Two hundred years has passed since the lightening of Zeus struck, and that is when this story begins. As stated, space imperium is under the control of emperor Vladimir Andrzej, and the decaying earth under Albert Brown. Ships from space do not descend on earth except on rare occasions, maybe once a year, heavily guarded and looking for samples from specific parts of the earth for research by imperial scientists, and the imperium had no business with the earth except the stated one.
Space with the inhabited planets is collectively called Eden, it is certainly glorious but there is hardly peace. The Space imperium under the rule of the monarchy has always been dictatorial. There is the harshest of punishments for the most petit crimes. Stealing was punished by amputation, insulting members of the royal family is punished by incarceration, any act of rebellion or revolution was brutally crushed and the perpetrators cauterized.
Cosmism is the religion most practised in Eden, combining various elements of cosmogony, Gnosticism, eschatology, reincarnation, Kabbalah and martyrology. The cosmist Temple consists of several priests and priestesses and has great support from the imperium. The priests and priestesses lead the Saturday's hymn to the great invisible one who is believed to control the affairs of the entire universe. There are a group of them who are of the higher order known as lamps of the pleroma, who are thought to have special powers like precognition and metempsychosis, and are responsible for initiation into the priesthood. The priestesses also specialise in healing by combining ancient and scientific methods of therapy.
All religions and philosophies are accepted in Eden with the exception of absurdism and other quasi-absurdist ideologies which are banned and whose subscribers, if discovered are sentenced to death by incineration.
Among the festivals celebrated by the imperium are the days of the great ascent-which marks the day the last ships left planet earth, the day of Augusta-which is marked to honour Augusta spencer and other scientists whose works contributed to the ascension of man to space.
Four major planets are inhabited by humans in Eden; Atlántida, Kälteland, Isis and Earth. Atlántida, home of the monarchy is a planet filled with vast oceans and greenery. It is the largest of the planets and has two seasons; one which saw much rain, and one which saw less rain, each taking approximately half of every year. The whole of Atlántida is like a holiday resort. The palace of the monarchy is located in Glimsdane and is built in the centre of river Atlantis which occupies the centre of Atlántida itself, visitors have to reach the palace by air or by boat. The palace is very grand with tall hefty pillars made of gorillium supporting structures made of astracite, the most priced mineral in Eden, valued for its beautiful dark-red lustre and hardness. The palace is almost like a maze, within a maze. Only those who are born there or visit frequently know their way around. It is one of its sophisticated security measures. The throne room is located at the heart of the palace. New comers usually mistake the floor for water. The throne itself is made of glass and is raised above the floor of the hall by a number of silver rests. The great hall has portraits of all past emperors. The royal insignia hangs above the throne on the adjacent wall. It consists of three golden stars that form an arc over a large black circle. The hall's windows are huge and rectangular. The windowpanes are coated with translucent astracite, allowing just the appropriate amount of light into the hall, giving it a characteristic splash of dark-red-making the use of curtains redundant. The walls of the hall are painted grey. The building at the back of the palace houses the temple of the great invisible one. The temple is headed by a priest commonly referred to as the Elder Father from the order of the lamps. The Elder Father lead members of the royal family in the hymn to the great invisible one every Saturday. The palace's security measures involve DNA authorisation systems which has a database of approved persons' DNA, the palace perimeters some meters below the waters are filled with submanoids which are sophisticated submarines and can levitate by manipulating gravity, and are armed with laser systems that can shoot down any object on air or in water within the range of 4 kilometres. Palace guards are a special division of the imperial forces called X-5. They are armed with force fields commonly referred to as fields that act as shields and nuclear guns which are specially modified and attenuated nuclear fusion reactors that can dispense bullets packed with intense heat and damaging radionuclides and can kill or incapacitate a target. The captain of the X-5 is Fyodor Elazar, a former general of the imperial forces who is notorious for thwarting the coup of Dmitry Andrzej, the emperor Viladimir's younger brother and advocate of a democratic imperium, executing him in the process. He is commonly referred to as the emperor's hound. The emperor has two children, the eldest being a girl named Elona, 22 of age. She is known to have an apathy to imperial politics, although not generally considered a bad thing given that women are not allowed to be emperors anyway, a custom which gives her immediate younger brother Alexander an assurance that she didn't stand in his way of becoming the next emperor. Alexander is 21, not at all a reflection of his abled father but nonetheless tries his possible best to see that his father, the emperor is proud of him. While the emperor likes that his son is hardworking, he never spares the chance to occasionally scorn him, and remind him of his relative impotence.
Kälteland is a cold planet whose highest temperature ever recorded is 15ᵒC. To compensate for the extreme cold, the denizens are always clad in thick electrically warmed clothing and built even thicker houses. No household ever turned off the warming system. The duke of Kälteland is very popular among the people and the entire dukedom is famed as the only royal house which has the most freedom from imperial hands, this is owing to the fact that Kälteland is the home to 90 percent of Eden's astracite, kaltium and gorillium which are the three most valued minerals. The house of Muller has been in control of mining astracite and gorrilium ever since it was established and that has made it very wealthy. The imperial household, in a way to subdue the house of Müller made it a ritual for an imperial crown prince to wed a princess from the royal family of Kälteland whenever feasible. Wilhelm Müller is the current Duke of Kälteland, referred to as the blind duke, has as a son and a daughter. The son is the eldest named Max, 27. He was present on the eventful hunt which cost his father an eye when a huge kull rammed into him, thrusting one of its horns into his left eye socket. Brave and handsome and blonde like his father, he is undoubtedly very popular in the dukedom. The daughter is named Sophia, 19, tall above average, slender and black of hair like her mother, likes to spend her days in the royal library. Whenever she read about the history of the great ascend a great grief would overcome her because of the terrible fate that befell the Sick abandoned by the rest of Eden, she is widely known for her compassion and generosity in the dukedom, she would often go out of the palace to feed the poor and homeless. She usually did this in disguise but word soon got out that the helper of the poor and homeless is none other than Sophia herself. Members of the royal family would often say Sophia got her kindness from her mother, Duchess Elena of Yind, daughter of count Groth.
ISIS is known as the desert planet and is ruled by Duke Ferdinand Glyse. The planet is almost barren and its people depend heavily on the food and water products imported from Atlántida and Kälteland. Because of this the dukedom is easily controlled by the imperium. The duke has two sons, the older being Ronald and the younger Harry.
Earth is considered a wasteland by the rest of Eden. The leadership of the earth is in the hands of Nigel Jones. Leadership on earth unlike in the rest of Eden has not been monarchical but the leader has the power to choose whomever he wanted to succeed him, whether he was related to him or not. All countries one earth, with the exception of some remote places have been amalgamated. After the great ascend, millions of the sick who were fortunate enough to survive the lightning of Zeus started migrating to Lincoln and Old Roussia, the only countries that had facilities good enough to provide food and shelter, but at the cost of servitude and hard labour. Earth's denizens have been turned into slaves and their only priority is to work for the capitol, a system which favoured some group of elites and enabled them to keep their estates. The proletariat are allowed only a weekly wage which enables them to feed their family. In an attempt to attenuate the effect of ionising radiation, lead walls were built around almost all of the earth's nuclear power plants. Life on earth is hell and laborious for majority of the sick of the earth, but is bliss for the few elites, who sadistically parasite on them. Word is that out there, there are thousands of people who live in the deep forests of Afrik. It is believed that they migrated there when the lightening of Zeus struck, and till today they live blissfully in the deep forests as was done by the primitive ancestors of humans. No one however seems to have encountered them.