Friday DE: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

[bjornwilde]

Early for me, but it's Friday somewhere...

As Fi suggested in chat:

What major world events define your character's lives.

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's world is absolutely defined by the Voodoo Wars. In canon, the Wars are described as being when everything went wrong for the world. The global economy crashed, lots of people died, parts of the world were left uninhabitable, millions of refugees began pouring into less hard-hit countries, and major cities were greatly damaged and became very dangerous. The Wars are something in the background of everyone's mind, even years after they officially ended.

The Wars were officially between the humans and vampires, with a few rogue weres and demons who were tired of not being allowed to act on the nastier sides of their nature. On paper, humans won. In actuality, enough vampires realized they would soon run out of humans if they kept on like they were, and decided to end things on their own terms.

[ceitfianna]

For Cassian, the Clone Wars and creation of the Empire, both of them happened when he was a boy and decided the course of his life.

Quentin, there's not really anything yet since Toby has been changing events in their world, none of them are yet world events. That changes with the next book.

Charles, I'd say World War II was a big one in his life and then all the aftermath.

Sameth, his parents retaking the throne and everything that's followed.

Will S., Richard's capture and retaking of the throne.

William, the Civil War is the big one that's rippled out to his life.

Demeter, world events don't make that much of a difference to her.

Ivan, *eyes canon* everything around getting Gregor on the throne.

Tumnus, the White Witch arriving, since I always feel like he was born during her reign but knew enough people that remembered before that its part of his life. And then the Pevensies arriving and Aslan's return.

Moist, I'm not sure since most of the events in the Discworld books don't directly effect him until his own story.

[magnus_archivist]

Klaus: Well, there was this one day where a bunch of ladies who weren't pregnant in the morning had babies by the evening. Yeah, he has no idea either.

Cecil: Though he doesn't know it, a massive nuclear war. Though he sort of knows it, the Blood Space War. Lots of war for a friendly desert community.

Jon: Nothing too far off our normal (yet). 9/11 gave excuses to horrible people when he was younger, but that sort of person always has an excuse. He has opinions about the current state of politics, of course, but that is also to be expected.

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka: Aside from the obvious, the Clone Wars, I would say the Jedi/Sith war. It's still being fought even if the Jedi don't know it.

Sabine: The rise fo the Empire is the most immediate, but I want to also say the split between the pacifist New Mandalorians and the old warrior tradition.

Viv: I'm blanking on any world events, to be honest. There's Avengers Disassembled of course, which firmly ended any chance Vision and Wanda might have had as reconciliation. I supposed I could reach farther back and say the formation of the Avengers in the first place.

Jessica: The Skrull/Kree war or when Galactus ate the skrull homeworld. Both events lead to the Secret Invasion of Earth and her being kidnapped. There's also this test flight to space that these four amateur people did that changed the history of the world.

Alustin: I think I will say the defeat of a xenophobic and totalitarian empire and its subsequent disappearance from any maps; in fact, no one can even remember where it was in even the vaguest manner.

Ben: See Klaus's answer above. Also, the assassination of President Kennedy seems to be a big deal to canon.

Tybalt: The disappearance of Oberon, Titania, and Maeve. Also the Great Fire of London.

Dog: The creation of the Charter.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion only exists because of the Omnic Crisis, which was when the giant autonomous robot factories around the world decided to attack all of humanity with combat bots about 35 years ago. Why they did this in the first place is not any clearer to Bastion than it is to most humans, and by the time they themself were manufactured the omnic troops were fighting as much for survival as for territory or resources. The humans ultimately won that war but it was pretty hairy for them early on.

Wilson comes from a familiar Earth in 1921, so he just recently lived through the global one-two punch of the Great War and the Spanish flu pandemic. He didn't personally fight in the war or get sick, but it was a pretty big deal.

Aradia and her friends destroyed their universe, with varying degrees of intentionality; it's hard to get more major or life-defining than that.

Thurlow lives in a city that was stolen by bats (or "stolen" - Queen Victoria sold it off and most of the citizens were neither consulted nor forewarned) around thirty years ago and moved to a giant underground cavern from its previous location in England. I'm not entirely sure what the rest of the world thinks of this but life in the outside world appears to have gone back to normal since then except where it directly concerns Fallen London's new location. They themself grew up elsewhere in the country and were a small child at the time of the Fall, so if they remember Surface London it's a pretty dim memory. Within London, the regime of the Masters of the Bazaar and the environment of the Neath has had a pretty strong effect on the local culture.

