to Beautiful Skies.
ZOOIST: Term used to describe the supporters of Lance, the First; Zooists often were Children of Lamarck. The Zooist movement ended after the fourth World War, and Earth was blockaded.
