Astral - Future

Astral

In the great expanse of the stars, three mighty forces exist. The Earth Empire, known equal parts for it's benevolence and military might, the Illirian Dominion, known for it's lust for conquest, and the Kivaran Republic and it's scientific progress. Of those, on the Earth Empire a strange millennial tradition exists… Adventurers. Of all walks of life, of all ranges of age, of all kinds of forms, adventurers are those with a desire for discovery, for danger, for adventure, they are those who would set off in the unknown to find out what is there, and on their way help those… Well, those who ask. And you, in this year of 5122, are a group of them.

((As a note, [[O.R.D World]] provides a lot of info as it is the same setting, as does [[Split Worlds]] as it also exists in the setting))

The Galaxy

The galaxy is known by a few different names, Milky Way for earthlings, the Dark Realm (an allusion to their belief that everything bathed in darkness is their by right) for illirians and White Storm (due to it's similarity to white sand storms) by Kivarans. It is home to an immense amount of peoples, many still left undiscovered and underdeveloped. Ancient earthling theories about a 'great filter' were proven quite wrong with Earth itself being the strangest exception in the galactic community.
Although the Illirian conquest has ensured they have not integrated into the greater galactic community, even they will perform black market deals using Gil. Gil is the monetary system used by the Earth Empire, which eventually became the intergalactic monetary standard not on account of earthling economy being a dominating one but because they were the leaders in the unification of the financial systems of the galaxy. Actually the new monetary system has retained only the name of Earth's currency, but still works vastly different. (i'm no expert in this area however, and neither are you, so that can remain vague).
Planets are officially classified in four different categories based on their function to their allegiance and their population: Homeworld, Capital, Colony and Outpost

  • Homeworld: The origin land of a species, a homeworld is a homeworld because of that. Either way they tend to be the most densely populated planets and the earthling and illirian homeworlds are the only fully-industrialized worlds without any more wilderness.
  • Capital: Capital worlds contain a great amount of population and various cities, often serving as industrial or administrative centers. Those vastly populated worlds are greatly varied but often only 30~45% covered in cityscape, the rest remaining wild. Capital worlds are few, the highest number of capital worlds at the moment is held by the Illirians with 12. Earthling capital worlds tend to be somewhat unique in that their architecture and construction heavily combines natural elements with industrial elements in various manners, Kivaran construction methods using heavily of biologic/metallic hybrid materials leads to beautiful cities full of rounded edges and structures that grow upwards faster than sideways while illirian capital worlds tend to have either vastly populated shorelines or glimmering artificial basins carved into the land for their cities.
  • Colony: Colony worlds tend to have four or five cities, mostly producing natural goods from extraction, agriculture and raising of animals. They're the countryside, on a galactic scale, and are the most common with the highest number of them held by the earth empire at a couple hundred, they are where the majority of the population actually resides, in a surprising twist. Being the countryside, however, does not means being backwater, due to the high level of integration in the earth empire and kivaran republic they are often with the same kinds of facilities and eases of life as capital worlds. Illirian colonies, not so much, often being recent captures from other lands.
  • Outpost: Outpost worlds are the literal edge of the known space, they are not the most common but still more common than capitals they are the heart of the expansion that keeps the great powers alive. Usually only one city, or one city and a small town, they have little to no infrastructure and are still budding worlds where the law doesn't reaches and everything is nothing but pure potential for growth. It's not uncommon for colonization efforts on outpost worlds to fail, leading to the evacuation of the remaining populace and a later attempt.

The Earth Empire is known for it's strange idiosyncrasies. Two of them stand out the most, the sheer amount of sentient races existing in the planet (in fact, every single race in the Final Fantasy franchise is avaiable, from humans to yuke, they all got their own little stories. Using the XI variants instead of XIV, however, due to pre-existant canon) far surpassing anything that is even remotely logical, and the existence of adventurers.

