Professor Morgan Freedman: "Today is when we make history- After our discovery of the particle of Dark Energy within the Superconducting Super Collider, and it's effect on changing the effective mass and therefore the local speed of light of a piece of Spacetime, we are finally ready to do a field test on it's use for superluminal travel."
Dana L. Mercer: "Today's experiment involves our first test to increase the speed of light within a volume that is larger than a few atoms- Dark Energy will be used to increase the speed of light inside this test chamber, while the lasers will be used to confirm that the change have worked by sending a pulse that bounces across the chamber. If all went well, this will soon be the first time Humanity reach beyond the speed of light."
Professor Morgan Freedman: "Accelerator energy at 61.2401 percent... Reaching resonance at 151.21 TeV... And it was working!"
Invisible Dark Energy particles permeates the chamber- And as the equivalent mass of the space-time within the chamber decreases, the laser pulses that is used to measure the speed of light within it returned faster and faster. Everything seems to go according-to-plan.
Dana L. Mercer: "Local speed of light reaching over 100C and increasing... local speed of light reaching over 1000C and increasing... 10000C and holding... 1000000C and holding... This is a miracle! 10000000C and still rising... 16262500C... And it seems to have tapered off at 16600000C... No. Wait. It have seemed to decrease. 15000000C now. 12000000C now. Freeman, did you check the beam energy of the collider?"
Professor Morgan Freedman: "Checking... Collider beam energy and output perfectly fine. Speed of light within the chamber shouldn't be decreasing. Wait, why you look so short Dana? Why everything around is growing bigger? Wait.. .. ... ... ... ..."
As the speed-of-light-increasing effect of the dark energy radiation reached over a certain threshold, it breaks through the test chamber and radiate out toward all of reality, converting the low-C space-time continuum into the high C spacetime same as within the used-to-be test chamber of the Dark Energy FTL experiment. Except for space-time within the body of a Human, which effectively slowed down the speed of light within the immediate vicinity of all Human individuals for more than 16600000 times compared to everything else.
And it turned out, the local speed of light affects not just the fastest speed everything can travel within that volume of spacetime- The speed of light determines the size of everything by dictating the speed of which interactions may travel across different fundamental particles, and it also determines the effective mass of a particle given energy through the Einstein's mass-energy equation, E=MC^2.
As the speed of light is slowed down within the body of every human individual, the atoms and molecules within their bodies suddenly became a lot more inertially massive, reducing the Bohr's Radius of their constituent particles down to nearly 1 16600000th of the original radius and causing their bodies to shrink from 1.7m to 102nm in height- Barely larger than a small virus, or about the same height as a stack of 5 bacterial ribosomes.
The speed of communication between these components, and therefore the speed of chemical reactions, have also slowed down, preserving the interactions within the now microscopic humans whose size is no larger than even the smallest bacterium on earth. Because of the much-reduced local speed of light, the gravitational mass of an individual human have also been reduced- down to 1/2.7556*10^14 of the original mass since the energy of a particle determines it's gravitational mass, which is controlled by the same E=MC^2 relation as everything else.
A side effect of this, is, however, that because the size is much smaller, the fundamental frequency of electromagnetic radiation that was perceptible by the microscopic Humans have been raised to 16600000 times that of visible light into the x-ray spectrum, as their shrunken size decreased the maximum wavelength of electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the much shorter antenna molecules within their eyes.
Factoring in the fact that the reduced speed of light caused another 16600000 time blueshift of the incoming radiation, the nanoscopic humans perceive time 16600000 times slower than they used to- a second to them is about 60 nanoseconds to the rest of the entire galaxy, enabling them to see the motions of molecules in real time.
1st Apr 2025, about 5 milliseconds later.Jacob E. Taylor woke up from the coma caused by the sudden reduction in size- his last memories was a report of an explosion happening in the Superconducting Super Collider, and then everything around him gets larger and larger before he fell unconscious as Visible light around him faded into nothingness.
Jacob finds himself on a very strange place. Below his feet was something that looked like if it was composed of thousands of strands of a repeated, chain-like material made of repeated triangular and hexagonal "beads" on a sort of thick string. In front of him, large, spherical objects could be seen that looked like rocks on a field, attached to the strange substance under his feet with what seems to be helical shaped "cables" the same size as his upper arm.
