The First Equilibrium Collapse

The Turning Point of a World That Was One

A turning point that occurred approximately 200 years before The Great Fall, in an era when sky and earth still functioned as one world. At the time, the world's Aether Crystals maintained a stable equilibrium, and the canopy maintained a fixed altitude above the ground.

Excessive Mining as the Trigger

But as early Aether Refinement technology spread rapidly, Aether Crystal extraction exceeded the equilibrium point, and the world's "buoyancy" began to gradually go awry. Historical texts from that era include the record "the sky rose by three finger-widths," considered the first omen of The Great Fall. That difference of merely three finger-widths was the beginning of the world's division 200 years later.

A Century of Concealment

The predecessor organization of the Canopy Council continued to conceal the fact of equilibrium collapse for nearly 100 years. The reasoning is said to have been that stopping technology's spread would collapse the economy, but the truth is unclear. The discovery of concealment documents in the Fwarei Archives has become one of the bases for current distrust of the Canopy Council.

According to the Great Fall Research Institute's latest report, equilibrium collapse is continuing even now — if left unaddressed, there is a possibility of a Second Great Fall within 150 years. History is about to repeat itself.

The Question of History Repeating

What the parties to the First Equilibrium Collapse were thinking can be read fragmentarily from documents in the Fwarei Archives. In the diary of the era's chief council member who led the concealment is the description: "Publishing this secret would cause society to collapse. Silence is a gift to the generation a hundred years from now." A hundred years later, that generation experienced The Great Fall.

The question this historical fact poses to the present is heavy. The current Canopy Council is trying to conceal the Great Fall Research Institute's warnings — is this not a repetition of 200 years ago? The Institute's chief researcher wrote this question in a public letter and published it addressed to the populace of both sides. The letter was confiscated by the Canopy Council as "incendiary material," but copies are circulating in Rakuen's shadow market.

Mycological archaeology continues searching the Memory of the Earth for records of the First Equilibrium Collapse. If records remain, the speed at which equilibrium collapsed then can be calculated, enabling comparison with the current rate of collapse. The Root Realm Federation is presenting a certain demand to the Canopy Council in exchange for cooperation with this investigation, but the content has not been made public.