Project Description

Cosmology

The Nordic creation myth is one the of the most brutal and exciting of all creation myths. The key differences in its less-than immortal gods and constant human interaction as a ploy to save themselves are fascinating aberrations from Greek, Hindu, or Christian myth. Though ultimately the gods are doomed to die in Ragnarok, Norse myth is surprisingly less fatalistic then many Apocalyptic religions since.

Ymir Falling takes the excitement and intrigue of this mythos and combines it with current trends in literature to re-imagine the origins of such stories and take them from a place of myth and fantasy and plant them in a firm science fiction background.

Furthering this effort the project focuses not just on Ragnarok and the stories of old, but retells those stories through the eyes of a young survivor who is discovering the world, its true history, and herself along the way.

Races

 Keeping with tradition the races of the classic myth are all represented.

Aesir: A race of beings from a distant planet destroyed in an apocalypse, these survivors fled to Earth in an attempt to restart their race. Technological geniuses in the areas of metallurgy, heavy physics, and social engineering; they use these expertise to reforge Earth into a paradise, for them.

Vanir: A sister race of the Aesir, the Vanir also arrive on Ymir. Geniuses in genetic manipulation, animal husbandry, and terraforming; they are sometimes at odds with Aesir.

Humanity: Barely out of the STone Age and just entering the Bronze Age, they are susceptible to the influence of the mighty and strange aliens that arrive.

Elves: The elves, in keeping with certain mythic tradition, are vessels for the gods. Of course sans magic that makes them clone shells waiting for an Aesir or Vanir to require a more youthful body.

Dwarves: A servant class of clones, at the onset of the Vanir/Aesir war they flee into the underground. Mutated by radiation and self-experimentation they are extremely proficient in the design of machines but unwholesome in mind and deed.

Trolls: As yet we have no plans for the concept of Trolls as a race.

Ice Giants: Humongous dwarven forged machines. Destructive to man and god alike.

Fire Giants: Machines of Aesir origin, subverted by dwarven uprisings they hang menacingly in the skies of ancient Earth.

The Dead: Though not considered a race originally, that being taken by Hill giants, here the dead are represented as an enormous repository of genetic data and memory data banks.

Places

 The Nine worlds.

Asgard: High atop Yggdrasil this is the celestial city of the Aesir, a utopia born of social engineering and massive energy.

Vanaheim: A group of labs and gardens hanging below Asgard.

Midgaard: The world of man is still the same, the general plane of Earth.

Hel: An undeground factory that processes the dead into raw material.

Jotunheim: Not technically a world of its own. A factory where giants are assembled by the dwarves.

Svartalfheim: The underground tunnels and factories of the dwarves.

Alfheim: An enormous facility for the physical training and preservation of elves.

Niflheim: A cryogenic storage area near Hel.

Muspell: A facility in orbit past the moon that harnesses solar and cosmic energy for process and use by Jormungand.

Technology

The technology level shifts widely from the humans that are exiting the Stone Age and entering the Bronze Age, the dwarves that have stolen technology that rivals modern Earth, to the Aesir that have nano-factories and fission engines, and the Vanir who can modify and clone nearly exponentially.

There are limits to this technology. Cold fusion remains implausible, cloning takes a natural amount of time, anti-gravity is tentative at best, longevity and neural sciences are advanced but not perfect.
Machines of note:

Jormungand: The world serpent is an enormous reactor that provides energy in combination with Muspell to power Yggdrasil and all of its attachments.

Fenrir: A mighty etheric cannon that disrupts and annihilates matter on a quantum level.

GARM: A powerful enforcer guard that protects the ‘corpse shore’ from contamination.

Ratatosk: A shuttle that transfers materials between Asgard and Nidhogg.

Nidhogg: A nano-mass processor that reclaims all material from Midgard and Yggdrasil and transfers it to the storage facility Niflheim.

Mimir: A mainframe that stores all Aesir and Vanir research data.

Valkyries: Reclamation machines that take people to become ‘Einherjar’.

Skalds

Keepers of the Nordic oral tradition, these men and women are tasked with passing down the stories of old.

Within the concept of the project there are nine skalds that each have a piece of the total history that Lif must uncover and put together to reforge the world after the nuclear winter and desolation of Ragnarok 2,000 years ago.