Still confused, Jacob Taylor tried to pry one of the chain-like material strands out of the ground- and the material just keeps coming out, until a small pile of the material, several thousand "beads" in length, have been coiled on one of his arms. The material seems to disintegrate, shattering into shapes that looked like the cartoon "candies" with two triangular parts attached to a hexagon, and what could only be assumed to be pieces of "string" that looked like stylized lightning bolts, before seemingly disappearing into his body.
"what the..." Jacob murmured. Since he came to this strange field of spheres and beaded chains, He have neither felt hunger nor thirst (nor need of breath) in the traditional way. Only something that he assumed to be an "energy meter" that appeared to represent both health and stamina. Initial walking across the field have depleted a small part of this "energy meter", which refilled when he seemingly absorbed the material of the ground into his body.
"So the ground is made of food. Just not what you normally thought of. Where is everyone else?"
Jacob closed onto one of the large spheres on the ground. The sphere appeared to be largely inert from the outside- but as he closed onto the sphere, it appeared that the surface of the sphere was composed of a sort of liquid- shapes about the same size of his hands drifted randomly across the surface, most of which was irregular in shape, but many of which seems to group together, forming strange yet eerily elegant symmetries that too drifted around the surface of the sphere.
Jacob closed in onto one of the shapes, and- "Ouch!" and he lost a little finger to one of the structures as it sprung up like a bear trap and snapped off the little finger of his left hand. "My finger!" Jacob backed off instinctively, screaming in pain... pain? Jacob noticed that what should be a bleeding wound that was left of his left little finger, was instead, not bleeding at all. A sort of distortion covers his left hand, before the distortion re-materialized into the same, functional little finger that wasn't there just moments ago. The "energy meter" of Jacob Taylor have been drained a little- but now knowing how to replenish his energy reserves, Jacob snipped off and absorbed another piece of the strange material on the ground, and it was quickly refilled.
"So I can't approach the spheres directly- but I could regenerate if damaged by something. So it's time to make some sort of weapon."
There were large "Mountains" that could be seen on the background- grains of siliceous sand that was a part of the natural dust content of each and every house in the world. "Stone weapons may be useful against these things... let's try prying off one of the cable things that were attaching these spheres- If it does not hurt myself, then it may be useful."
Approaching one of the spheres again, Jacob E. Taylor first tried to touch the cable-like things connecting the spheres to the ground material- And neither did it damage him nor drain his energy like the surface structures on the spheres did. "Perfect. Let's try prying it off the sphere and the ground then." Pulling the structure harder and harder, the cable first bulged, and then cracks appeared between the pine tree scale- like external texture of the "cable", and a chunk of it broke off the rest of the structure, revealing a sharp tip and a cone-shaped hole at the bottom. "Looks sturdy." Jacob E. Taylor did not expect that the cable-like structures were that strong compressively- Cables and Ropes usually slump onto the ground if not in tension. Poking at the various parts of the ground, Jacob E. Taylor concluded that while the external part of the "pole" was indeed quite hard, the sharp-looking tip, which was on the inside of the structure, was not- It yields before the rest of the "pole" even bends when subjected to a force.
The rest of the structure have been retracting- "piece" by "piece", the broken end of the "Cable" that was attached to the sphere retracts back into a port on it's surface, which was again ornate yet symmetrical just like the rest of the structures on the sphere's surface. "What the H***?" Jacob was slightly wary- He fears that once the entire structure is retracted, the "Sphere" may come alive. So he backed away.
Luckily, it seems that once fully retracted, a structure, same as the one he just broke off, re-exited the port on the surface of the sphere, with what seems to be the most ugly end-cap attached to the tip of it- Which seems to be the "bottom" end of the piece of the "Cable" ha torn off previously. The tip quickly reached to the surface of the strange field that he could only assume to be "Ground Level", and reattached itself to the surface.
"That's close. Time to find some rocks."
