Science & MaterialsÆther While the Concordic word space is often used of the cosmos, it typically refers to the literal near-empty void between planets and stars. To refer to what we would call spacetime, Lur-Asko generally uses the Alacrian word æther. During the Alacrian Golden Age, the æther was studied intensely - a pursuit both enabled and incentivized by the strong ætherial connection of adamant. Adamant seemed connected to the fabric of reality in a much more complicated way than normal matter - indeed, adamant was eventually discovered to itself be more spatial geometry than matter. By their scientific peak, the Alacris achieved an advanced level of ætherial knowledge, meeting and exceeding the theories we would know as relativity and quantum gravity.
Among the implications of the Alacrian discoveries included a hard limit to the speed of light, causality, and information. Although speculation abounded regarding whether Tsuunahgo had been visited by extraterrestrials - with Adamas and the dragons being suspected of such - the limit of light-speed foiled any hope of plausible interstellar exploration or empire. This, as well as the Alacris' genetic predisposition to underground life, meant that they were never motivated to achieve great feats of space travel, despite their technology.
The quantized nature of the æther also prohibited many other phenomena that had once been anticipated by fanciful thinkers: infinite energy machines, alternate dimensions, parallel universes, time travel into the past, and the like. Still, Alacrian mastery of the æther eventually resulted in what some scientists consider their crowning achievement: the light-speed travel of matter via an artificial ætherial effect called forced adjacency. This theory, labored upon by millions of Golden Age scientists and engineers, eventually resulted in Worldmirrors, boarding mirrors, mirror arcana, and other adamant-based teleportation devices.
Adamant A few ancient astronomers once theorized that Tsuunahgo's nearer moon, Adamas, was captured by the planet's gravity from elsewhere rather than evolving in the same solar system. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the Wandering Moon, particularly in certain fanciful bardic songs or Aterr texts.
Regardless of Adamas' origins, the moon is certainly home to a large deposit of the strangest substance ever discovered. Adamant was delivered to Tsuunahgo by volcanic eruptions on the moon during the Second Aeon. Originally thought to be a new metal based on its apparent physical qualities, the Alacris soon discovered that the material was drastically more bizarre. It cannot be categorized on any table of elements; electron microscopes revealed only shifting interference patterns with nothing obvious behind them, as if looking at a knot of geometry pretending to be matter. After further research, ancient scientists termed it dark-sector condensate - a phase of non-baryonic matter with particles that engage directly with the æther. Various fragments seemed to resonate with each other for no apparent cause, presumably linked to the bulk of the material in the mantle of Adamas as well.
Most unnervingly, the material didn't seem to respond to mechanical stimuli nearly as well as it did to linguistic or symbolic influences. By learning to crudely "communicate" with the adamant, its early engineers were able to cause it to take new shapes, and change between solid and liquid states despite lacking a conventional melting point. It could form control interfaces telepathically with organic life, and store and transform energy by biasing ætherial spin-nets at the lowest imaginable scale. Eventually, the "living metal" was classified as only a pseudo-lifeform by the Alacris, who had no moral qualms about turning it into myriad technologies and weapons. Some hypothesized that it had evolved naturally from dark-sector matter, just as life evolved from organic material on Tsuunahgo - a cosmically unremarkable accident. Others believed it might have been an artificial creation by some alien race who likewise sought technology.
Still, despite the cold detachment of rationality, many people have been unable to shake the feeling that the "moonstone" is alive in a graver, larger way than simple happenstance. Arcanists in particular report a terrifying unease after their visions, leading to the rise of tales about the Restless Sleeper - the main mass of the telepathic material within the Wandering Moon. An entity ever-slumbering, yet aware that it has been disturbed by inconceivably lesser beings. To the most fearful, a future doom is being constantly invited down by society's willingness to use and commune with "the Tears of the Sleeper." Fortunately, whatever wary commoners and the Draconic arcane schools might warn against, Adamas seems unbothered in its extremely stable orbit beyond Tsuunahgo's rings.
Alternate names for the material, even mundane ones like "æther-metal," have been unable to dislodge the popular "adamant," derived from the Draconic name of the moon itself. Adamas is translated as "indomitable," and although this originally referred to the moon's brisker orbital period compared to more distant Tel-Kryon, it has since become inseparable from the association with Lur-Asko's most unbreakable material.
Dira Quartz After the conversion of Alacrian society to adamant-based technology at the beginning of the Golden Age, many industries sought a solution to the exotic material's great cost and rarity. Adamant could either be mined from meteor craters in tiny amounts, or "spun" in energy-hungry forges at a snail's pace. Eventually, the engineers of ancient Dira invented a way to both stretch their adamant reserves, and gain access to many new applications for them.
The new material was comprised of tiny particles of adamant suspended in a crystalline medium at near-perfectly-spaced intervals. The crystal may or may not be quartz depending on the purpose, but the general name Dira quartz has stuck. Originally, the purpose was purely structural - giant pillars and struts far stronger than steel, but far cheaper than adamant, being used to hold stable the ever-deepening strata of Dira in that Age. In this role, Dira quartz continues to be grown today, forming many excellent weapons and armor suits of many different colors and weights. In more specialized types, it is used to unlock capabilities perhaps less absolutely powerful as adamant's, but varied and intriguing; it is especially enhanced in its ability to manipulate light and sound. Diran military crystallurgy was known for its specialization in illusion projectors, cloaking devices, and coherent-light weapons - a legacy that continues to both oppose and attract adventurers to this day.
Perhaps most notably, Dira quartz proved extremely efficient in conveniently storing and recovering energy - technically far less than pure adamant, but far more accessible in virtually any technological application outside of ancient power plants. These battery-like crystals were produced in two standardized types: an orange crystal suitable for quick discharge, and a blue one that contained far more energy but was only suitable for slower-rate consumption. Today, these are the only strains of Dira quartz more commonly known by their subtype names: volatite and insendite. Volatite also became Alacrian militaries' primary high-explosive, as it could be fitted with detonator devices that caused it to release its energy all at once. Unlike pure adamant batteries, volatite and insendite could not be recharged, but their relative affordability meant they were produced in significant numbers - even in many reverse-engineered facilities in modern Lur-Asko.