While Aurora C# is not out yet, I figured I can start preparing for my upcoming mega-campaign already. So I'll be posting the background fluff and once Steve puts it out, I can immediately get into writing actual updates.
In 1875, a British inventor named
Percival Howell discovered a new material that was far more durable and stronger than even steel. He dubbed the new material Duranium for its durability; and promptly built a massive cannon out of it. While the French and the Germans were suspicious that the cannon might be used to bomb Paris and Berlin from a distance, Howell actually intended to use it to propel a special train-carriage to Mars. In 1880, he had finally secured sufficient funding as well as a handful of volunteers to explore Mars. Howell was certain that man would not be able to breathe freely in outer space and had fully sealed the train-carriage. To allow the explorers to keep breathing, they would operate a fully functioning carbon dioxide scrubber, borrowed from the groundbreaking submersible
Ictineo I. The creator of that submersible,
Narcis Monturiol, had discovered that forcing air through a container of calcium hydroxide, scrubbed carbon dioxide from air and thus extended the time men could stay in closed environments. Combining conventional explosives with small amounts of a second new material, Sorium, yielded sufficient energy that Howell was certain he could send the train-carriage to Mars. He had recruited
Robert Grant, the professor of astronomy at Glasgow University, to calculate orbital trajectories and to aim the cannon.
It was with great fanfare that Howell triggered the explosives set-up with his cannon after speeches that bid the brave volunteers luck with their journey to the Red Planet. What resulted was an unmitigated disaster. The explosion was not properly directed and while the train-carriage vanished to the sky, so did a significant portion of the surrounding countryside as well as most of the audience. More were killed in the ensuing panic as people were trampled underfoot. Howell did not live to see this, as the stand from where he launched the cannon had been completely obliterated. Unknown to the survivors, the volunteers inside the train-carriage did not fare any better. The sudden acceleration had mashed them all to a bloody pulp and turned the train-carriage into a flying coffin. The only one who had done their job properly was Robert Grant, for despite the rudimentary tools to aim the cannon, the train-carriage slash tomb, hit Mars, just narrowly avoiding Phobos on its way down.
But the Red Planet was not as dead and quiet as Earthlings had assumed. Automated defence systems, long dormant, were now activated. The train-carriage, already mostly burned up, was struck by energy beams that pulverised it completely. Tracking stations, antennae red with rust, backtracked the origin of this aggressive attack. Silos covered by tons of dust rumbled open, launching their contents towards the third planet from the Sun. Many failed to open or their contents were content to remain passively inside. Others would malfunction during the voyage, tumbling out of control or self-destructing. Yet others functioned well enough to reach Earth.
Meanwhile, the authorities had been scared by the Howell incident and all countries were planning to pass laws that would make both Duranium and Sorium exclusively government-controlled substances. Parliamentary sessions were cut short as Armageddon arrived. It came in three forms: bombs hitting a location with the power of the Sun, completely destroying it and burning everything in a large distance. Flying machines that used heat beams to strike at anything that moved whether it was a ship or a train. And finally, the most dreadful, large containers that unloaded faceless monsters, armed with weapons straight out of a Jules Verne book, that slew without mercy.
Luckily for humanity, the Martian Automated Defence System had been severely degraded and depleted by the passing centuries, and its AI systems barely functioned. This meant that humans had a fighting chance, and as tenacious as always, they grabbed that chance with both hands and fought back. Despite extensive destruction on a global scale, human willpower triumphed in the end and the Martian invaders were vanquished. Their bombs had destroyed most of China, India and Africa, rendering vast areas uninhabitable for generations to come. Their flying machines had interrupted trade and commerce to an extent that the former colonial powers had had to rely on resources close to home. Their rolling and marching machines had forced all societies to put other grievances to the side and mobilise all aspects of society in order to survive and prevail.
By 1890, all Martian invaders had been destroyed and their technology studied. This led to the confirmation of the Aether, a voluminous material that kept the Universe together, that could be traversed in three dimensions, somewhat like a ship sails or a bird flies. Combined with the discovery of the other 9 exotic materials, a new field of science was discovered and codified as the Trans-Newtonian Theory. Alongside the scientific progress, the surviving prominent powers of Earth had banded together under the
Howell Pact, to extract reparations from Mars and to ensure that the Red Planet could never again attack Earth. To this purpose, all powers would do their best to construct Aether ships and transport soldiers and engines of war to Mars, acting together as the
Grand Alliance.
How long such an alliance would stay together, remains to be seen.