Jacob Taylor start to run toward the large "mountains" on the background, which proved to be surprisingly fast when compared to his own size. But it was still not enough- Jacob thought of even jumping toward the "mountain" on the background, and as he gave it a try, he suddenly finds himself to be drifting in the "air" around himself. The ground is still there, but it seems to be quite small considering his current location. Air particles blasted over his skin, and he finds that he could glide (swim) through the airflow quite effectively as the air appeared to take on the characteristics of water (although much less dense) in terms of viscosity at this speeds.
"So WHAT am I now? Did I get teleported into one of the many 2009-2014 games, again?" Jacob drifted toward one of the many "mountains" as he controlled his descent using his limbs across the air (really air as he caught some of the particles with his hands before and examined it in front of his eyes. It appeared to be composed of 78 percent a dumbbell-shaped particle half the size of the "wire fragments" that came from the degradation of the beaded-string like material on the "field", 21 percent a double-cone-shaped particle about the same size, 1 percent a spherical particle about as heavy as the other two, and the occasional particles of a long, rod-shaped particle 3 2nd in length as the dumbbell and double-cone-shaped shaped particles and a small, somewhat pointy, clingy particle about half the mass of the rest of the particles in the mixture.) Jacob landed after about 25 minutes (in his perspective) of gliding/swimming through the air near one of the larger "mountains".
Just beneath the "Mountain", many pieces of what looked like a material that was composed of a intricate mesh of shapes and linkages twice the size of what Jacob have seen in other materials he have so far encountered, can be seen woven in between the absorb-able beaded-chain-like material of the "Ground". With little effort, Jacob pried a piece off the ground, which looks jagged and sharp on one of the edges as he examined more closely. And it looks like that it was the same material the "mountains" are composed of.
Jacob tried to fix one of the fragments to the "pole" he was carrying with him. And it didn't fit. Jacob tried to pry off parts of the fragment to make it fit. And it worked- It took some effort, but the intricate mesh-like structures snapped upon sufficient application of force. After some time, Jacob sculpted the fragment to fit inside the hole in the rear end of the "pole" he obtained from those spheres, and as he puts the fragment into the hole, the spike-like irregularities on the outer layers of the "pole" snapped onto the bridging "wires" of the fragment's structure- Attaching the fragment firmly to the pole to form a makeshift lance that Jacob could try using to puncture the spheres on the ground.
Leaping forward to reach one of the spheres in the background, Jacob Taylor thrusted his lance into the sphere. And it met little resistance as it went in. After poking at the sphere repeatedly for a few times, the part of the sphere that have been stabbed at seemed to have received some sort of internal damage, a bulge forms on the sphere, grew up to about the same size as the rest of the sphere within about fifteen minutes, and then popped like a overfilled balloon. The sphere seemed to have collapsed onto itself as the pressure is relieved, and within the popped sphere, water flows out and quickly evaporated, while other intricate pieces of structures and parts of a long, double helical strand about the same thickness as Jacob's finger have came out with it.
Jacob touched these intricate, internal structures that came out of the sphere- and it appeared that these structures, just like the handle of the polearm he was currently using, did not hurt him while being touched. So he picked some of these structures up, and examined them more closely. The material that came out of the sphere also contained other medium-sized particles- bigger than the water particles that fills the majority of the sphere, yet much, much, smaller than the palm-sized pieces of material that he could only think of being machine parts that was found abundantly both outside and within the sphere. Attempting to know that these structure does while they were still inside the sphere, Jacob picked up one of the medium-sized particles and tried to fit it inside what seems to be cavities that are found on most of these structures- And as the particle fits into the cavity of a doubly rotationally symmetric structure, it spontaneously cleaves into two halves, and is then spat out of the cavity of the structure.
"Oh. That was interesting." Jacob tried other combinations of small particles to structures- And after quite a few "Ouch"s, and several meals of the material of the ground to replenish the energy that was lost during the experimentation and subsequent injuries, Jacob E. Taylor have concluded, using what seems to be a form of photographic memory that he somehow got after waking up on this strange field, that each of this palm-sized structure have a function- They could either put together different particles, pull the particles apart, change the shape of the particles, or, in some cases, perform similar operations on structures about the same size, presumably the same nature as the functional structures themselves- Changing parts of the material that constitutes the structures themselves which fits onto them the same way other structures change the medium-sized particles that fits inside them.
