The Ancient Breaking

"Come on, gentlemen, lead your shots, this isn't hard. We have math for this!"

- Almost every Trevultine Gunnery Officer

This article or section alludes to information that is under active development and subject to change.

The Ancient Breaking, also known as The Cataclysm or to the Greatwind as the Age of the Scorpion, marked a turning point in the history of Colmaris and acts as the rough period of the epoch shift between the old and new eras - the Years Before and Years In Skies, respectively. The term refers to a relatively rapid (but poorly documented) event which reshaped Colmaris from a world of land and seas to a world of lands in the Skies, setting the continents and islands adrift on the Skytides and causing a great collapse of the pre-Breaking cultures, setting humanity and civilization back by millennia in the process.

Historical Records

While none of the nations of Colmaris dispute that the Breaking occurred or even roughly when it occurred, all of them are working backward from different historical records, owing to the relatively long time of the Age of Clipped Wings, which lasted from the immediate period of the breaking up until roughly the First Skies War.

Trevultine Accounts

Trevultine accounts of the Ancient Breaking are thought to be fairly thorough by their own scholars and questioned seriously by scholars from outside the Trevult Imperium. While a great many pre-Breaking Trevultines survived the cataclysm by taking refuge in the Three Strongholds of Trevultum, by most accounts very little pre-Breaking documentation was kept in the strongholds, and Trevultine accounts of the Ancient Breaking are based upon the accounts of those survivors, held up in their stronghold, almost entirely. Further, critics allege that these records are being very selectively interpreted, since the "vaulted Trevultines" later established themselves as the Trevult Imperium's ruling class. The University of Trevultum and the Trevultine Government promulgate the Colmaris Lodestone Hypothesis as a probable cause for the destruction. Many commoner Trevultines reject this hypothesis and believe in the Stellarchiac War Hypothesis instead.

Fengjin Accounts

The Fengjin have written accounts they claim to be transcriptions of the lectures of contemporary, surviving scholars of the cataclysm, which are known collectively as the Red Cliff Records. These documents promulgate a version of the Stellarchiac War Hypotheses that allege a Stellarch of unknown affiliation, the King of Yupedir, abused the powers of several Stellarchiac Jewels in order to attempt to conquer the world, and that in retaliation the other Stellarchs used the Jewels still in their control, causing a war which destroyed the world. However, these records were made almost two centuries after the events in question, and contain references to places and people not otherwise attested in other records; outside of the Feng Empire their authenticity is disputed.

The Lucille Codexes

The Lucille Codexes are a collection of written documents kept under conservation by the Cartographers' Guild of New Colmeris, which are pre-Breaking artefacts discovered throughout New Colmeris, the Sultanate of Gerb, and the Greatwind's islands. The collection contains little by way of historical narrative but is rich in astrological and magical data which support either the Astrological Disaster Hypotheses or the Colmaris Lodestone Hypothesis according to the scholars that have studied the data.

Greatwind Oral Legends

The Greatwind peoples have an oral legend that supports a version of the Astrological Disaster Hypothesis, though some speculate that the legends interpreted only slightly differently would also support a Stellarchic War Hypothesis. This legend tells of a period of history in which the Zodiac had become unpredictable, and in which, instead of attempting to kill the Sun, the Scorpion attempted to destroy the whole of Colmeris. It was stopped by the actions of, among others, the Maiden, who was able to prevent the whole world from being killed, and only the oceans died.

Hypothetical Causes

Astrological Disaster Hypothesis

Some scholars propose that the Ancient Breaking was bound to happen; that the weight of "that much water" (being the supposed ancient seas) on the surface of Colmeris was unsustainable, or that the clockwork of the Zodiac was bound to eventually cause disaster. Those who take this hypothesis because of the legends of the Greatwind see the Zodiac as actual, intentional beings capable of conscious action and blame the malice of the Scorpion. Scholarship in this area within New Colmaris or the Sultanate of Gerb tends to point instead toward the records of the Lucille Codexes and suggest the possibility of a rogue, unmarked Moon or a great conjunction or change in the heavens as the more likely cause. Many find little comfort in either theory as it implies a repeat of such a disaster is possible at any time.

Stellarchiac War Hypothesis

Alleged by the Feng Empire, the common mythology of the lower-class of the Trevult Imperium, and by some modernist/literalist interpretations of the Greatwind legends, it is possible that The Ancient Breaking was in fact a war waged by the use of extreme technological and magical forces between the Stellarchs of the Old World, likely involving the use of the Stellarchiac Jewels. Supposedly, one or more rogue Stellarchs went to war with the others, and the resulting conflict became so embroiled that the world was literally torn apart over their conflict. Some find this theory comforting; it gives them someone to blame for the hardships of life in the Skies, and with most of the Stellarchiac Jewels lost it is believed to be impossible for a disaster of this scale to ever again occur.

Colmaris Lodestone Hypothesis

Promulgated largely by the ruling classes of the Trevultine Empire and by many in New Colmaris, the Colmaris Lodestone Hypothesis refers to any of a series of theories alleging that Colmaris Lodestone itself is responsible for the disaster. Most landmasses and most airships in the world contain Colmaris Lodestone, which has peculiar properties that make it useful for generating the illusion of lift by causing an object to be bouyant to some degree in air. Many scholars posit different theories for an event at the time of the breaking that "excited" the lodestone and caused it to change state, tearing the planet apart with the resulting forces and leaving landmasses drifing along with the skytides.

While this theory is plausable in some respects, others (including many prominent New Colmaris scholars and engineers) believe it to be impossible, as the natural state of Colmaris Lodestone is actually negatively bouyant in air, meaning even if it was responsible for the current state of affairs (and hadn't simply torn itself free of the ground it is to be found in), it's certainly not what's keeping land aloft now. Some reject the theory on more emotional grounds; a few have used it to posit that eventually even the land itself will sink, and what is to become of humanity then?