The Earth Empire is divided into two halves, the Inner Sphere and the Outer Sphere, and they are a good display of the openness with which the empire treats it's citizens. It's a public fact that the Inner Sphere is where all the infrastructure and support is, it's where the Empire will support you, where you will find hyperwarp gateways at every star system and where the imperial hospitals can be found in every colony world. The Outer Sphere, however, is the frontier where the empire cannot help you, it's beyond it's reach of support but still it's territory, so you should venture there at your own risk- However, please actually do that, because that is how the Inner Sphere is expanded, they need you there to build that infrastructure. The expansion of the Inner Sphere is sporadic and irregular but clearly announced. All the plans are in place for a new expansion of the Inner Sphere in 22 years from now.
Another thing the Earth Empire was known for was it's stranger leader- The Eternal King Ikaido, who died at the age of eight thousand years with the body of a sixteen-year-old. Taking his place was a no less stranger new king, King Kolitk, who is not an earthling but a mithra in fact and, if the most wild rumors are to be believed, doesn't even belongs to this timeline. The King holds absolute power and is literally above the law. Second to the king is the Queen, who is not the King's wife the way traditional english language might suggest, but the second in command, a post of office as much as that of King. The Queen holds most administrative power and action, it is not a hereditary post but a post by appointment, once the correct time is there the old Queen selects the next (often after the post has wore them down). The term Queen Cohort is used to refer to the three queens who were actually married to the Eternal King, the current Queen being the last Queen Cohort and the one who mentored King Kolitk on the way Earth handles.

Earthlings are unique in that their power at a personal scale is often more feared than their power as a group, which is foolish but still. That is because Earth is the only planet (only developed planet I should say) to naturally possess the power of magic, making each and every earthling fearsome and powerful compared to those without it. That is why their military might is arranged around this concept of personal power, their armies (the four forces the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Star Force) are incredibly small for the size of their dominion and by all means far too small to normally be capable to stand up to illirian invasions, but as they say… "Don't wake the sleeping dragon".
The saying "Don't wake the sleeping dragon" refers to earthling militia, earthling culture is incredibly strange in that they value warfare as sport and they are very malleable on who they call 'leader', as long as the living's good they're fine with it, illirian invasion forces sometimes play the earthling 'game of war' to acquire their territory substantially peacefully. But if you put the populace under sufficient duress, you are going to learn that each and every earthling is a soldier, and a damn capable one. In fact among illirian teachings in officer schools are to not underestimate even the sickly (once a human settlement in which nothing but a hospital was left held back a month of attacks incurring immense losses on the illirian force) and that yes, a single warrior *can* and *will* dispatch a couple of battalions so quickly adapt to the 'density of force' of your opponent.

As a major political power the Earth Empire holds the great advantage that their homeworld is impregnable to assault, the 'Mana Fog' which permeates the closeness of their homeworld making it impossible to assault by forces not native to it, and is known for it's great focus on civil work leaving behind highly efficient infrastructure even on abandoned worlds. It is not very expansive, it's slow rate of expansion is directly tied to a policy of keeping a minimum amount of capital worlds and ensuring a low populational density in order to facilitate infrastructure, but it is also a 'picky eater' often choosing worlds based on rare resources that only they use such as minerals with magicite potential and arcanite.
Although the Earth Empire is an empire with a singular ruler it is still divided into a myriad of countries, each one ruling itself in whatever manner they choose, often they are republics but a few kingdoms exist as well as other leadership methods. In the end they all answer back to the King, who mostly functions as something akin to the UN, except with more direct power and being a singular person.

The Empire possesses the mysterious Cultural Agencies, a very unique kind of public agency that exists only in the Empire. The fact they exist is public but, aside from Fabula Nova, who they are is a secret for a reason. The Cultural Agencies exist to sustain cultural diversity and to maintain the adventurer spirit of the Empire, they don't operate on the government level of things, instead they operate in the public level. A sudden resurgency of almost forgotten musical rhythms, famous artists bringing up again local foods that the culture as a whole has forgotten, protestors against blind faith in the Empire, imperial apologists, they all can be backed by the Cultural Agencies, but you will never know. Their goal is "Acting as our people would, ensure they don't forget their culture, and that they do not let the empire become corrupt". They are the reason why, despite having absolute power, it is very likely that an abuse of power by the King herself would lead to the empire imploding very dramatrically.