"Double helical strands that came out of the spheres... Structures within the spheres that catalyzes the change of many of the smaller particles within them... Wait. I did remember learning about these things during high school. It's called Molecular Biology. So. Am I... The size of molecules now?"
Suddenly, everything came together. The beaded strands on the ground is the polymer of the carpet in his house- Polyethylene Terephthalate. PET can be hydrolyzed to Terephthalic Acid and Ethylene Glycol- The candy-shaped beads and the lightning bolt-shaped wire fragments. The large spheres are bacteria that are attached to the surface of the carpet, and the cables were pili- The structure secreted by the bacteria to attach itself to the surface. The complex, palm-sized large particles on the surface of the spheres and inside the spheres were proteins- The symmetric ones are oligomeric proteins that had multiple subunits, and the ones that can change other particles that fits inside them are enzymes. The particles that are smaller than the proteins and larger than the water and air particles were metabolites- And the double helical strand that came out of the sphere when it popped is DeoxyRibonucleic Acid, A.K.A. DNA of the popped bacterium.
"Are there anyone else?"
Interestingly, as the sound leaves his mouth, it appeared that some molecules that were mixed into the PET material of the ground have responded- by changing their shapes subtly, staying there for a while, before emitting a ringing echo and reverting to the original state. And he then realized that his surroundings were filled with this sort of sounds- so much that it sounds like white noise to Jacob's ears.
And of course nothing happened.
"I guess it's time to build something more visible to let someone else see."
Using the molecules and enzymes salvaged from bacteria around him, Jacob E. Taylor start to build a small base- enzymes processes molecules to from metabolites, other enzymes then processes metabolites to form materials like amino acids and fluorophores- Jacob knows that fluorophores, like the fluorescent whiteners in the carpet beneath him, emit a ringing, monotonic sound that differs from the white noise around him- which Jacob know that anyone else that happens to roam here could distinguish from white noise if there is enough of it laying around in one location.
About 20 milliseconds laterPrying a large structure, twice as wide as his head, from the bacterium he just killed with a long, quartz-tipped poly(1,4 diaminobenzene)terephthalate fiber sword he fashioned from the quartz he obtained during his revisit of the "mountains" about 4000 meters (250 microns) away and diaminobenzene he manufactured with enzymes from bacteria; Jacob started his next plan. The structure he just pulled out from the dead bacterium is a Ribosome- the place where all proteins are made.
After pulling out a strand of DNA from the bacterium, Jacob took another enzyme- the RNA polymerase from one of the bacteria, and attached it to the strand of DNA. Pouring a pile of Ribonucleotides onto the complex, the RNA polymerase springs to action, and a string of RNA is soon transcribed from the DNA- At a measly rate 3~5 seconds per nucleotide. Still much faster than the rate normally encountered in the bacterium itself, partly due to the greatly increased reactant concentration.
Once the RNA is made, Jacob Taylor took the Small Subunit of the Ribosome he just pried out of the bacterium, latched the RNA onto the groove in the center of it, and attached a L-shaped molecule onto it. A tRNA for N-FormylMethionine, attaching to a start codon on the mRNA. Jacob then took the Large Subunit of the Ribosome, and placed it on top of the complex. And then it is just waiting time.
As the right tRNA spontaneously finds the mRNA codon on the A-Site of the ribosome, the polypeptide chain grows, one amino acid by one amino acid, while the spent tRNA is ejected from the E-site of the ribosome. A bunch of Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which have been added to the mixture, add free amino acids back to the tRNAs, reforming the charged tRNAs as they are spent in the translation process.
Another 2.5 milliseconds laterFeeling like nearly half a day have passed in Jacob's perspective time, and the translation process have finally reached the stop codon on the piece of RNA attached to the ribosome. As a termination factor binds to the A-site of the ribosome, the two subunits of the ribosome snap apart, and the mRNA and the polypeptide are released.
