Age of Darkness (500 SE to 1 SE)
Dark times, dark souls
T
he Age of Darkness is the first epoch of casterway time. It begins with the (estimated) date of the First Casterway's arrival, and it ends with the arrival of Cervia Polonosa. Before she crashed on Excilior, the straggling human population consisted of only 5,000-10,000 casterways, jettisoned onto the planet in dropships and abandoned via the process of excilation. Because excilation only ever sends men to Excilior, the existing population had no means of procreation, no ability to create a lasting society, and no unique culture of their own. When Cervia arrived, she recorded the planet's inhabitants as savage and desperate.
Mystery
Extremely little is truly known about this period of history. Modern cognoscenti have only recently begun to dabble in archaeology and there are no significant artifacts recovered from this time. Even if they possessed advanced technology, it's doubtful there would be much to recover. The early casterway came to the planet with absolutely nothing but the scant clothes on their backs (which is still true to this day of anyone who has endured excilation). Any possessions they claimed would have been roughly-hewn implements of wood, rock, or fragile plant fibers.
Counting Backwards
This age, along with all theoretical years that preceded it, are known collectively as the Savage Era (SE). Although there are almost no known historical events to record from this time, when cognoscenti do refer to these years, those years are counted backward. The First Casterway is estimated to have arrived on the Dropship Seia at roughly 500 SE. The year before Cervia's arrival is 1 SE. There is no 0 in casterway year annotations, so her arrival is marked as the year 1 PE.
Comments