The Aegis war is long in the past. The temporal storms have cleared
away for the most part, there are still temporal anomalies all over
the Last World, but time has once again started to run linearly and in
a consistent direction.
Humanity begins to rebuild itself. There is no memory of what has
come before, but ruins and artifacts remain, and much knowlege is
relearned more easily than it is learned.
Cities and principalities form and people start to rebuild
civilization. Out of this the Empire forms. Once it was a republic, though
those times are forgotten. The Empire has ruled for as long as people
can remember, some five or six hundred years perhaps.
The Empire is much like Rome, but with greater technology. There has
never been a nation strong enough to rival the Empire so technology
has not progressed as quickly as it might have if war had demanded it.
Their technology is extremely refined, as it's been at it's current
level for a couple hundred years. Expect mechanical things to be ornatelyh detailed and be very refined, with few unneccessary parts.
Transportation consists of steam-powered locomotives,
dirigibles, some sorts of motor vehicles, though personal automobiles
would be almost unheard of except for the extremely rich or the odd
crazy inventor type. They'd look like Duesenburgs and Morgan Motor
company cars.
We're not quite sure what powers the steam engines. By this point in
the future, any easily accessible coal or oil deposits have been
tapped out. They don't have super sophisticated mining technology
like we do today. One idea I'd like to explore is them using methane
from landfills as a source of power. There's still presumably
billions of tons of garbage buried around the world.
Wind power would be used extensively. Most homes would have a
windmill to provides power. Not electrical probably, more likely gear
and pully type arrangments to power all sorts of household tasks.
The society which has developed is for the most part fully
sustainable. This is party because there's not a huge amount of
natural resources to plunder.
Sail still rules on the sea. There are a few steamships around, but
clipper ships are faster and more reliable and dominate the trading routes. The Empire maintains a modest
navy, with some impressive battleships and scores of smaller vessels,
but with no major naval adversaries, there isn't much need for a large
navy.
There is a pirate problem. Though the majority of pirates are
actually privateers in the employ of the Empire, there are enough
freelance pirates to be a bit of a thorn in the Empire's side.
More problematic are the skypirates. The Empire maintains a vast
airship fleet as it's primary means of exerting influence. There is
also substantial merchant and passenger aiship traffic. These are the
primary targets of skypirates.
Airships are a mix of propeller and sail powered and are either lighter than air or nearly lighter than air. For downwind runs
sails are used to improve speed and fuel efficiency. Propellers are
powered by steam, or on smaller ships, human power via some pedal sort
of apparatus.
There are some heavier than air "aeroplanes" around, but they're aren't very efficient and are generally only used as short range interceptors by larger imperial airships. These aeroplanes are probably similar to modern ultralight aircraft relying on a large, light wing and minimal body weight to overcome the limitations of engine technology, which isn't light enough to power smaller aircraft.
Skypirates often form groups of three or four ships, but seldom do
more ships form allegiances. Those who take to the sky to seek a bounty are generally trying to escape authority and oppression on the ground.
Somewhat separate from the skypirates are the Skyborne. They are a
civilization that has developed in the air. They trace their roots
back to the Aegis war, and are probably the only people on the planet
who have any knowlege of the war at all. By going aloft and forming a
close-knit society they were able to avoid the worst of the temporal
storms and anomalies and managed to maintain some sort of history.
We don't know much about their technology, but it's quite advanced.
Presumably they would have started out with Aegis war level technology
which would be the pinnacle of human technology some hundreds of years
in our future. This wouldn't all have lasted, and it's been thousands
of years since then so much has probably been forgotten, and they
don't have any landbased facilities to manufacture things. They
probably rely heavily on advanced solar power for their energy needs.
Another faction that opposes the Empire is the Burbah people. They're
a nomadic people from the frozen hinterlands of the South and are known
throughout the Empire as being extremely unforgiving. We suspect that
the Burbah are in fact a warm and friendly folk as most who live in
the snow are, bujt have a bad reputation due to Imperial propaganda.
They are fierce warriors however, and have been involved in a small
war with the Empire for three generations. The Empire's technological
might is impeded by the frigid environment and the Burbah are able to
outfight some of the Empire's best troops. The Empire however has a
much larger pool of troops to draw from and the Burbah are starting to
run out of sons to send to war.
The Empire is composed of some two or mayhe three hundred millions of
people. The population of the Earth on the whole is probably
significantly less than one billion people.
We don't know much about the Emporer himself. We don't even know his name.
The Amber Guard are the Emporer's shock troops. They go wherever it
is neccessary to show Imperial might. They fight in squads of five
men, called maniples. Twenty maniples to a century, five centuries
to a cohort, ten cohorts to a legion, 5000 men.
The Imperial Army is organized in much the same way. There's likely
only one legion of Amberguard, or possibly a century of Amber Guard in
each legion. There's likely twently legions total in the Imperial
Army.
We need cool rank insignia for the Army. If you want to design it,
submit some samples.
There are probably major cities and principalities that are not
completely pro-Empire, and some that are entirely opposed.
There are probably some smaller autonomous nations that the Empire maintains friendly trading relationships with. Being too small to be a threat to the Empire and too far away or independent to conquer and colonize they've been left to their own devices and have developed in their own ways.