In the field behind this termination event, ribosomes popped apart one by one, each releasing a different protein being translated from a fragment of the bacterium's genomic DNA. Within the half of this "Day" (which Jacob himself could only track with his perception of time, since there is no perceptible day or night cycle on the field of polymers he have been operating on since he end up being there.), Jacob E. Taylor have set up multiple different translation set-ups- Each translating a different part of the bacterium's genomic DNA and produced a different protein.
So far, he have found the enzymes for making phthalic acid and resorcinol from simple sugars- and the only thing he needs next are the other two enzymes to convert two molecules of resorcinol and one molecule of phthalic acid into a molecule of fluorescein- Fluorescein glow green when irradiated with UV light, so it should, theoretically, produce a unique, lower-pitched-than-ambient sound once fully applied across the small piece of carpet he was currently on- Which should have attracted attention of anyone that may be around in his house.
"Maya Taylor I'm coming."
Nearly 5 seconds laterThe land, which is around a square centimeter in size, have been stained with Fluorescein as Jacob spent the good part of the last two and half years hunting for more materials and manufacturing Fluorescein with the materials. The land, which he was on, did not appear to have a day/night cycle- And Jacob E. Taylor does not seem to find himself ageing or needing anything other than eating("absorbing") organic materials, things like breathing, shaving, drinking or washing, at all. It did make sense as air molecules at this size can't really be breathed in- nor water molecules at this size still resemble something that can be drunk.
And he did create some pretty impressive manufacturing lines for all kinds of chemicals and metabolites- Things like monomers for creating polymeric structure of his own, amino acids for making more proteins with, and nucleotides to aid in replication, storage and transfer of genetic information. And functional chemicals- like fluorophores to mark the land as visible for others (which has presumably ended up in a situation similar to himself) and antibiotics to aid in the clearing and harvesting of bacteria within the area. All manufactured using enzymes translated from bacterial DNA and coordinated using Human ingenuity. Nanotubes- both organic and carbon, linked different enzymatic steps together, metabolites flows through the center of these electron-rich structures levitated by van-de-waals repulsion; Several large, lipid-bilayer-based structures function as power generators- Cellular respiration on the membranes creats a proton gradient across the membrane, which drive ATP synthases to regenerate ATP from ADP and Phosphate ions, providing the energy that is needed in many of the enzymatic processes employed by Jacob's factory/base of operation.
After all these years ramping up production and increasing the size of his presence, Jacob E. Taylor heard a familiar voice.
Maya Taylor: "Jacob, is that you?"
Perspective time: Year 12127, day 311; Real time: evening in the same day.Lord Xen Vagrent V was the emperor of one of the many Human colonies that spans the Fields of Timbrels and the Deep Fissures- Colonies that were the single-handed result of the original Jacob Taylor and Maya Taylor meeting and producing offspring.
Civilization inside this hollow, 199200-kilometer-in-diameter space have grew up, lived and faded in the omnipresent white noise that encompasses all of reality- A background sound that changes according to the composition of the local terrain, seemingly altered by certain type of molecules within the ground the colonies have been living on and mining from.
However, within the most recent 4 generations, the background noise of this world, sounds that allows them to tell where they are and (instinctively) what they are now stepping onto, have started to fade. Hunters leaving the colony to hunt bacteria and other sources of materials have reported that they are able to hear each other at a longer and longer distance away from each other- the result of the background noise fading. Then, Traders that roams the terrain to find colonies that makes the right materials begins to lose directions as they struggles to tell the local terrain through the change in background. Finally, by the time of Lord Xen Vagrent V's rule, the fluorophores-based identification signals that were used by most Human colonies have became less and less effective- making long-distance communication between the colonies more and more difficult.
The Night is Coming... Perspective time: Year 24450, day 152; Real time: Midnight of the same dayAnother 18 generations have passed- And what used to be enormous empires have shattered again- into smaller kingdoms and fiefs, still maintained as the distance one's voice could reach have been greatly increased as the world around them have became quiet.
Not quite Quiet. Actually. A dim, barely perceptible, monotonic sound could be heard faintly in the distance, which changes in intensity of it's different components as one moves across the world. Some of the kingdoms have sent expeditions toward the sources where the sounds are most intense- but part from a field of another form of polymers- poly (methyl)acrylate, a kind of polymer that transmits sounds well, nothing else more interesting was found in these places where the sources of sound presumably lie underneath.