Unlike the other powers, the Earth Empire's infrastructure is not managed by civilian agencies by their armed forces. The Imperial Civil Services, or ICS, is a branch of the Army that handles all the civil engineering of the empire, from sewers to power lines to clean water, everything that the Empire itself provides is handled by the ICS. Not every part of a city is built by the empire itself, they only provide the main trunks of support with private companies doing the distribution within the city itself, so the main water lines are built and maintained by the ICS while the connections to said lines are maintained and built by private companies.
Though normally armored vehicles in cities are not a common sight that does not applies to the Multiporpose Adaptative Tank "Royal White". The Royal White is the vehicle of choice of the ICS as it can easily and quickly be adapted to a variety of roles, from construction to war, and it's their mainstay construction vehicle. The more recent versions of the Royal White use an alchemical shifting method, so they don't need to carry different attachments with it and they are instead manufactured on the spot.

The People

There are many species out in the stars, some them really bizarre, some of them less so. Aside from the fact that the Illirian Dominion is part of any of the international accords, there are laws that define what 'Personhood' is. The right to personhood is univeral, it's the right to be treated as a person and with all the rights it comes, and it's dependant on your particular species being recognized as having the qualities of personhood. There's actually a kind of test, generally done simply by an outside observer (an attempt by a member of a species to actually take the test is way more than enough to pass), to identify a minimum of cognitive capacity, unrelated to their desire to be part of the greater galactic environment or not. It is, and will always be, a very controversial system, not in the least due to some advances in both AI and cognitive enhancement technologies throwing a spanner on what the minimum cognitive capacities are. (ask me about the Wurger and Falken breeds of chocobo)

On a biological level Earthlings are unique among every other species, not for their magical capacity but for their genetic makeup. There is a vast amount of earthling races, much more than makes any sort of logical sense to be, and they are all genetically compatible. That fact stems from the "Racial Factor" in them, it's the part of the genetic makeup that define how the very DNA-reading enzymes are formed, and different racial factors generate different DNA-readers, which in turn make the same genetic makeup lead to entirely different races depending on the racial factor. In more practical terms, a child will be born the race of one of their parents or grandparents, as well as 'race mixing' not actually existing. A child that is half-nu'mou/half-viera won't have the traits of both, but will be born either a nu'mou or a viera.

Earthlings are the only known people (sort of, there are the Valkurians, but they're a kind of secret right now) who are innately capable of using magic, not so much due to genetic traits but environmental ones. Their capacity for magic, or more specifically healing and life magic, has created some strangeness in their culture. Earthlings are immensely combative, they enjoy the sport battle and war as if it was entertainment as for them, damage and even death is not perennial. That said, for earthlings it is a very, very grievous crime to cause or, by omission of support, allow what call 'annihilation', death beyond the capacity of life magic.

The sport of Duelling is the most famous of the sports in the Empire, and it's simply the sport of combat. Despite the name either one-on-one or in groups, can be incapacitation battles (death itself is penalized, bonus if you can make the opponent forfeit), objective battles (achieve a certain thing or challange) and scenario battles (those are like objective battles but also include special environments). The sport is extremely flashy using real gear and actual combat, the existence of powerful healing and life magic and technology ensures there's little reason to hold back other than score, and additional score is granted for the spectacle. Duellists are 2/3rd warriors, 1/3rd actors. A special form of penalty in duelling exists called "Annihilation Stance", it's issued the moment the referee realizes one of the combatants has begun the movements for some technique sufficiently powerful to cause annihilation on strike (which is relative, at the highest tiers of profession duelling it doesn't happens given the sheer power of combatants, and it's more common at middle tier), generally it's a flowery and long windup precisely to give the referee time to see it. It leads to a loss, as well as a hefty score deduction for the team if in a team battle, but some see it as a way to forfeit and keep their pride, like going "I could kill you, but i'll forfeit so I don't".

Their immensely diverse selection of races has led to a culture that focuses on the particular traits of the specific individual instead of broader archetypes, although a few racial archetypes are still somewhat famous, such as the bridge bunnies.

