Aether and Aunde

There will need to be links here - see the classes section - do we want classes????

“Ah, aether and aunde - such fascinating topics - it allows so many impossibilities to suddenly become possible.”

As I am sure you read earlier, aether is a natural energy source formed by solar radiation interacting with the rings around our planet. This energy is transferred between the rings and the planet itself. Aether works different than any other form of matter on our planet. The entire planet is covered in it, but is mostly invisible. It also almost ‘selectively’ interacts with physical matter. We’ll discuss that a bit later here. But think of it like this: aether is found in the atmosphere, in forests, cities, land, mountains, and the deepest parts of the ocean - the interaction with other forms of matter is irrelevant to how aether functions - and the researchers and scholars of our world still don’t understand all of the how’s and why’s about it.

Although aether covers the entire planet - it also has areas of higher concentrations. The easiest way to think of aether is like an ocean, and the areas of higher concentration are like ocean currents. We call these ‘aether-lines’, and they criss-cross the planet. These ‘currents’ however can intersect without affecting other currents at fixed points. Each fixed point is called a Nexus. The more ‘currents’ that go through an intersection point, the larger, and more powerful the Nexus, and the more energy that can be harnessed.

As aether was further researched, scholars discovered that aether worked by a curiosity not seen in the scientific world before. In the spaces between the nucleus of an atom and their respective electrons - another type of matter existed. It couldn’t be defined as a particle or a wave, but it was something else. The current belief is that this type of matter appears more like threads that are constantly changing - breaking, merging, and interacting with other threads to constantly make new ones. These couldn’t be counted, but they did discover its behaviour, and could partially measure its energy changes. Similar to on/off or 1 - 0 states, aether acted by ‘activation’ and ‘deactivation’. When in an activated state - the energy could be harnessed, stored, and used. However, when in a deactivated state, the energy was lost - transferred to something else.

As aether wasn’t hindered by other states of matter, this meant it also existed and flowed through every living being. For still unclear reasons, anything that was alive was almost like a magnet and a catalyst for aether - just by existing and living, aether would activate itself by passing through living things, almost as if living things attracted and caused aether activation. Over time, aether even affected the physiology of all living things, but whether or not it could be used, that was a different question altogether. However, it has been done, and in extreme circumstances aether has been harnessed naturally in humans for impossible feats. When it was used like this, it was given the name: Aunde. This is the equivalent of how you would think a person uses… ‘magic,’ I believe you call it.

Now, before you think that over time, everyone can just use Aunde willy-nilly, cast fire spells, or anything else similar… No, that’s not how it works - the amount that flows through and that could be harnessed by humans is almost negligible - think of it like the amount of heat a person gives off at any one moment. The extreme cases are anomalies that still have not been able to be entirely explained.

As more research was done into aether and aunde - a discovery was made - the ability to store aether like a battery. This made multiple applications, but the most interesting was the bioapplication of aether and aunde. When these batteries were created, the researchers and scholars found that the natural aunde being released by a person could be collected and stored alongside the aether around them. In addition, it could be readily harnessed and manipulated to do different things. These devices were known as ‘amplifiers’. Amplifiers significantly increased the potential of aunde usage, and yes, now you can think of this like fire spells, magic, and the like. However the aunde was tied to the desire of the person, and had several different applications and classes.

This was where aether and aunde had begun to affect physiology of sentient living beings. With the use of amplifiers, it allowed them to have natural abilities and competencies for as of yet, undiscovered reasons. From what has been observed, aether and aunde through amplifiers have allowed living beings to have talents in these classes:

1. Caster: Able to create objects out of concentrated aether with specific properties, and can manipulate them at will

2. Kineticist: Can use the flow of aether to manipulate physical items, objects, and the like, this can be any state of matter, and can also change the properties of that state of matter, e.g. water to ice or steam.

3. Perceptionist: Use aether to alter how others perceive the world around them, can alter any and all senses for a time. Some are believed to even be able to change the way people think for a period of time as well.

4. Enchanter: Can essentially create ‘specific amplifiers’, they give aether specific commands when stored in an object. Can store highly concentrated aether into objects easily. However, the talent and study dictates how high of a concentration of aether they can put into an object.

5. Runekrafter: Similar to the enchanter, however, instead of storage, they can change the properties and attributes of aether in real-time by in essence, programming or re-programming the aether.

Bare in mind that these are only the currently discovered classes, and these act on a spectrum, for example, one might have a 80% proficiency as a Kineticist, but 15% as an Enchanter, and 5% as a Caster. They will always add up to 100%, and no one as of yet has been discovered to demonstrate more than 100% in more than one class.

For a time, it became commonplace for everyone to have an amplifier of their own. However, all good things had to come to an end, and once amplifiers were used for darker purposes, tapping into unknown forces, and causing conflicts; amplifiers were almost outlawed altogether. Only those with special licenses were permitted to even use them, and even then, they were highly restricted and sought after. There are some schools that will teach and allow them to be used, however, aether has already influenced all living beings in our world to the point that now everyone does have talent and potential for at least one of these areas. It is still a topic of great debate regarding equality/equity if everyone should be granted an amplifier or not, as well as the quality of amplifiers between those of higher and lower socio-economic classes.

Outside of amplifiers, aether’s primary use was in the advancement of technology. These classes were implemented and aided in developing new forms of transport such as our luftglyders and aetherwings - vehicles that use aether to essentially hover and fly in a manner similar to dragonflies. Aether is also used alongside electricity to power technology, and aid in various areas of life. In addition, aether was easy to collect, and made it possible for energy to be free at a global scale - and it has been this way for many years now. Aether has helped our world to create new areas of science integration to advance fields of medicine, agriculture, and technology.