Blood Rush
It starts as a trickle, a trail of blood that only the houndsharks can follow. With each new wound, the blood blooms. Warmer than the water, the blood boils the minds of men and fish alike. A frenzy begins, fish feasting on flesh, men fighting beast until the bitter end. A red tide washes through the sea, and all is brined in copper rather than salt.
As the Trident Empire extended its grasp across the skies, Neptune's would-be tyrants set their eyes on the depths below the waves. There swam the kraken whales, and they imagined staking out their own kingdoms on their backs. Hunting parties were called, and hunter-colonialists gathered in the dozens, and later in hundreds, for a blood rush.
The blood bath spread through the seas. By the end of the century, the period itself became known as the Blood Rush as it came to touch all aspects of life. New land allowed the population to boom. The explosion of opportunities for experimentation led to massive developments in the field of organic architecture.
With enough rushes to change the blue planet red, the population of the kraken-whales could not sustain the greed. The exploitation ended only because the whales, and the opportunity they presented, went extinct.
Hunt
Whaling was once the domain of the nobility, with the kraken-whales crowned the king of fish. Grand Hunts would be organized to honor the noble and demonstrate their power over the seas around them. The hunts were rare and expensive affairs primarily for entertainment or acquisition of trophies.
The Blood Rush was caused by the emergence of a wealthy middle class without land. Developments in artificial organs and harpoon guns adequately equipped them to claim their own.
Hunter-colonialists came from many different social strata, and with many different motivations. Some were idealists, hoping to carve out their own utopia, while others dreamed of a realm entirely under their command. Some were in it for the thrill of it, some as a test of manhood, and still others for the economic opportunities or to rub elbows with the newly emerging elite. Whatever drew them into the hunting lodges, the end result was all the same for the whales.
The sighting of a white whale during the Blood Rush drew in countless hunters from distant seas. No whale killed as many of its hunters as the white whale. It made no attempt to hide, and would harry and attack other falls.
The Empress of Neptune called a Grand Hunt on the creature. When it was finally felled, it was converted into the Albino Palace.
Colonization
While the fish feasted on its flesh, an economic frenzy took hold of the corpse. Artificial organs originally invented for preserving a natural Fall were instead used to enable hollowing out the body. It was cleansed and converted into a new city. Massive factories filled the body like tumors, churning out more of the machinery needed to convert new corpses into Falls. It was a self-perpetuating industry with no regulation. Some Falls were abandoned as soon as they were created. Some fell forgotten to the depths, while others sunk into depravity with no oversight. Gruesome and lurid stories made their way to the metropoles. Modern historians believe many of these accounts were complete fiction. The owners of the old metropoles, the aristocracy, had a clear economic interest in discrediting the new elite. By the time people realized the kraken-whales became sparse, it was too late. The Trident Empire attempted to claim all remaining kraken-whales as the property of the Trident. Although the command was supported by the metropoles, it was ignored by the hunter-colonists. Ancient bylaws, anchored in the heavenly covenant of the Empress of Neptune, made any claim the Empress made of the seas and its fruits null and void.| ♆ Neptune | ||||||
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Nooo poor whales :( I hope laws were put in place to prevent something similar from happening.
Yeah, poor kraken-whales. It's hard to enforce laws in an endless ocean, but your comment made me decide to add in the Empress trying to do just that.
Solaris -— a sapphic space opera
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