An important fact of earthling culture are their adventurers. Though have species has their own stories about adventurers who set off in the great unknown and all such things, earthlings are the only ones to not only officially recognize them, but grant them support. The term "Adventurer" refers to anyone (earthling or not) who takes on random jobs, has no fixed residence other than their own transportation method and is constantly on the move, often far from their home, one is required to register as an adventurer with the Central Guild Administration (A.K.A. Central or Adventurer's Guild) to get imperial support. Adventurers almost always form a Guild, the official name for adventurers working together, that can take on jobs as a unit as well as having shared possessions if they so wish. Guilds actually have a certain bit of incentive from the empire in the for of tax rebates and priority in imperial services provided they perform a certain level of service. Adventurers are often enough heroic that it's become their stereotype, very often greedy in some way but sometimes terrifyingly cruel. Central is an imperial agency that oversees adventurer work, gathering jobs (called quests) and offering them for adventurers to pick, ensuring the legality of those jobs.

Although a group of adventurers is called a Guild, a different thing called a 'Clan' exists. A Clan (also known as the older word Karsha) is of very close friends, they are considered to have familial ties according to the law, with everything that brings with it. Clans are a form of family unit, effectively, though not every earthling is part of a Clan back in pre-rediscovery era astrans were always part of them.

Now a few notes about weird earthling biology:

  • Yuke are referred to by the slang "Curseborn" because they are, in fact, originally born of an ancient curse. The knight Dullahan and his squire Yuke (as well as their entire regiment) got cursed when they killed a wizard, to wander forever trapped in their armors. Yuke's rebellion against Dullahan made so him and his friends could resist the curse and retain their minds, while Dullahan and the rest of the unit became monsters. Yuke CAN reproduce with ethereal medicine assistance, though they pass on their curse and life-force in doing so, the birth of a young Yuke leading to the death of their great grandparent. A young Yuke is born of a different race until at a certain age their armor slowly start to appear and their flesh to vanish into a dark mist.
  • Viera were female-only up until about twenty three years ago when an artificially-reconstructed form of the vieran racial factor that expresses itself on males was first made available to the public. There are quite a few of them around now. Viera, btw, wear high heels for orthopedic reasons. Their feet work like springs and they naturally walk on the tip of their feet so if the plant of the foot is on the ground their muscles are under great tension, high heels enable them to relax their muscles while keeping a strong base on the ground. Also their magical sense is quasi-synesthetic with their hearing, making them great hyperspace navigators.
  • Galka are genderless and do not reproduce, but using genecross technology and creating artificial gametes new galkan children can be born, though they have really broken inherited genetic memory from their galkan parent. Galka once they reach the far end of their first century 'die' in a process where their bodies start undoing themselves in a matter of nine days until what is left is a young child without any memories, however their bodies store memories in the form of DNA in special structures in their cells, they are very slow to access and it takes a galka a lot of practice to be able to access them. The oldest known Galka is one by the name of Storyteller, who has been in a state of coma for four hundred years at this point as his body has reached the very absolute limit of what galkan memory can hold and has become overloaded, stories tell he might have memories as far back the dinosaurs themselves. There is a government agency in charge of keeping track of galkan population, to ensure this race does not becomes extinct, so every galka is registered with it.
  • Every warrior worth their salt has at least a small chance when going toe-to-toe with an armored vehicle, earthlings are feared for their personal power. There are many stories about single warriors holding back large groups and illirian army discipline includes teaching how to identify possible 'army breaker' heroes.
  • Earthlings aren't simply considered either children or adults, there is a third stage in life called 'maturity' (not to be confused with being a teenager) . Childhood lasts until they are 16 years old, when they enter the maturity stage where they can be considered responsible for themselves (responsibility for your actions as personal things, such as drinking, driving, owning a civilian-class duellist weapon. they relate to you as a person), and when they reach the age of 28 they are considered adults where they can be responsible for others (being able to serve in the military, take on a job, they relate to you as a productive member of society). This is mostly an effect of the very extended training times of their era, you're expected to live with your parents (well, forever until you form a family but otherwise) until adulthood and spend the maturity period learning.