There is no real "down" in this world of microscopic humans and enormous molecules- Van de Vaals interaction dominates the forces between a surface and anything that are placed on it, the Humans themselves included, attracting everything that is near a surface, up to a distance of about 3 meters, or 150nm, onto the surface with a force that tapers off inverse to the 6th exponent of the object's distance from the surface itself. To the humans themselves, Van de Vaals interactions being the dominant force of "gravity" means that every surface is considered ground that can be walked on, and every direction where there is a surface in front of it is considered "down".
CODEX: The Square Cube Law, and the importance of scale
In the perspective of the ~100nm-tall humans, many super-powers that were found only in Video Games of the ~2m-tall races in the rest of the galaxy, was as real and as normal as everything else in their daily lives.
Although most average humans perceive themselves as having the same average pace of motion as before they are shrunk to the size of viruses and dumped into the world of atoms and molecules, they can run as fast as the thermal motion of the local medium surrounding them- a speed, on average, about 241 meters per second, or in their units, about 14.52 micrometers per 60ns, the timescale they perceive as a second. (Technically their limits should allow them to run at a speed of 16600000 meters per Real second, or one Real meter per Perspective second, assuming an equal reduction in size(preserving power density, thus velocity) and speed-up of time, but drag resistance of the surrounding air and water molecules kinda slowed them down.)
According to the square-cube law, the average mechanical power per unit volume of a muscular organism raises to the inverse of the length of that organism- n^-3/n^-2=n; Which determines the carrying capacity and jump height of said organism. For example, a cat and a flea can jump the same height of around 0.7 meters- but since the flea is almost 450 times smaller than the cat, when scaled to their body length, a flea can jump almost 450 times the cat could, peaking at almost 310 meters should the flea was the same size of the cat. An ant is almost 500 times smaller than an Asari- which means that while an Asari can barely carry her own body weight, an ant could carry more than 499 times it's own weight (excluding it's own, of course). For the microscopic Humans which have an average body length of 100nm, this advantage is scaled up to almost immeasurable levels- for the start, most Humans, can, in the most ideal circumstances, A.K.A. in a Vacuum, jump to almost the same height as before they are shrunk down to the size of large molecules as their internal speed-of-light decreased. Which is about 8300000 times their body length, or about 14940000 'meters'/ 747000000nm in height. They can also carry about the same amount of weight-16600000 times their body weight, or about 2.54*10^-10 grams per person.
Another effect of being microscopic, for the Humans, is the dramatically decreased Reynolds number of the air/water medium surrounding them: Air feels about as thick as water, while water feel almost as thick as hot asphalt. This effect means that it's almost impossible to kill a Human with fall damage- not only you need to drop one down almost the same height as it is needed to injure a Macroscopic Human or an Asari to damage their bodies, which was almost 3 meters in height, as soon as they reach air their speed will be slowed down to a measly 2.5 meters per second as they have almost no terminal velocity to speak of, and even if you manage to damage one, Humans heals almost instantly- partially due to their metabolism being 16600000 times faster than everyone else, and also partially due to their small size cause them to take on certain quantum properties which they use to literally glitch their injuries away. Due to the same reason, Humans can glide (or rather swim/drift) through air, and almost certainly walks on water like it was tarmac, as the reduced Reynolds number meant that even keeping themselves on the ground against the thermal motion of the surrounding air molecules was somewhat difficult for most Humans- Unless his/her body and feet is subjected to Van de Vaals interactions with a nearby surface, and is firmly anchored to it from said interaction.
Perspective time: Year 363835, day 224. Real time: 10 Days after the event10 days is quite short in the scale of the Galaxy- But 363835 years is exceedingly long even for a High Fantasy race that lived for 3000 years. And technological development is bound to happen.
Due to their size allowing them to almost perform operations on individual atoms using their hands alone, Humanity have developed molecular nanotechnology to it's logical extreme.
