It strikes me that the history of this world is in many ways similar to, and yet in many ways different from Earth’s.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a commonly used name for the world. I’ll go with the Imperial Common term, Aran, which is just the word for “world” or “planet”.

The early history (or prehistory?) is the most striking aspect. There isn’t much known. For a long time, at least several millennia, humans lived in tribes of hunter-gatherers. So far, so like Earth. But we don’t know if humans actually evolved here. No hard evidence has been found, like bones of earlier hominids. No real signs of this period, like cave paintings. I suppose that’s simply the nature of the world.

It’s possible that humans came from different worlds. We already know that there’s connections between them. In my opinion, the presence of recognizable humans in so many different worlds can be better explained by migration rather than convergent evolution. But with magic, who knows?

Maybe ‘the barriers between universes’ were thinner then. The world was certainly a different place. Wilder and more chaotic. I’m not sure if cultivation changed qi, or if it settled naturally. Maybe the stories are exaggerated, as well. But with all the spirits and spirits beasts, it’s a testament to humanity’s resilience that they survived. This period is marked by early attempts at cultivation. Pulling qi into their bodies to make them tougher and stronger, but without anything we could call techniques, and certainly not enough to match the monsters. Humans survived in areas of lower qi density, where there weren’t as many beasts, or they weren’t as strong.

Slowly, they started building settlements. This world’s Neolithic Revolution, about ten thousand years ago, at an estimate. This happened almost everywhere at the same time, give or take a thousand years. It’s also the time when people really started dealing with spirits, and improving their cultivation. The first cores were formed. The world was still more ‘unsettled’ back then, but I think it calmed down around this period.

During this early history, there was a relative ton of communication between different groups. One of the most glaring differences to Earth, and it surprised me a lot. The reason is spirits. Humans bargained with spirits, who had a far easier time crossing inhospitable terrain and passing messages even to people a thousand kilometers away. So, ideas spread. Even between continents, though slower.

In this time, a while after building the first villages, there was a crafting boom. At around the same time, humans developed technology for crafting stuff from monster parts and smelting metal. Better weapons and general tech, along with their improved cultivation, allowed them to push back against the wilderness and secure bigger areas. The first towns were built, and eventually the first cities.

Of course, since settling down, society also changed. Class systems developed. They were naturally more fluid in the beginning. Those with a lot of talent were revered. Generally, the ‘warrior class’, who protected the settlements from monsters, had higher status. Maybe they also got to be in charge because they had the military strength. In any case, from the records we have, there stood a grand total of three cities on this continent where the leaders were not warriors — and those were lead by shamans or priests. People will be people, I guess.

Right, the records. Writing developed from early signs around the same time they discovered metalwork. It spread quickly, and it’s hard to say whether it’s from a single source or the concept was developed independently in several places. Of course, different regions developed their own systems. Neighboring cities’ would usually be close enough that travelers could decipher them, but modern historians haven’t even come close to getting all of them.

It’s important to realize just how scattered they were, though. Humans mostly still stuck to safe locations, and there could easily be wilderness for a thousand kilometers around a city-state. Compared to Earth, qi made growing food easier, but the environment harder to survive, let alone tame. I guess it’s unsurprising events took a slightly different path.

In time, things reminiscent to modern nations developed. Although they changed a lot. Technology improved mostly based on qi. This made it feasible to expand, and link up cities and regions. Whether that happened through trade connections or conquest varied, of course. I think this is the time period that influences from other worlds really started to matter. Maybe because of better organization, maybe a cultural change. It could just be that other worlds advanced through time as well, and therefore scientific exchange became more possible. In any case, in some parts of the continent, the cultures developed in ways I find strangely familiar.

! Let me pause for an important note. If you reread this, future self, pay attention. The only history I’ve read comes from Imperial sources, or at least books approved to be kept in the palace. There’s obviously bias here. Of course, history is often told far from objectively. My country isn’t much for revisionist history, thankfully, but even in my schoolbooks there were parts that could have been handled better, or should have been included at all. And in other countries, well… Here, the rhetoric is hard to miss sometimes, at minimum.

I mean, any country that has to be called ‘the greatest country in the world’ regularly probably isn’t.

Of course, the world might just be like that. Maybe all countries have that kind of propaganda, and this is still one of the better places to live. In fact, that probably is the case. This isn’t Earth, after all.

That said, I’ll leave most of the Empire’s history for their books, or maybe deal with it later.

The nation started in what’s called the Central Mountains. In the middle of the Central Continent. Oh, the egocentrism …. It’s often the Sky Continent now. Not much better, but at least it fits with the rest.

There’s some debate on when the country really started, but whatever. After a while, it was properly unified and in the throes of progress. That’s when it spread out. A new city was built at the foot of the mountains, between the ‘two great rivers’. The first expansion followed them. Along the Blossom River towards the northern bay, the closest coastline; and along the Green River through the Central Plains (really, folks?), until it reached the low mountain range usually called Dark Forest. The whole thing went pretty quickly. Finishing Thousand Stars City, the new capital, marks the start of the Imperial Calendar. In the same year, the ruler officially changed his title to Emperor, although he’d apparently been called that for a while.

Afterward, over a period of around two thousand years, it spread until it covered most of the continent. There are a lot of separate events, conquests and some losses, though I’m too lazy to note them all down here. But they did have cool airships. Then there was a period of stagnation where nothing much happened, with only a bit of progress. Well, the printing press, not much else of note. Then the most devastating civil war yet, which is still prominent in their culture: the Red Rain. That ended in the year 3250 with the third dynasty. Well, a period of stabilization, and then it continued spreading.

The country started with a feudal structure, and that never really changed. Developing from the ‘martial heroes’ of the early nation, the nobles used to have more power back then. Well, how strong they were in comparison to the throne varied a lot over the millennia, of course. In some eras, the Empire was more of a loose collection of states, while in others, the rulers kept them on a tight leash. The most recent civil war and its aftermath are a case in point.

Anyway, the next step that happened would be intercontinental travel and everything that usually follows it. Right now, of course, we’re in some weird mix of the middle ages, the age of imperialism, maybe the cold war, and the modern day.

I find it interesting how there’s a progression to larger structures. From villages to cities to nations to global powers. More clearly than on Earth. I guess that means it’s time for conquering the world, right? (Seriously, though.)

I think I’ll focus on the later history of the Empire of the Sky at some other time. Right now, I’d rather see if I can find anything about spirit beast civilizations.