Technologies

A great many technologies exist in the stars, although theme-wise there are five varieties.
The Empire's High Magitek, The Republic's Powerful Dimensional Technology, The Dominion's Gritty Gravity Weaponry, The Argent Alliance's Anachronistic Nanotechnology, The Wilder Jury-Rigs

Hyperwarp technology is the staple FTL transport technology as well as the staple machine-aided teleportation technology. It's a combination of two different aspects, hyperspace travel which is travel in the fourth axis of movement and warp magic which is zero-time magical spatial displacement.

Warp magic has a limitation based on energy requirement due to distance. The farther you go the more energy you need to spend in one shot and for interstellar distances the amount of energy required is tremendous and unfeasible. However, it has the advantage that it is an instant change in location with no required movement, you are in one spot and then you are in another.
Hyperspace travel greatly shortens distances between places as one travels in the fourth axis of movement, however, it still is no instant translocation meaning travel time still exists. Not only that but the fourth plane also has obstacles that only exist in four-dimensional space meaning those must also be avoided and when your movement includes not just three axis of movement but also 'phase' and 'polarity' for physical movement it can get really confusing.

Hyperwarp consists of short rapid vaults of warp magic in hyperspace, rapidly reducing the travel time required in hyperspace while maintaining a suitable energy consumption. For short-range machine-aided teleportaion usually hyperwarp gates are opened, a small hyperspace window with a magical warp gate on top of it, the hyperspace gate effectively reducing the distance between the points to a very small distance making a sustained warp gate easy to accomplish.

Massive transit hubs exist through the space, the Hyperwarp Hubs, that serve as travel points not just for vehicles but also people on foot, they are linked not just to gates in orbit but also ground locations and space stations. They work kind of like public transport and toll combined, you can pay a ticket to go on foot or pay a larger fare to take your ship through it. There are also monthly plans so you don't need to go through the hassle of paying at every step. The Hyperwarp Hubs are maintained in a joint venture between Galaxy Web Ventures (a Republic private corporation) and the Empire's star force.

Starships

Categories

Starships are generally divided into six categories according to the size and carry capacity. Those categories are Fighter, Corvette, Frigate, Capital, Super-Capital and Mothership:

  • Fighter: Single pilot and small, they hold no notable carrying capacity, usually serving as a personal transport with enough space for two additional passenger provided they remain seated the entire travel. Military ships tend to be armed with a single small weapon and a single-shot heavy weapon such as missiles. They're fast and small and generally don't carry hyperwarp drives.
  • Corvette: Able to provide actual living space for one or two people or suitable carry capacity for small cargo transport, slightly slower than a Fighter but still pretty fast depending on their equipment. Military corvettes tend to be classified as bombers carrying heavy ordnance or used as more durable and armored fighters used to clear point defenses. Slightly more powerful and slightly slower than fighters, can carry a warp drive by sacrificing speed further.
  • Frigate: Providing living space for about ten people or equivalent cargo space, they are the most common starship category as despite a lack of speed they are all capable of equipping hyperwarp drives as well as having the space to perform most work required of them. Also the mainstay of military ships often carrying specialized weaponry either in multiple hull-mounted turrets or as large armaments requiring all of their free space. Frigates often require three people to control, a primary pilot, a navigator/copilot and a specialized engineer.
  • Capital: Very large ships normally seen only on the military such as destroyers, immensely heavily armored and armed, and carriers who give all the support a fleet needs. Civilian capital ships tend to be construction ships or the massive "Hyper Chariots", ships capable of generating immense hyperwarp fields to carry other ships through them. In a fight, capital ships don't go to the battles, they are the battles. It takes a full staffing crew to pilot a capital ships, ranging from 12 to 90 people depending.
  • Super-Capital: Super-capital ships are really rare and technically a military-only ship classification. Their staff numbers in the hundreds and they are gigantically powerful. International treaties prevent the stellar powers from having more than one super-capital and one mothership class starship. Super-capital ships are behemoths, dreadnoughts, the sort of vehicle that can exist only in space age. Though, as mentioned, they are technically military-only the Terra Nova Mining Company "Explorer-class" ships are super-capital ships of an advanced modular design, though generally used as mining hubs they are also employed as colony ships. The Empire's official Super-Capital is the Oran Reinis Dreadnought, the Republic has the Void Maze Mobile Station, the Dominion's super-capital Alkalsha has been missing for about a thousand years and they are not known to have constructed another in the meantime, the Argent Alliance has the very unusual Gallant Knight.
  • Mothership: Immense ships whose function is to build, immense city-ships with populations greater than Colony worlds, they are starfaring cities capable of building entire fleets and maintaining them as well as moving entire populations from one place to another. Technically there are only two Mothership-class ships in existance, the Empire's Cairn Reinis (which is out of comissions, and actually closer to being a super-capital than mothership) and the Dominion's Abyssal.

