SRNissen/SrN Ages

Hong: And to be honest, IMO it sounds as jarring there as it does in Sidereals. Maybe it's not as jarring, but only because Sidereals is more overtly archaic in the rest of its content, and so the technobabble stands out more by comparison.

Me: That's fair

Hong: Essentially, you have a First Age of which little is known, except there was enough magi(tech) to make you glow in the dark. Then you have the current era, where everything's sunk back into war and desperation and bad stuff. In the middle you have an era where technothriller jargon is apparently prevalent. I can handle the first part going to the third part. The second part is rather nuts.

Me: Ah, but you're wrong.

A Short History of Creation, as Written by a Dude whose Books are in Another City but Seriously, I've Got Pretty Good Memory.

You had an age where humans were basically stone-age and the Mountain Folk are busy with their Industrial Revolution and Dragon Kings have already started in on small-scale genetic engineering and custom crystal growth.

Then humans have the early warrior-culture phase, engineered by one of the Celestial War gods(1) to boost humans to a capable race, fit as the Chosen Race for the Incarna to Exalt.

Then you have, intermixed with each other, a bronze/iron age and an Exaltation phase. This is followed very shortly with a magic phase that is not the result of an industrial revolution, but rather Dragon King and Mountain Folk assistance.

Then you have Warrior Exalts with Daiklaves and superheavy artifact plate. They're mostly in the essence 3-5 rate. They defeat the Primordials, killing X of them and destroying the X basic attributes of creation that those X primordials represented.

Somewhere during that phase, AFAIK, Chejop Kejak was born.

Then you have the Primordial Surrender, which was probably regarded by all as a Good Idea(tm).

Then you have a short age of semi-medieval stuff, with magic. Emphasis on short. Those Twillights, No-Moons and Chosen of Secrets didn't just sit around and do nothing

This gives you a technomagic industrial revolution as Exalted of all stribes work together with gods, demons, Mountain Folk, dragon kings and sundry other essence wielders to craft what is commonly known as the FIRST AGE. Technically the First Age started just before the Primordial War, but this part is the actual period of enlightenment. This part is what others look back upon fondly when they gaze on the ruins of Chiaroscuro or Hull�vr. This age has Technomagic, Essence Vision Goggles, Dragon Armor, Essence Cannons, Plasma Repeaters, Shock Pikes, Flame Lances, Ashigary Power Armor, Gunzota Power Armor, Warstriders and all kinds of fantastic wonders like the genetically engineered angels from Caste Book: Idon'tremember and the artificial intelligence in Aspect Book: Whatshisface. There are a lot more things here that I don't recall, but trust me on this, the First Age was techno-magical.

Then you have a couple of decades worth of Mad Solars. Not mad as in Happy-fun-whacky-Solars. Mad as in Let-me-demonstrate-the-principles-of-Zen-Gardening-to-you-by-spreading-your-intestines-in-an-aestethically-pleasing-manner-Solars. This is technically still the first age, but it's not really enlightened any more.

Then USURPATION! Booya! Virtuous Sidereals heroically sacrifice some other people for the almost-good of the world!

Then we get to the Shogunate. The surviving first-age Factory Cathedrals mean the Terrestrial Exalted can keep about half of the technology working. This includes such gems as Dragon Armor, Warstriders, GunzotaSRNissen/Ashigary Power Armor, all the direct-strike essence weapons from Outcaste, Fuel Bolt Launchers and all the other fancy firearms from the Players Guide, as well as some other things. The Lookshy Manse was probably built during this period, as well as a large number of Essence-based WMD's like the Crystal Essence-bomb detonated at the Gunzota Redoubt.

Then the deathlords spread the Contagion and the Fair Folk invade. The Scarlet Empress uses the Imperial Manse defense systems (Read: Nuclear Weapons Strategic and Tactical Deployment Room) to rain colourless fire and lots of rocks down on the fair folk and takes possession of the Realm. Since so much of the world is lost to the fair folk (Including most, if not all, Factory Cathedrals) and due to the technological limite inherent in the feudal system, the general tech of the world is much diminished.

RY 763: The empress disappears. The Jade cage for the Solar Exaltation Shards is opened. RY 768: Current Day.

Or, in short: The technomagical feel has been a part of the setting since almost the start of the game, when the genetically engineered angels appeared in one of the Caste books.

(1)Thank you Ahlat!

Commentary

Actually... the First Age was considered to have lasted an unknown amount of time, typically considered a few thousand years before it all went to heck when the solars slowly went mad, the lunars bestial and the siderals did their projections on the future. This is known since it's roughly 5000+ years since the Autochtonians fled creation with their Primordial, which is also noted to take place AFTER the Primordial war was won. It should also be noted that there are dates found in the Mountain Folk section of the Fair Folk book. ~ Haku

I know. That's the age I describe with the paragraph "This gives you a technomagic industrial revolution as Exalted of all stribes work together." I know I say, in the next paragraph, "A couple of decades," but that refers solely to the time where the Solars grew so decadent and immoral that the Sidereals were forced to cast their prophesy and carry out the Night of Long Knives - SRNissen