Disclaimer:

Rule over Diablo I and II is in the hands of Blizzard Entertainment... but has been usurped by hordes of malicious binge players and evil fanficwriters! Unite all followers of the beast!

Well, that was before the lawsuit. So Blizzard does own Diablo I and II and I don't

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Between magic and wires

Untill we truly know the meaning of being an enemy, our war will only consume us in the end.

-Haakon Kathos

Prologue

It was the year 7.

The world had become a strange place. Life as it was in the days of old coexisted with technology of the still young space age. So devided was this place, that different people had different names for it. Those who believed space was no place for people called her Sanctuary, while all spacetravelers refer to the world as Sanctuary Astra.

The destruction of the worldstone seven years ago meant the end of the world as it had always been. Powers that had previously been kept in check were then free to directly affect the Sanctuary Realm. Massive surges of chaotic energy altered the course of the planet's magma flows, causing its axis to tilt and the crust to become unstable. The climate was thrown off balance by massive volcanic eruptions spewing large quantities of ash and toxins into the atmosphere. The drastic climate changes affected every part of the Sanctuary Realm. Jungles turned to frozen wasteland, deserts of sand became deserts of volcanic ash and the rapidly growing polar ice caps drew so many water from the seas that they fell back dozens of miles from what was once the port of Kurast.

When the planet changed, mankind had only one choise. It had to adapt, or Sanctuary would become its graveyard. But instead of becoming a graveyard, Sanctuary became the cradle of a brave new society. The order of Zakarum used its political and magical powers to unite all races and tribes under a centralized governing body. With their natural ability to maintain order and efficiently lead larger groups of people they created the Realm Council. As soon as it was in place and accepted by the greater part of the people as the only means of survival, they involved other powerful factions into their well organized effort to make the human race survive. Responsible for the great unification was head priest Halad Deimus IV. The Great Unification happened trough intense negotiation but sometimes force had to be used against unwilling parties. Paladins spread the word and squelched any voices that spoke out against the new society. Anything that was concidered harmful thinking would be discourgaed if possible. If not, the particular group would be forced into the fold or in the worst possible case isolated. Time was of the essense if mankind was to survive. Initially the Realm Council was to become a democratic organ, containing representatives of every mage clan and to a lesser degree of the common people. But the order of Zakarum was very afraid of possible choas in the realm, thinking that a government composed of people from all over the realm could facilitate the spreading of harmful thinking. Only high ranking priests of Zakarum took seat in the Realm Council. And so the United Sanctuary Republic or USR was created.

During the seven years that followed the Realm Council put technological development before anything else. To this end served the remarkably intelligent female Zann Esu mages. The woman selected by the head witches of this clan seemed to have a few things in common. Besides high intelligence, none of them had experience with the powerful emotions that have to be dealt with in real life, let alone a dangerous situation causing an entire people to face death. Typically, the Zann Esu had chosen the least accesible part of the jungles above Kurast to build their main temple complex and living quaters. The dying world caused them to fall apart. Desperarly trying to find stable ground the Esu head witch Leyora sought contact with the Realm Council. Under the condition that she would be allowed into the Realm Council she agreed that her clan would be integrated into the order of Zakarum. A few sorceresses cut themselves off from the clan and disppeared into either Kurast or cities further away. However, a great part of the fully trained sorceresses and nearly all apprentices were willing to join the order. They worked with paladins, scholars, architects and mathematicians to craft new technologies and refine them at a frightening pace. The main focus was on lightning magic as raw electricity turned out to be the most usefull and controllable form of magic in technology. With their help the mathematicians found ways to use small electricity pulses to represent infomation. After the creation of the first crude computer using multiple semi conductors electronics advanced rapidly. Aided by very complex forms of elemental magic the paladins managed to create many different lightweight alloys and compositie materials. The architects worked out a plan to generate electricity by drawing heat from the center of the planet. The technologies that were being developed all served to achieve one thing. As soon as all required technologies were developed, Halad Deimus ordered the contruction of a cluster of large self-sustained undergound cities beneath Kurast, streching far beyond the suburbs of the city itself. It did not stop at that however. Deimus had seen enough, refined technology held great possibilities for other endavours. Against the will of those who had already reluctantly agreed with the development of the technologies needed to create underground cities, technology was advanced so incredibly fast, that within five short years the first brave soul made the very first space flight. It wasn't much though. The spaceship' was a smooth cylinder with two slightly inwardly curved guidance rods attached to its sides allowing the astronaut aka sorceress to channel her telekinetic abilities while electronics held the course. Evenso, this had the Realm Council looking into possible ways of creating an even better home for the human race by colonizing another heavanly body. The trend was set with the first spaceship, they all had a design fundementally simillar to the first ship, the Rising Star. That way, any starship had so called navigators. The title does not imply it, but the navigator is the captain's equal in Zakarum ships. Once mages of the Zann Esu, they learned to use their powers to carry entire spaceships. The world'...was about to become much larger then just the Sanctuary Realm. Outer space awaited those who were brave enough to defy its eternally cold and dangerous nature.

