Rebel Skies is set on a planet where landmasses float in the sky, fragmented by a cataclysmic event during a Renaissance-like era. The floating islands are scientifically motivated — no magic. They are kept aloft by minerals with unique properties that counteract gravity, and they move in stable orbital trajectories around the planet.
Before the cataclysm (Codex/World/The Shattering), some islands already floated, home to a now-lost skyfaring civilization. That civilization's remnants — technology, ruins, culture — continue to influence the present-day societies living on the islands. Understanding what the ancients knew, and what mistakes they made, is one of the central preoccupations of the people of Rebel Skies.
Islands vary enormously in size, frequently grouped in archipelagos around larger islands. The largest support full civilizations with agriculture, trade, and culture. The smallest are barren fragments drifting through the upper atmosphere. Most settled islands occupy a moderate altitude band where climate is livable.
The key physical concepts:
Floating Mineral — the substance responsible for keeping islands aloft. It exists naturally within landmasses but can be extracted and worked with. Its most controlled application is in Codex/World/Cloud Skims.
Heavy Mineral — the dense mineral that was massively extracted before the Shattering. Its removal from the planet's landmasses caused the event. At smaller scale, removing it from a floating island unpredictably alters the island's altitude — with potentially devastating consequences for climate and orbital path.
Orbital Trajectories — islands move in stable but unique orbits. Periodically, orbits bring islands into proximity, enabling travel, trade, and contact. Predicting these windows is the central work of Geonomers.
See Geonomy for the physics in detail.
The technology level is roughly Renaissance-era, with some late Victorian mechanical influences. There is no widespread electricity or combustion. Civilization runs on mechanical ingenuity, wind power, and the selective use of the mineral-based physics unique to this world.
The most significant piece of technology is the Cloud Skim — a single-pilot flying craft powered by Lift Dew and wind sails. Cloud Skims make inter-island travel possible and are rare enough to make their pilots important figures in their communities.
The people of Rebel Skies reverse-engineer remnants of the lost ancient civilization where they can, but progress is slow. Most technology is practical, local, and maintainable with available materials.
Island communities are tight-knit and resource-conscious. Distance makes trade hard, cooperation essential, and failure costly. The dominant cultural values reflect this:
Sustainability — resources are finite; communities that forget this tend not to last.
Community — small populations on isolated islands depend on one another. Social bonds are survival infrastructure.
Learning from the past — the Shattering is recent enough to be cultural memory. The story of how it happened (overextraction, hubris, short-term thinking) is told and retold. Most communities have strong informal norms against the kinds of extraction that caused it.
Exploration — despite caution, there is a persistent drive among some individuals to push further, find more, understand the world better. Pilots, Geonomers, and the lost ancient civilization all embody different aspects of this drive.
Codex/World/Trimont — the primary setting of Rebel Skies. A mid-sized island with a strong Cloud Skim culture, an active Geonomy lab, and a village built around the realities of inter-island travel.
Codex/World/Veridell — Trimont's sister island, once the same landmass. More politically driven and outward-looking than Trimont. Passes close every ~243.5 days.
Drifting Islands — small, unstable fragments that move unpredictably. Rarely settled, but frequent destinations for explorers and scavengers.