Dis Saga: Introduction

Trying out worldbuilding

In the year 2640, the Great Khan (leader of the Anti-Han-intern Pact) delivers a crushing defeat to the Chinese Empire, which had been the first predominant world power to arise after the Balkanization of the United States in 2168 and ruled for around three centuries. It is under the direction of the celestial Khan, with his European and Japanese clients, to begin the Terraformation of the planet Venus. The Chinese, in their rule, had already established colonies across the solar system and self-managing machines run with fusion reactor cores meant to mine the solar system out. Human beings had also begun developing large underground colonies in great pits of the Earth. The first step of the colonization of Venus would involve the launching of the planet’s ultra-dense atmosphere into space, which would speed up the orbit of the planet significantly. A fraction of the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide would be reserved and converted into oxygen, and a fraction of this oxygen would be converted into Ozone. The nitrogen of the atmosphere would also be preserved. The planet would be bombarded with comets in order to introduce water and to speed up the orbit. This project would be funded multinationally — all nations placed a share in the process. However, even this first stage took over 600 years. It continued after the fracturing of the Mongols, the division of the world between the 7th Reich and the 5th Japanese Shogunate, and the Neo-British Empire. At various periods the process was halted altogether, or slowed, but because it was largely automated and the scientists who worked on it were granted their own city-state dedicated solely to the project, it was able to continue even as empires rose and fell. Finally, when Venus was stripped of its gaseous exterior and its rotational period had been hastened to one day every earth month, the project was halted for a time period. It was only picked up again in the year 3029, under the mining magnate Franklun Winstest who controlled the entire moon of Titan, as well as various space habitats numbering hundreds of millions of inhabitants. Frankcorp oversaw the process of restarting the planet’s magnetic field, the massive amount of energy from which was also directed to hasten the planet’s spin. This process was rather quick, although extremely costly, taking around 20 years. What would take a long time, would be the culturation of the planet with life. Although the Planet’s atmosphere was now breathable, low-pressure air, and its temperature has dwindled to something, it suffers from two major issues: Firstly, there is not enough water. Secondly, the planet’s surface is baren. Nothing can grow on it. Tough strains of bacteria were introduced to the planet which would help culture its soils, and what small amounts of water were produced from certain fission and fusion processes on other planets were collected in by interest groups, as well as residual hydrogen sifted out of the starlifting process.

This process took more than 3,000 years. During this time, colonies began to form on Venus, but they were small and sheltered from the environment. In the year 4335, the first mission to populate Venus with plants began. These were at first, very tough plants as well as algae. Mossy fields were planted on the growing shores of the planet’s cooler regions. These mossy fields gradually broke down rocks. In the 6th millennium, animals began being introduced. First, small animals. Gradually, larger animals. During this process there were many failures. There were many times where plants or animals were sent to Venus, but all died off. There was certainly no shortage of technological intervention in this process. It was in the 7th millennium that human colonies on the planet began functioning more like life on earth. Cities were erected. Countrysides developed into a quilt of farmland. The equatorial zone of the planet was still extremely hot, it was uninhabitable for human beings. However, in the middle climes vast jungles emerged, and in the far north there existed a temperate climate similar to what various parts of earth were acquainted to. Venus still relied on Earth for sustenance. It was now habitable, but it did not have the resources to independently operate the advanced technology that the earthly civilization was capable of.

However, things were not going well on Earth. Mars had been a center of space colonization since the late 3rd millennium, but forces on Earth were planning to terraform Mars, which would result in the displacement of some 1 billion Martian residents. Devastating war ensued. Orbital bombardments and antimatter bombs had long surpassed the nuclear weapon in their effectiveness. Militaries retreated underground. Earth’s surface was devastated. The Martian Colonies ended up largely starving to death. 95% of life on Earth was destroyed, and virtually all infrastructure was made unusable. After several close calls, the technological era of Earth had finally come to an end, and the Venusians were now stranded. The Venusian economy experienced catastrophic failure. Famine gripped the planet. Around 90% of the Venusian population died. The technological artifacts still existed, but lacked the resources necessary to produce them on a mass scale, and quickly people’s priorities became simply about surviving.

Various parts of Venus reverted to primitive lifestyles. The animals of Venus, who lived off of the land, had been largely unaffected unlike the earth animals, and now many species extinct on Earth resided only on Venus. Many new animals (or old animals) created by bio-engineering had also been developed on Venus. Venus does not have coal, or oil, so simple industrial technology cannot be developed.

