most years will be blurry and just a vague indication
Once upon a time, somewhere in the subtropic regions of the eastern side of the central continent, there was a state with the working name Post-Scarcity Rome. This state was an empire led by the imperial family with the God-Empress at the head (the line of inheritance was through the female line, so the formal head of state was usually a woman)
This state had armies of slaves to work, and with an industrial boom somewhere around the 12th century BM, there was so much production that the three other social classes were basically fully accounted for. Chattel slaves don't need wealth of course, so it was all funneled into the (semi-)free people of the country.
Then, somewhere around the year 1000 BM, Oesala was born, the daughther of the imperial family, and the heir to the throne. Eight years later, Erundur was born, a half-sibling, and child of the God-Empress and the foremost member of her extramarital harem (which was a common thing. In fact, among high nobility, often both spouses had one).
There might also have been a few half-siblings with the father and his harem, but those wouldn't be considered to be.. part of the direct impirial family since female line, so I haven't really written them, since I haven't written any characters here, I guess..
When Oesala was 24, and Erundur was 16, they were turned into spirits. This worked, however, something did go wrong. This process was performed in one of the lower rooms in the statue of the God-Emperess (or God-Empreror?? I'm not really sure, at first I imagined it to be her father's, but I hadn't decided it was a marital line back then), and there was an explosion, and the statue toppeled over. And it's like, a 3 km high statue... and it fell exactly on a building which was keeping up the infrastructure that kept the kill-switches in the chattel slaves running.
Since those kill-switches existed, there was no need for a large military/police force, so when half of the population of the Capital Province (the chattel) suddenly revolted, they took over the Capital City and then spread their revolution to all other provinces.
Oesala and Erundur fled. After wandering for a while, Ñiettaquoua, another spirit, noticed them, and went down to talk to these young spirits. Realizing they were lost and without home, he took them with him and became a sort of father-figure.
Oesala still had dreams of a great nation, so when they found a young promising culture, they went there and investigated. Erundur just kinda went along, and Ñiettaquoua didn't really care about much at the time and just wanted to care for these young spirits.
They found out that this was a collection of independent city-states, Ngimonia, and one of the most prosperous ones had a spirit there, Eqquā, who was just kinda chilling there, sometimes involving himself with politics to make this one stronger but mostly just enjoying life.
Oesala talked to him about how she wanted to make this the greatest culture in history, and he got excited and went along with her.
What happened now is, (((and this is somewhat subject to change))), Oesala, Erundur, and Ñiettaquoua all picked another city-state, and took the leaders of people close to the leaders as vessels, spread technological advancements, joined eachother in an alliance (together with Eqquā), and then conquered the other city-states, either by conquest or diplomacy.
Now, they had a country. They decided to create something similar to Post-Scarcity Rome, but with less useless shit. They created some aristocratic families and made each city-state, now province, specialize in one particular thing, and stuff slowly grew and grew.
As the centuries go by, some more spirits join, but they aren't like the main spirits, those are these four, and some spirits are created
Now, skip a few centuries. We've surpassed Post-Scarcity Rome in technology, and people are like 'wow we could make magic more useful'
Construction of the Great Machine begins (I won't describe that here I'm sure there's another page that does so)
Bad news about the Great Machine comes in
Then, Erundur, together with some of the spirits, flee north
The rest stay behind to do the Great Migration
People migrate to Ankxa, and this continent is colonized. The natives are made into chattel slaves, and cities are built in the north. However, the new direction of the state is that technology will lead to disaster, so it should be reduced.
Science and shit is heavily discouraged and some things are outlawed.
The Ngimonians spread over Ankxa, slowly moving south too, as Oesala disappears from public eye and the political structures degrade. At some point, the old Ngimonian state falls and smaller states appear.
This process continues for centuries and centuries until in 1570, a Qhuānian ship arrives in the nothern provinces, and communcation and trade is established over the next decade. And that is about the time where this story takes place.
Then, what will happen in the future is that Qhuānian influences, plus Oesala's absence/death/stopping to care about it depending on how Book III goes, technology and science and magic are revived, and with the ruins of the olden days, it goes quickly, and a new golden age starts. And probably, some disaster will strike again later on :3