Diamondoid Mechanosynthesis, the fabled technology that is considered all but impossible in the 298K environment of the room-temperature air-pressure Real World due to thermal motion disrupting your machines the same rate as you make them, have became miraculously possible as the hands of Humans are remarkably steady for their small size- They literally craft their equipment and technology atom by atom, ignoring thermal motions as they can put an iron grip on whatever atom or molecule they are currently holding/manipulating, holding the work steady while they construct their machines atom by atom.
Human cities, averaging 1mm in diameter, could now be seen on the surface of practically everything that contained Organic matter- Wood, Leaves, Plastics, Paint, Rubber, Asphalt and Tarmac. Their diamondoid construction gleaming in the light of the sun, the reflected Photons tell travelers the locations of nearby towns as the unique fluorophores in each of the cities produce a unique combination of tones that can be heard.
Vacuum tube transport- The use of electrostatic forces to accelerate humans and their cargo to near the speed of light and send them across evacuated, diamond tubing in order to achieve fast (~18 Real meter per Perspective second) travel across vast distances, even across worlds, have became commonplace after the Great scientist Emperor of Downtown Marais, Elannorr X. Cervon built the ground-work of the first high-speed transit systems within the Flat World nearly 27 generations ago.
CODEX: Worlds
Due to the microscopic size of Humanity and most of their colonies and tech, and the fact that Humans experience subjective time nearly 16600000 times faster than everyone else, their perception of the macroscopic world around them differs from the stand-point of the rest of the Galaxy to such an extent that it could be considered Unique. In one way or another.
As there is no unified concept of up and down in the sizes Humans operate on, Humans themselves tend to perceive any surface that is larger than a colony as being "ground", while any smaller features like dust or particles that are adhered to said surface, or imperfections and textures of the surfaces themselves are named accordingly to the traditions inherited from their macroscopic ancestors- Large, monolithic features with sloped surfaces are called "mountains", thread-like features are called "forests", cracks and discontinuities "valleys" and microscopic pores "caves"; et cetera.
Islands: Large surfaces that take them more than a single Day of full sprint to cross are called "islands", which are about 1.5cm in diameter- small leaves, coins, stickers and other pinch-sized objects for other species in the Galaxy counts as Islands.
Continents: Surfaces that take more than a Week of full sprint to cross- about 10 to 12 cm in diameter, or about the same size of an Asari hand.
Fields, or Oceans: Continuous features that are larger than the furthest distance which a Human can see while airborne. Fields have a minimal diameter of 2.8m.
Worlds: Structures so large that it takes more than 1 Perspective second for sounds to travel from one side to another and back- Usually about 9m in diameter. Worlds are named after their shape and structural/compositional features. For example, the inside of rooms are known as Hollow Worlds, while the spaces Outdoors are called the Flat World. The surface of a large road would be called a World of Tar, while a backyard full of grass will be called a World of Cellulosic Projections.
150 Real years later.It have been so long- so long that Humanity and their settlements now permeates every niche and every location on the Earth, so long that none of the Humans themselves have remembered the time where they used to be Giants the size of Oceans, and experiences Generations in hours.
The macroscopic world have all but became Myths and Folklores, yet the continued technological developments accumulated in the past 6821917 years and 295 days have meant that many of their settlements, machines and automatons have reached the size of many of the other, larger organisms that still lived on Earth.
Zealon, the flying fortress of the AerosolsAmong the many factions and races Humanity have evolved during the past 150/6821917 years, one of them were the Aerosols/Aerosolans. The Aerosols started from the population of a fishing town on the coast of Canada- Which, as they rode their livestock, the Cyanobacteria, up within aerosolized droplets of seawater to the clouds, survived, and even adapted to the droplet-and-dust-filled lower troposphere, what they called the Float World due to it being composed of millions of floating Mountains in the medium of Air (which they can swim through like everyone else).
The Aerosols/Aerosolans are a nomadic collection of tribes- They collect organic and inorganic materials from dust and droplets floating in the air, which they both use as food and for fashioning their technology- Ornate, hand-crafted and highly efficient for it's size, as there are few carbon and non-volatile atoms to spare in the sparsely-populated, solids-deficient troposphere that is mostly dominated by air and water. Unlike the other Human factions which don't even bother eating through their mouths and prefer direct absorption of the abundant organic molecules within their local habitats, Aerosols spend their time preparing food from the sparse source of organic feedstock they struggle to collect from the air, and are generally good at cooking.
