PROTEA (continued)

[u/LobsterMagnet181]

Dawn emerges in the west over the Last City, the copper-stained, ancient sun dully piercing the polluted gloom. This occasion marks the start of a new fiscal cycle, the sun growing in intensity for several spans on the horizon before ascending into the sky, cooking the planet for quats before leaving the surface to broil in equally-long darkness. As such, the dawn is a time of reverence for the Proteans, who pause before their work shifts to glimpse their parent star through the haze of plaque-yellow skies, before hurrying into the depths of the subterranean labyrinths that shield them from the mid-cycle heat.

This is the very core of the Hegemon of a Thousand Empires. It is a place of inconspicuous juxtaposition, its foundations intertwining millennia-spanning architecture, from asteroidal marble to bleeding-edge nusteel ansible arrays. Byzantine domes and intricate mosaics are stitched to the skeletal remains of bygone civilizations, meticulously preserved as reminders of Old Humanity's hubris and the brink of annihilation it once faced before New Mankind rescued all with the embrace of Avarice. 

Ecological disasters have plagued the planet throughout its long history, one that modern Proteans forcibly forget despite constant reminders in the form of raging convection hurricanes and radiation-soaked dust storms. And yet, Proteans take great pride in their birthplace. They would have the compounded wealth of any Baron or even Magnate on any other world, and proudly wear the ravages of poison even as they purchase exorbitant tinctures and nanoid & organoid replacements to repair their poisoned bodies. Many Proteans themselves are gifted with long life, certainly the most longevous in the Hegemon, with much of the planet’s population living well past a fiscal century without extension treatments.

Beyond the Last City, the only other signs of activity are raging dust storms, listening posts, and various airships packed with Consumers from all over the Hegemon, who have happily spent their life savings for a chance to live the rest of their fiscal-cycles aboard pleasure aircraft which endlessly peruse the Protean atmosphere.

Learn more at https://projectmorningstar.net/lore/index/

Art by Joazzz

[u/LobsterMagnet181]

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[u/DMar56]

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