The year is 8268. 6244 years have passed since 2024. A similar amount of time passed between the first expansions of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and the year 2024. The blueprints still exist in Venus, passed from father to son in the royal houses and religious monasteries. However, turning form into reality is a costly procedure on a planet which lacks various natural resources necessary for massification of such technology, and the Venusian weather is more harsh and destructive than that of Earth. As for the mother planet, it is unknown what came of the underground dwellings. Some suspect humanity lives on in them. Others believe that their inhabitants starved or overheated. Still others, speak rumors that the dark technology being engineered in these places transformed their architects into transcendent gods. Such technology is rumored to exist on Venus as well, although many mystical and magical superstitions are common on the planet Venus.

The peoples of Venus come from diverse backgrounds and are biologically different in various ways to the peoples of earth. Venus has slightly lower gravity than earth, originally around 0.91 g’s and now around 0.94 g’s due to the terraforming processes. Venus’s atmosphere is also slightly more oxygenated than the Anthropocene Earth, which allows for larger sizes of plants and animals and human beings (along with slightly lower gravity), but less oxygenated than the Carboniferous Earth. Due to the higher radiation of the sun on Venus, peoples in the temperate zones have adapted darker skin colors and a natural resistance to dehydration, however the climate and sun radiation on the northern continent of Startara is comparable to the temperate zones of Earth, and so the peoples in this region are more fair-skinned.

Although Venus’s spin was accelerated, the Venusian day is still around 1.5 earth days. Venusians have adapted by limiting the amount of sleep they need. Venusians sleep in similar time intervals as Earthlings, but stay awake far longer. Seasons on Venus are less harsh than on earth, due to a slighter axial tilt. The tilt of Venus was made more extreme during bombardments, but is still slighter than earths. Venus also spins backwards.

The equator of Venus, on top of being too hot for large-scale human habitation, is characterized by a ring of craters and asteroid-remnants, as this region was targeted for bombardment.

The Fritiges and the Kugkulews

In the northern continent of Startara, on the Great Plateau, a people known as the Fritiges, of the nation of the Kugkulews, were the first to arise from the deluge. It is believed that they descended from the colony of Nemess, which descended from a space habitat thousands of years old. In fact, the better part of Startara was descended almost entirely from this colony. The Plateau had, in lack of farming, become a large grassland inhabited by various grazing animals, peppered with woodlands and forests. The Kugkulews engaged in a semi-nomadic lifestyle. They were fair-complexioned men with various shades of hair and eye color, tall noses, deep-set eyes, and robust stature. Their hair is usually wavy or curly, and they have a moderate amount of body and facial hair. Although premature greying of the hair was not especially common, some members of this race are born with grey or white hair. Sometimes, this grey hair can even approach the slight “blue” shade seen in various animal breeds. Eye colors cover various shades of blue, green, yellow, amber, and brown. Cephalic index varies depending on the tribe, with more mountainous groups being more brachycephalic and plains or coastal groups being more dolichocephalic.

There were once four main divisions of the Kugkulews. The Suentahawas (“Celestial Folk”) who are associated with the priesthood. The Marawas (“Border Folk”), who inhabit the mountains. The Danuhawas (“River Folk”), who inhabit the coast as well as around the major rivers. And the Rudrawas (“Red Folk”) who inhabit the plains. The Fritiges were a tribe among the Marawas who crossed the mountains and adopted a lifestyle more similar to the Danuhawas, not abandoning pastoralism entirely but relying heavily on fishing and farming. They controlled the old embryonic city of Nemess, and they held its secrets. The Fritiges also held the most contact with other places on Venus, due to their ocean voyages. It was eventually the king Fri among the Fritiges who was able to unite the Kugkulews into a confederation. The Confederation of the Fritiges was ruled by the line of King Fri for three generations, but when the third Fri found himself childless the confederation transitioned to an elective monarchy. The high king would be elected by a community of aristocrats and judges, which would only meet in the instance where a new king was awaiting election or in times of national trouble. The confederacy was mostly devolved into local polities, themselves ruled in a similar way to the entire state.

300 years after the death of Fri came Hudar Ghodri, the Lion of the Danuhawas. The baffler of the Kasarnas. The Serpent Slayer. The namesake of many lands. The subject of the Dis Saga. Dis (regional variants: Zis, Joz) being the undying daylight god of the Kugkulews. The creator of the universe and the source of divine order.

If you guys want to see more of this, I might make a separate substack for this world. Plz tell me thoughts