‘Beneath the Sea of Glass’ is the story of a budding colony on a desert planet and the lost race that called it home long before you did.
The World:
- Aster: They call it an “Earth-like planet,” but it’s denizens are liable to scoff at that qualification. It’s largely covered in desert, except at the poles, but when the Central Power’s scouts did a fly-over and picked up “acceptable levels of ground water,” an officer checked a box, and now, thirty six years later, 100,000 colonists call it home.
- Aster City: “The Golden City”, population 30,000, it’s the only CP (Central Power) city on Aster and the nexus of their power there. The 70,000 non-citizens live outside its walls in outland cities, or as nomads.
- The Central Power: The Earth-based government that won the interstellar space-race and spread to more than fifty planets across thirteen systems in the last 250 years. It’s structure features a figurehead emperor and a representative parliament. And although a citizen is effectively less and less represented as you move out from the hub planets, the rule of the CP is generally benevolent and its citizens are able to lead fulfilling lives.
- The Raptured: The lost, technologically-advanced race indigenous to Aster. Originally just called the “native Asterians”, the colloquial name replaced their official one because of the conspicuous lack of any signs of decline or biological remains among their artifacts. All that survives of them are their empty cities, buried under the sands of the vast desert called the Sea of Glass. These cities are excavated and sold piece-wise by groups of scavengers called Antlions.
- The Antlions: Named after the conical scars they leave sporadically across the Sea of Glass, the Antlions are a loosely feudal organization of non-citizens who dig down to the structures left abandoned by the Raptured, (some going as deep as six stories before further excavation became impossible, though cursory scans show they might go far deeper than that. Their foundations have never been observed.) and sell the salvage to the Central Power and the citizens of Aster City.
- Outlanders: The catch-all term for non-citizens, including the Antlions. The people who live outside of walls of the city and the protection of the CP. There isn’t a great degree of animosity between Outlanders and Citizens. Most outlanders see citizenship as a privileged and venerate the CP, although some see it differently. Sometimes violently differently.
Hosted and narrated by:
Mazer
Started 04/03/17.
Scenes played: 2
License: Community License
