Giver of Rings

Giver of Rings

Smoke from the great fire filled the plasteel rafters of the feast hall. As the skald finished the saga of Sven Bear-burner’s settlement of Delta Ursae Minoris II, Oli Redbeard stepped forth to lead the next part of the celebration.

“A toast! To our hero, the slayer of giants! To the master of this hall, the ring-giver! To Egil Svenson!”

Mead sloshed as the gathered warriors raised their glasses. “Egil!”

The honoree sat at the end of the hall, surrounded by the spoils of battle: gold and gems, of course, but far more precious to the Ursans was the aluminum and copper captured from an ore hauler as it returned to its base.

“Pietr, come forth.” called Egil.

A black-haired giant of a man, clad in furs, stood and walked toward the throne, limping slightly from an injured leg.

“For our rock, my berserker, twenty kilos of alum and the duke’s knife.”

Pietr knelt to receive the knife. “Many thanks, ring-giver.”

As he returned to his seat, Egil called for another warrior, giving him a kilo of copper and a gold ring. The celebration would go on far into the night, and in the morning, the men would take the spoils of battle to the settlement’s autofab, where the precious copper and aluminum could be worked into the marvels of their forefather’s time, the Second Age of Exploration.

Chronology

• The First Colonies: Mankind reaches the stars using slower-than-light travel and cryosleep.
• The Seeding: humanity invents the warp gate, and launches them to the stars in robotic ships
• The Lost Centuries: Earth is destroyed in nuclear war. Some escape by slow boat or warp gate, but no clear picture of the events ever emerges.
• The Joining: The colonies reconnect as warp gates arrive. A golden age of science, an age of mourning for the lost Earth.
• The Second Age of Exploration: The pre-Seeding colonies launch colonies of their own on freshly seeded worlds.
• The Stagnation: The limits of the Seeding’s original warp gate network are reached. Competition for the limited space of colony worlds leads to war. The Warmech is developed as a military variant of civilian loader frames.
• The Collapse: Wars result in the destruction of many of the warp gates. Trade and diplomacy collapse as a result. The interstellar empires of the first colonies collapse. The rump states become the Core Kingdoms. Many technologies are lost, as their manufacture requires resources that are no longer readily available through interstellar travel.
• The Reconnection: An FTL drive that can arrive at the wreckage of a gate is developed by the Fioran Confederation. Rebels sieze a jumpship, reverse engineer the drive, and broadcast the plans to every world they can reach.
• The Wars of Revanchment: The Core Kingdoms go to war to reclaim their former territories. Although some technologies are reinvented, many are permanently lost, and the destruction of most autofabs means computers are no longer easily replaceable. The end of the Silicon Age.
• The Plasteel Age: the present day, everything is barely maintained, factories exist in some places but the tools to build them no longer do. Remaining pieces of high technology are now the basis of government throughout the settled worlds.