Over the times, the Aerosols steadily developed technologies for the creation of floating bases- first fitting dust grains with propulsion derived from bacterial flagella, then with wings and balloonlets composed of polysaccharides and graphene, the Aerosols/Aerosolians started to create flying settlements- Allowing them to move their bases of operation with themselves as they travel from Mountain to Mountain in the Float World.
And by now, after all these years, the Aerosols have created some of the biggest single structures ever created by Humanity on the entire Earth.
Zealon, the Capital of the Carribean Seas, originally built by Saleon Victus, the Empreor of Winds, was an enormous mechanical construct the size of a Continent in Human standpoints- Or about the size of a small bird in the standpoint of everyone else. Mechanized wings flaps continuously to keep it airborne, while enormous nets captures grains of material from the air to be taken in and processed.
Zealon sees trade vessels- Aerosols/Aerosolians docking at Zealon to trade raw materials for goods, people from other factions hitching ride on Aerosolian ships to trade with different materials and exotic products from all the different worlds across the Carribeans. The flying fortress have been in prosperity for more than 16600000 years- Until now.
A deafening roar permeates through all of reality as something exceptionally hot descended through the atmosphere, the operators of Zealon tried all their best to avoid a collision- but it's too fast for the slow-moving construct to evade the path of the impending doom as the Asari shuttle descended through the atmosphere and smashed through the flying construct.
2676 G.S. Asari colony vessel The Goddess's SeedsHesin: "We have landed- Atmosphere reading shows an atmosphere of 79 percent Nitrogen and 21 percent Oxygen. Local plant life- Levo amino acids, non-toxic. No local animal life detected. Performing ExtraVehicular Activity now- no helmet or breathing mask needed."
Vera: "Toway we will make history- once the shuttle's door opened, we will be the first to set foot onto and claim the Garden World of Sol III!"
5 Minutes laterVera: "Local plant life not hostile, no animal life- perfect for colonization. However, my scanners showed strange, microbial growths all over the local environment. Prepare to take samples as per the standard procedure of Garden World classification and rating."
Hesin break out a sampling needle, and she then carefully picked up one of the shimmering microbial colonies growing on the leaves of a local shrub.
6 Hours laterHesin: "Sample containers full- Requesting return to The Goddess's Seeds to deposit samples and begin material and genetic analysis. And it's time to tell some the colonists to disembark and set up a pilot outpost on the newly claimed garden world of Sol III."
Unknown to the rest of the Asari aboard The Goddess's Seeds, a small group of Humans have rid their returning shuttle back to the Asari colony ship.
Normally, the spaceship's decontamination procedures should have eradicated any potential microbial contamination of the spaceship from objects and samples brought from the outside- But the Humans were no ordinary microbes.
Responding to the UV rays of the decontamination laser screen, the Humans tore apart the molecular bonds on the outermost part of the Asari's armor plating, and burrowed into the inside, where the decontamination procedure could not touch.
Another few weeks later, The Goddess's Seeds is slowly but surely taken over by Humans that hitched the shuttle and entered the colony ship, eating away at the ship's materials and chemical makeup yet carefully not letting the Eyes in the Skies to know their prescience. As the outpost is finished and The Goddess's Seeds returned to the Citadel, what was known as the White Rot, or the Disease of Sol III, have infected it's first victim outside of the Earth.
CODEX: White Rot
Originated from the failed colonization attempt of Sol III, White Rot is a highly contagious microbial infection that targets nearly all form of organic matter, living or not, converting the infected material slowly into a white, crystalline substance which crumbles away easily and can both cause severe damage to machinery and kill organic crew within days once symptoms showed up.
The exact pathogen for White Rot is not known- Electron microscopy returned blurry, indistinguishable smears, DNA and RNA analysis returned from nothing to self-conflicting results, and other more traditional methods of pathogen type determination have met a road-block as samples of the active infectious agent prove impossible to fix for analysis.
So far the only effective ways to stem the spread of White Rot are barriers made of inorganic materials, like metals or ceramics, which the pathogen couldn't feed on.