Dominating the coastal highlands is The Vow, a seismic-resistant arcology built atop Sunol Peak, its gleaming silhouette visible for kilometers. Initially conceived as a refuge for displaced urban populations, it has since evolved into a regional power, coordinating defense and diplomacy against inland threats, including raiders and expansionist movements from Deseret in the Great Basin. The estuarine lowlands surrounding The Vow house the city of Sunol, a chaotic sprawl of excluded peoples and opportunists who maintain a wary relationship with the arcology above. Beyond, smaller settlements dot the high ground—each shaped by their environmental philosophies, technological access, or magical doctrines. Cultures here are hybridized, forged in adversity, and often bound together by shared rituals, survival traditions, and the memory of what was lost to the rising tide. The San Joaquin Valley, though no longer the breadbasket of a nation, remains a crucible of human tenacity and adaptation.
Location → Cascadia → San Joaquin
As is the case across much of the Earth, water is painfully rare. The ocean isn't as salty as it once was, due to glacial depletion, and the jet streams have collapsed as a result. If a storm forms, the heat of the inland carries it seaward, and deposits that freshwater into the sea. The double bay of the San Francisco Bay and the San Joaquin Sea, each with their own narrow entrance, works as siphon and spark to summon a thunderstorm and shoot it inland as a monsoon, an event predicated by vivid pink and red skies. It's a once in a decade vent, if that, but there are some small communities which use cisterns and reservoirs to hold onto the water long enough to survive to the next event.
One such place is Clear Lake, which is one of the oldest lakes in California. Notable for having a bottom of silt and clay which makes it less likely to lose its water into the surrounding land.
| Year(s) | Event | Scale | Details |
|---|
| 2015 | Global Warming Reaches +1.0°C | Global | |
| 2026 | Global Warming Reaches +1.5°C | Global | Wildfire frequency triples across California and Oregon
Rainstorms become more intense due to warmer air holding more moisture
Sea-level rise hits 0.25 m (10 inches)
River deltas see significant groundwater freshwater salinization
Nuisance flooding becomes frequent in the San Francisco Bay
San Joaquin sees freshwater salinization in groundwater near the Delta
The AMOC shows significant slowdown, disturbing weather patterns globally |
| 2050 | Global Warming Reaches +2°C | Global | 99% of coral reefs are lost to marine heatwaves and ocean acidification
Heatwaves of up to 60°C make North Africa and the Middle East uninhabitable
Greenland is guaranteed to melt, increasing the sea level by ~7m
Flash floods become more frequent in the tropics and high altitudes.
Rivers overflow frequently, devastating cities
The Amazon reaches critical forest loss and degrades into a savannah. Species go extinct en masse. Regional rainfall cycles collapse. The world's largest carbon sink becomes a source
The AMOC slows. London is regularly buried under feet of snow |
| 2054 | Greenland’s Hot Winter | Global | Greenland experiences its first complete winter without any glaciers
Within a decade, snowfall ends as well
This will contribute ~7m to sea level rise |
| 2092 | Discovery of “Dark Spot” (L3-DS) | | What was originally mistaken as a visual artefact or a solar spot turned out to be a much closer, 1 disc of shadow about 1km in breadth and suspended in the Sun’s L3 Lagrange Point. The perfection of the curve indicated that It was clearly a construct, but whose? The scale suggested a weapon or a flagship, but the placement and the shape made no sense. The discovery was hidden from the public for several years while world powers debated who had made it. |
| 2100 | Manned Survey of L3-DS | | By recycling the ships used to settle Mars, humanity is able to quickly put together a manned mission to L3-DS. As a matter of solidarity to prove the object is not of their own creation and to share in whatever discoveries follow, the technical aspect of this project is organized by a multinational consortium of scientists and engineers.
They discover that it has an input slot for an orb, henceforth called the Index. The search to find or fabricate the Index begins. |
| 2110 | The Big One | Regional | A full-margin M9.2 earthquake ruptures the Cascadia Subduction Zone from Cape Mendocino to Vancouver Island.
The quake redistributes tectonic stress southward; over the next 16 hours, swarms ripple through Northern California, with slip patterns moving inland and south to cause a San Andreas Fault ruptures from Parkfield to the Salton Sea — M7.9–8.2 |
| 2110 | Disunification of the United States | National | The linear borders of America strain against the borders supplied by geography as the worsening climate tailors a hellish scenario for each. The ultra-wealthy turn against one-another and coerce their peons to follow with threats of destitution and worse. The megastates emerge. |
| 2110 to 2114 | The Cascadia-Deseret War | National | The States of Deseret political union formalizes itself as Deseret, and coordinates an attack on California. At great loss, Cascadia protects California from the worst of the attack, giving it time to muster a counterattack. California joins Cascadia. |
| 2111 | Clearlake Volcanic Activity | Regional | Microseismic swarms and ground uplift begin near Clear Lake, accompanied by a sharp uptick in geothermal venting. |
| 2115 | Clearlake Volcanic Activity | Regional | Magma migration detected at shallow depths (3–5 km) in Clearlake. Local geysers begin producing intermittent phreatic blasts. |
| 2118 | Clearlake Volcanic Activity | Regional | A VEI-2 eruption in Clearlake ejects ash and gas over Napa and Sacramento Valley. |
| 2176 | Via Lactea to Tower Spoke Index Found | | The L3-DS Index is finally discovered buried in a forgotten tomb in Damascus. |
| 2182 | The Via Lactea to Tower Spoke Waypoint Opened | | L3-DS is reunited with its Index, and the Dark Spot opens up into the WayHall. Humanity sends a small crew through, and after 13 days the crew returns with footage of an alien world. |
| 2186 | Satellites deployed to World X | | Satellites are transported through the Wayhall and placed into Jhoutai’s orbit. A closer survey reveals an Earthlike planet inhabited by multiple species of bipedal humanoids. Civilization is identified. |
| 2192 | First Contact | | Having taken notice of the opening of the Waypoint Aempis sends a vessel full of anthropologists, scientists, and warriors to the Waypoint. Humanity spots them through the satellites, and meets them at the waypoint. First contact is established. |
| 2203 | Camil is Born | | Malcolm’s Grandmother |
| 2208 | The Adventines go to Jhoutai | | |
| 2212 | The Advent War Begins | | Amid paranoid tension between Earth and the Aempian Empire, a cascade of tragedies eventually escalates into open war. |
| 2222 | The Advent War Ends | | |
| 2234 | Jadey Occupation of the San Joaquin | | |
| 2234 | Maria is Born | | Malcolm’s Mother |
| 2235 | Exodus of the Human Envowed | | All but the most critical members of the Vow are exiled from it. Some go on to live in Pleasonton, some in Sunol, and the rest scatter to the winds. Among them is Malcolm's grandmother, Camil, and her newborn, Maria. |
| 2250 | Audrey is Born | | Malcolm’s Older Sister |
| 2258 | Malcolm is Born | | The Protagonist is Born |
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