Famous Ships

Unsorted Data

Information I dunno where to put yet

Libra University

Called the Libra University for being in the Libra constellation, it is the foremost place of learning as well as the most prominent research center of the Empire.
As a school, the Libra University is a public school, meaning you don't need to pay to get in. 65% of it's students need to take a test to enter, a test that is done every november to start at the next teaching period in january, people from other nations can join. The other 35% of the students enter through a system similar to scholarship in which the empire selects promising students from schools and other environments to enter the courses in Libra, those are more often taken from poor Outer Ring environments or other minorities and are always Empire citizens.
The University works in an internship method, given that it accepts students from all over the galaxy, and it possesses the infrastructure to serve all available students with a personal living quarters as well as feed them. Their teaching methods are incredibly intense, mostly on account of the raw passion of the teachers who seem almost fanatically devoted to teaching. There is something unusual about their teaching, however, as it is immensely effective even for a ten-year course. (The truth is, they use similar methods as the Rose's Psycorruptors, allowing them to implant on the students immense amounts of knowledge in a relatively short time).
As a research institute, the Libra University contains the most advanced research in the Empire, ranging from theoretical mathematics to temporal physics, and are the only institute with special permissions to perform preliminary research on Forbidden Technology. Some of the most astounding research projects avaiable to them are the Dyson Forge, an entire star completely converted to a high-gravity fusion device, and the Will Division, a small division in charge of cataloging and researching the known instances of Limit Overbreak and Trance usage.
Within the Libra University is the Forbidden Laboratory, where preliminary tests on Forbidden Technology are performed. The term Forbidden Technology is an actual legal term reffering to specific pieces of technology that are deemed either too dangerous to even be researched safely or whose ethical implications are those the Empire is not ready to handle right now. There is scant few things known about what happens in that lab and what sorts of technologies are in there, but a few years back they removed the FT classification on Crystal Core technology, a day after the event known as Galaxy Zodiark.

Fabula Nova

Fabula Nova is a strange, strange government agency. Their reason to exist is to catalog and maintain knowledge of history and culture. Cultural artifacts, from art to games to poems to bad fanfics, any expression of culture and stored and catalogued in Fabula Nova, and it is of course free for the public to peruse.
More important and rare artifacts are kept in storage in a very secret location so that they can be safeguarded, although replicas are distributed. They also do more than just safeguard, however, as works often get remastered versions using the latest technologies and works that are parts of series sometimes get sequels which follow closely the spirit of their predecessors. In fact, Fabula Nova has through it's time 'saved' great many content producers over time by absorbing them and their legacy, from great movie franchises such as Pixar to game development studios such as Squareenix, and rarely outputting new material in the spirit of the great producers. Any material you see from Fabula Nova is bound to be of immense quality.
Fabula Nova also normally takes on outside private help instead of relying exclusively on imperial workers, after all it exists to safeguard culture and nothing better than the very members of said culture to do that. It will often open up 'helper' spots to do work on remastering or cataloguing.
(Of course, Fabula Nova holds a 'dark secret', that what they call Black History. Black History are things that the Empire has deemed required to be entirely erased from history for any particular reason, often required to maintain the peace and prosperity of the Empire. However, history cannot be forgotten, and neither can Black History be totally erased, it's Fabula Nova's work to also ensure that it is not forgotten. In fact, if you ARE good enough to uncover the truth of Black History you… Suffer no punishment. If you can pierce all their veils of secrecy and all their safeguards, if you can reach for that hidden truth- Then you can have it, you earned it, you've proven that you are ready to learn it, so it's yours. "Consign it to the darkness" is call given by the Dark Historians, the agents in charge of maintaining Black History, once a case is considered done)

