Quote Originally Posted by Denishia View Post
Gunning for the most anticlimactic reason for Solution Nine at the moment. Just what a civilization designs when the aether is overwhelmingly electric. That there’s no Shards involved and it’s a lot younger than anyone, including my previous guess, has suggested. Not even an earlier Astral Era. Everything text or quasi glyph-based is red herrings. Going to set low - and thus reasonable- expectations. Because at this point a nonAscian/Ancient/Shard/Alien connection would be subverted expectations.
I think the most anticlimactic explanation is they are an isolationist society that's been there the whole time. Like they found a way to survive the second umbral calamity and they've just been in hiding. "Yeah, we've just been down in this cave the past 7000 years perfecting our cyberpunk aesthetic. A meteor? Hurled right at your continent? Ya don't say."