Streamfall Island

Streamfall Island lies at the far southeastern edge of the Edisonne Archipelago, a quiet crescent of land long overlooked by the imperial heartlands. Though legally owned by the Imperial Crown, its isolation—and the peculiar role it plays in the life of Edison—has given it a character entirely its own. To many, Streamfall exists only as a name on a migration document, a remote waypoint between desperation and opportunity. To those who remain, it is a place of forests, waterfalls, waiting, and memory.

Geography & Landscape

Seen from above, Streamfall resembles a shallow spoon carved out of ancient stone. High, jagged cliffs edge almost the entirety of its shoreline, forming a concave bowl that channels every rainfall inward. The island’s spine, rugged and forested, arcs around this deep interior, funneling water down toward the heart of the land.

All these waters converge in Lake Augusta, a cold, shimmering basin pressed into the island’s center like a jewel set in stone. Lake Augusta is fed not by streams but by hundreds of narrow, rushing runnels slicing down from the cliffs after each Storm. In the rainy months, the sound alone is said to be deafening—an unbroken anthem of falling water.

From the lake begins the island’s most dramatic feature: the River Babbage. Short and furious, Babbage erupts southwards from the lake and crashes through the valley in a sequence of breathtaking drops. Its waterfalls are famous among the few who have seen them—white curtains flung from basalt shelves, rainbows forming in the mist despite the island’s gloom.

The river finally spills into the Gulf of Ada, the one gentle place on Streamfall’s otherwise treacherous coastline. Here, the cliffs break. Golden sand curls around the sheltered gulf in a warm arc, and the sea lies placid, protected by the stone walls rising on either side.

In the gulf’s heart stands Streamrise Island, a solitary column of rock emerging from the blue waters. Sheer cliffs ring it like a fortress, as though the sea itself carved a pedestal out of reverence. Only a few small beaches dot its perimeter—tiny pale crescents just large enough to land a boat.

Port Lovelace — “Junk City”

On one of the Gulf of Ada’s sandy inlets sits Port Lovelace , known colloquially and perhaps unkindly as Junk City. For more than thirty years, this settlement has been the buffer between the overcrowded capital and those who dream of joining it. Here, hopeful arrivals from across the Altian Ocean wait—sometimes weeks, sometimes months—for their papers to be processed and for an imperial decree to permit new residents into Edison’s island metropolis.

The town itself is a curious patchwork of aspiration and abandonment. Shacks built from driftwood stand beside tents stitched from old sails. A few sturdier homes, constructed by those who decided or were forced to stay, form the settlement’s backbone. Over the years, the place has become a living museum of human persistence: forgotten heirlooms, repurposed machinery, old luggage, patched tools, and makeshift gardens cling to the narrow strips of land between beach and forest.

Though neglected by Edison proper, Port Lovelace thrives on community. Here, strangers become neighbors out of necessity. In the evenings, lights glow from the settlement, warm and flickering, as though defying the loneliness imposed by bureaucracy and distance.

A Forgotten Island & Its Benefactor

For the last decade, the Stargazer Exploration Company has quietly acted as the island’s guardian. Though the people of Edison rarely remember Streamfall, the SEC has not forgotten it. What began as occasional relief shipments has grown into something far more structured: maintenance of infrastructure, provision of supplies, medical assistance, and now—most ambitiously—the construction of a hydroelectric and water-management dam.

The dam rises in the lower valley where the Babbage River narrows before spilling into the gulf. Designed by the formidable Engineer Tillya Wheeler and her team, the structure combines modern industry with the stark natural beauty of the cliffs. Once complete, it will provide Port Lovelace with its first reliable source of power and fresh water, and it may finally lift the settlement from its reputation as a place of waiting.

SEC’s involvement is not widely publicized. Some say the company sees Streamfall as a symbol of those forgotten by the empire. Others whisper that something about the island—its cliffs, its geology, its tranquil solitude—holds a value known only to the Stargazers.

A Hunting Ground Remembered

Long before the queues, paperwork, and temporary dwellings, Streamfall was the personal hunting estate of the imperial family. Its dense conifer forests were once patrolled by royal rangers, and imperial heirs visited the island for solitude or sport. Those days are long gone, but the legacy remains in the abundance of wildlife roaming the evergreen groves.

In recent years, the rights to controlled hunting have been passed to the Port Lovelace mayorship. For many families in the settlement, these carefully managed hunts represent a vital source of food, one of the few traditions tying the struggling community to the island’s aristocratic past.