The first spaceflight, five years after the creation of the United Sanctuary Republic, truly made clear that technology had advanced so much that mankind was no longer in immediate danger of extinction. The fight for survival that had masked the difference between the many cultures in the Sanctuary Realm, was over. Every one of these groups began to wonder what they truly believed in. This marked the beginning of another time of great changes in the Sanctuary Realm. Some said mankind fell apart again, but any intelligent soul could see that mankind was never really united at all. At least not in their hearts. Society was effectively a myriad of little bits, and every little bit had its own opinion about the new world. Still, almost everyone choose to live within the advanced underground cities undermeath Kurast. Those who stubbornly refused, quickly met their fates in the hostile outside world. With so little space between the living in the world, few could be blind to each others ways of life and thinking. Long standing cultural differences became clearer then ever before with everyone living close together and faced with many new things. It was hard to ignore any of the new technology since all of underground Kurast was made of it. Many people were simpy not able to cope with advanced technology yet, or with each other. Even when starships traveled through space and highly advanced computers worked over complex equations of Zakarum's sccholars and mathematicians, most people still lit their homes with candles, traveled by horse and fought out their arguments with sword and shield if they got out of hand. Newly invented rechargable energy weapons were looked down upon with utter disgust by about half of the people. Some warriors still concidered the sword to be holy, while others had no problem with the usgage of energy weapons.

The first part of the second great change happened to the Realm Council and the great factions that supported it. As soon as they decided to continue selecting new members from within their organization despite the increasing demand for democratically elected council members, the childern of Bul Kathos, as the people of the north called themselves, began to show signs of rebellion against the Realm Council. These events did not come as a surprise though. A powerful warrior and descendant of the great Kathos himself, Haakon Kathos, had made it clear on several occasions that he was unprepared to support the Realm Council if it would continue down the path it was going, which was supression in his eyes. The support he got from people of the former nothern tribes caused great concern to them. Eventually they decided to relocate them to one of the habitable planets near Sanctuary Astra in order to make an end to the unrest. Haakom Kathos became aware of the plans through a few of the former Zann Esu woman who had come to dislike the ways of the Realm Council aswell. Realizing that open rebellion could potentially destroy mankind in its current vulnerable state, Kathos and his followers left Sanctuary Astra in order to create a world that would be right in their eyes. With the help of several starship navigators of the Zann Esu they left Sanctuary Astra onboard six large starships, originally meant for colonization of nearby planets by the Sanctuary Republic. By stealing the actual vessels rather than being shipped off with them he secured technology required to strike a fair balance of power later on. After weeks of searching through interstellar space they landed on the second planet further away from the sun than Sanctuary Astra. It was given the name Kathos Prime. Kathos Prime was a cold, desolte, dry world, but not entirely devoid of life. It was a challange to live on, and maybe that was what made them decide to live there. The Realm Council responded quickly by constructing the first space combat frigates ever. Eradicating the fledgeling northern tribes would go too far in the eyes of the people, so they simply made sure that they could never return to Sanctuary Astra.

The colonization program of the Realm Council went on as planned. In the end they colonized three more worlds. The two inhabited planets closer to the sun than Sanctuary Astra were called the inner ring colonies. The two inhabited worlds further away from the sun than Sanctuary Astra, including Kathos Prime, were called the outer ring colonies. On these planets a lot of people began a new life, and some of the tension disappeared from underground Kurast. There were enough people though who disliked living with different minded neighbours, but would rather be damned then abandon their homeworld.

The amozon people left the planet together with other settlers of the USR (United Sanctuary Republic). Unwilling to cope any longer with the planet's horrible climate the amazon people moved to Carlusia, the innermost of all colonies. Carlusia was reffered to as the second inner ring colony, as counting began at Sanctuary Astra for both the inner and outer ring colonies. The first inner ring colony was named Galandria and used as a shipyard for large starships because it had low gravity. The first outer ring colony became known as Hedrin. This world resembled Sanctuary as it was decades ago, still untouched by the prime evils. Life on Hedrin was like in old days as well. The only piece of advanced technology on the planet was its spacesport. This building sat as a silent reminder to the fact that the universe had changed forever and that the Sanctuary Realm as it was would never return.

The cult of Rathma, a faction of greatly feared necromancers, was heard from only sporadically, and over time not at all. Rumours indicated that they had established some sort of homebase on S-51233, a nameless ball of rock floating on the very edge of the Sanctuary Universalis star system. How on Earth they could have gotten there was a complete mystery though. S-51233 is so far away from the sun that day seemingly never breaks, from there the sun is merely a bright star. In common speech it is refered to as the third outer ring colony. However, officially there were only two outer ring colonies.

Druids disappeared completely from Sanctuary. The death of virtually all animal life had left them completely devoid of life force.

The only people that could cope well with Sanctuary as it was since the destruction of the worldstone were people like assasins, pirates and bounty hunters. The dark and hostile climate of Sanctuary provided them with ample space to establish make shift hideouts and spaceports, completely undetectable through all known means. And the hostile social climate provided them with all the work they needed...