I'm stumped for Wormwood and Cirava, whose worlds haven't had any major upheavals for a very long time at the start of their canons, although there were some downfalls and restructurings of civilizations hundreds or thousands of years before they were born that affect their lives in the present. Wormwood's coming up on a prophecied apocalypse, but that happens during canon.

[death_gone_mad]

For both of mine, the major event that shaped the world was the God Wars, a series of conflicts spanning 4,000 years between the gods themselves and the mortals who worshipped them or were otherwise allied. It lead to the extinction or near extinction of many species and civilizations that had settled or developed on the planet and permanently scarred a huge landmass. The gods were all banished except for a few that were low-powered enough to sneak in under the exception made for Amascut's brother. It took almost another 2,000 years for most of humanity to even form iron age level civilizations again. Even though Kharidian culture survived kinda intact, constant conflict likely caused by Amascut prevented civilization from spreading to primitive human settlements outside the desert. The vampires didn't care enough to spread their civilization outside of the Morytania as long as their bloodfarms kept producing docile humans, so occasional raids of their neighbors was necessary to avoid inbreeding, until crusades against Morytania became a thing. Other surviving species had their own problems too.

But for Amascut, the Kharidian-Zarosian wars that happened before the God Wars and were a prequel of sorts were far more significant. The beginning of the conflicts convinced her brother and herself to go looking into the wider universe for warriors to stop the expansion of the Zarosian Empire into Kharidian territory, which lead to her being captured by an Elder God and being abandoned on the other side of the universe and her brother bringing the Mahjarrat back to the planet. There was a Mahjarrat enforced peace before and for a while after she returned but there were still border skirmishes between Kharidian Mahjarrat forces and mercenary Demon legions and Dragonriders on the Zarosian side plus a bunch of subterfuge, counterintelligence operations, and paranoia beyond the borders. Not exactly the best environment to recover from her trauma. And then the majority of the Mahjarrat switched to serving the Zarosian Empire (all while Amascut was probably screaming "I WARNED YOU ABOUT THE MAHJARRAT BRO!!! I TOLD YOU DOG!") and Amascut's father nuked himself and the Kharidian landmass to make the whole subcontinent unappealing and not worth invading. And to kill of a huge portion of the Mahjarrat I'm sure.

The God Wars happened after a later rebellion of about half the Mahjarrat and coalition of vampires and low caste demons against the Zarosian Empire and the high caste demons on Pandemonium (with Amascut probably still yelling "I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE MAHJARRAT MAN" in the background)

Since Fairy Fixit and most of the other Zanarians live on the planet's moon, and Fairy Fixit isn't immortal (though, she is likely fairly long lived and ancient by human standards) neither the God Wars or the Zarosian expansion wars likely ever affected Zanaris except economically. Zanaris had a tendency to stay nuetral and likely didn't even get involved until the true nuetral god had enough of the God Wars, routed everyone (maybe with Zanarian logistical support?) and banished the gods. Fairy Fixit was likely born a long while after the God Wars ended so it was likely just a story about how the fairies' best friend stopped the silly fight that was happening on the planet below by the time Fixit was making her way though school. More significant to her are when humans and other species on the planet started using teleportation magic again and the Fairy Mafia coup.

[zenigatcha]

Everybody's talking war!

Zuko's whole nation is defined by "The Fire Nation Attacked," and that shaped him and his country more than anything, ever. Like, that shapes the whole series. However, if you want to get personal, his self-defining moment is asking for compassion in a country that empowers fascist dictatorship, and getting punished for it. The Agni Kai changed him, nearly broke him, but eventually he found his way again.

Zenigata, being from a Timeless Canon, doesn't get to have real defining events outside of the wibbly-wobbly weird-science 1970s-2020. The character's been around fifty years. He is supposed to be a reflection (along with Lupin) of the post-war generation of Japan (though he's been referred to as 'man of the Showa Era' - ie, a hardworking Nationalist who wants the best for his country Pre-WWI - because of his dedication and moral grounding. So... you know, he's sort of a post-war relic in a recovering Japan. But that's as close as you get with him.