Religion

Although the Empire does not have an official religion and practices religious freedom the most common religion of the Empire is the Aeonite. Aeonite religion is the worship of the "Mercenary Gods", a vast pantheon of supernatural beings who grant their followers wisdom and power depending on a variety of 'contracts'.
They are called the Mercenary Gods for a particular reason. They grant that which they do in exchange for something. For worship they will give you wisdom, for action they will give you power. Each different Aeon rules over a small set of aspects, and they sometimes overlap (such as Ark being the aeon of travel and research, both Lakshimi and Hades being the aeons of medicine albeit ethical and unethical medicine respectively). If you give them prayers, sometimes a small token offering, now and then invoke their names, you will hear their wisdom. It is in fact quite proven that one CAN hear the Aeons in places of worship as well as those with special skills, and whenever you feel the need for their advice simply visit a temple or shrine and pray, they will answer.
They will also grant you strength in exchange for your actions. If you pattern your behaviour according to their behavior they wish of their followers, then you will be granted the power to call forth an avatar of their power, the strength of a Summoner.
Though not every summoner is a devout. In fact mysteriously there are people who are just born with the power to summon, and with a great variety of contracts to boot, even though they were never following the teachings of any aeon. Stories about adventurers who find the aeons themselves in distant, foreboding places waiting for challengers and granting them their strength are varied and at least somewhat trustworthy. Whatever means those people use to earn their summoning contracts is, it works only for them.
Some of the Aeons and their aspects are the following:

  • Ark, The Sky Render: Travel and Research. It's common to leave an offering in a shrine of Ark in the form of some sort of knowledge recording method with your research in it, they're left on the floor but are not to be taken. Sometimes you will feel this intense desire to take one of those with you, even if you are forbidden, and when you do… You will realize that is just what you needed.
  • Lahshimi, The Mother: Medicine, Love, Compassion. Lakshimi is considered the matron of doctors, she is shown as an immensely caring person who would do anything to save the life of another, yet mysteriously the wife of Hades.
  • Hades, The Ruthless Healer: Medicine, Progress, Knowledge, Personal Growth. Hades is the patron of unethical medicine, the endless pursuit of knowledge regardless of price. A name to be invoked when you know that you are doing what you must, whether right or wrong doesn't matters. Story says he is the husband of Lakshimi.
  • Siren, The Singer: Passion (read too as Hot Blood), Love, Lust, Music, Protection. The singer is a name you call upon whenever you do something with all the passion your soul has to offer, when you hope you can win someone else's heart, when you wish protection as you dive in excess. Devout followers of Siren are surprisingly kind, well-mannered and respectful given how often people remember only her aspect of Lust.
  • Bahamut, The Overwatcher: Bahamut is not considered to have an aspect, but to be the one who presides over the other aeons. He will grant you no wisdom, and as far as the church is concerned there is also no way to gain his power, he is the judge that does not deals with mortal matters. His name is to be called when you got so far above your head there's no other way out, when you have so many people at your command and you have no hope of dealing with them.

(Yet this religion has a great secret behind it. Beyond this world exists an entirely different one, the world called Etherside. In this world, those we worship as gods are naught but common people, and their rulers have entered an ancient pact with the Empire. Their people need to be bound to someone else to live, and this binding implies unquestioning servitude. So in order to preserve their freedom they grant those binds, those 'contracts' only to those deemed trustworthy, and keep themselves and the truth hidden behind a veil of mysticism and religion. They grant us their millenial wisdom and immense power, and in turn, we feed them. Thankfully the relationship is more symbiotic than parasitic)

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