Timeline:

We’re counting years from the first rainstorm on Mars. There is an unverified superstition that using religious calendars draws Attention. (Also, I don’t want to make it clear how long after this year it is.)

  1. 1st Year of Martian Rain: Earth gets to somewhere around the Eclipse Phase tech level. It also has multiple space elevators (one in the Metropolitan District of Quito, and one in the outskirts of Nairobi, possibly others), among other things.
  2. [same year] Eccentric bioengineering researcher Morgan Ivanova’s morph prototypes reach maturity, and are found to be a slight improvement on previous splicer models, at no increase in production costs. Ivanova authorizes a major manufacturer to use her designs, and profits.
  3. 20ymr: Morgan Ivanova and her adult children receive official permission to begin ambitious project to “recolonize” or “terraform” the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Unsubstantiated rumor has it that they had secretly already initiated the project, complete with claims of flowering plants found to be purposely leaching heavy metals from the soil and subsequently displaying a radiation symbol on their petals.
  4. 25ymr: Iunom developed, put in charge of monitoring small gated community and leading homeowner’s association meetings. Neighborhood conflicts decrease.
  5. 30ymr: Iunom asked to construct and operate wind-power plant on the outskirts of Pintag. This goes generically smoothly.
  6. 31ymr Plant expands, small “village” for support staff built, temporarily named “Pueblo Girando”.
  7. 40ymr Various protests and concerns regarding attacks lead to the state of Ecuador gaining increased control over the Quito elevator.
  8. 45ymr, January: Yellowstone supervolcano threatens to erupt, is halted by a major geoengineering project that wouldn’t have been feasible a few decades ago.
  9. 45ymr, March 3: The deific instance of iunom finally makes contact and merges with the existing silicon-based instance, granting the silicon iunom divine information-gathering skills (if little concrete power) and the deific instance actual processing power.
  10. 45ymr, March 10: Deities collectively notice Yellowstone’s failure to erupt.
  11. 45ymr, March 15: The deities, becoming concerned about transhumanism destroying their definition of “humanity”, become more active. Hasty negotiations occur. Successful pleading and threatening-to-break-things from the human deities gets humanity 1 week’s notice to evacuate or prepare before modern technology in the troposphere is made nonfunctional. (Effectively, the Shutdown means that levels of functioning tech get lower as you get closer to the center of the Earth. Yes, there are steampunk zeppelins. If you have a high mountain/hot-air balloon/etc you can get some simpler stuff going.)

Time:

Quito and Ecuador: city with a mountain in the background

The Crimson Choir: lacy white Sierpinski Carpet on a red background

Pripyat and the Chernobyl Exclusion & Restoration Zone:

The Selkies:

Iunom:

Theology:

This setting is inspired by Emberverse and Eclipse Phase elements.