In this alternate timeline, the laws of physics and invention favored earlier human flight. By the mid-18th century, rudimentary airships had given way to advanced dirigibles, ornithopters, and jet-like gliders—fueled not by petroleum, but by early discoveries in hydrogen-energy fusion and heavy coal derivatives. Colonial powers, no longer land-bound, redrew their empires in the sky. Trade routes, wars, and even city planning shifted skyward. By the early 1800s, airborne cities and towering spires had begun sprouting above major metropolitan hubs, leaving the ground to industrial decay and forgotten slums.

The explosion of aerial innovation came with a steep cost. Cheap fuel sources like “black gas” and “slagite”—abundant, potent, and unregulated—filled the atmosphere with thick, particulate-laden smog. While once-blue skies dimmed to a permanent grey-orange haze, profits soared. Aerial factories, floating smelting yards, and engine refineries became common sights overhead. The first major incident, The Atlantic Eclipse of 1841, saw an entire air fleet go down mid-ocean due to an inversion layer of soot that collapsed navigation and breathing systems. Instead of changing course, governments doubled down, investing in artificial oxygen infrastructure—initially in hospitals, then public squares, and finally in private homes. By 1880, clean air had become a luxury—sold by the cubic liter, piped into residences and corporate towers through patented systems owned by conglomerates like Synnox, CelAir, and The Oxygen League. In poorer areas, “oxygen taps” cost half a day’s wages for just an hour of breathable air. Most people wear filtration masks that dull the effects of smog but don't eliminate the long-term damage.

As air quality declined, the wealthy sought to remove human laborers from essential services altogether—ostensibly for safety. The rise of automatons, driven by punchcard programming and early analog AI, became another wedge in social mobility. They now serve as bartenders, porters, guards, and factory workers. Unions were dissolved, and riots like the Smokestack March of 1907 were violently suppressed by the United Armada’s enforcers.

The last place automatons hadn’t fully infiltrated was the intellectual domain—libraries, museums, and universities. But that, too, is changing. Even in places like the New York Public Library, the future is being automated, and human curiosity is seen as a threat.

The Burning, as it's now remembered by those who still dare to speak of it, was a deliberate and sweeping purge orchestrated by the United Armada—a coalition of state-sponsored aerial military powers and corporate interests—aimed at erasing the legacy of the aeronaut age, particularly the ideals and works of skyjack groups, rogue scientists, and independent explorers.

Netta Snook, junior librarian, is one such person clinging to the remnants of the past, and hoping against all odds to maintain the public knowledge of truth and hope. She is piecing together fragments of these erased records—many of which were stored in the sublevels of the New York Public Library, sealed during the Burning. What she’s finding doesn’t just challenge official history—it could reignite the aeronaut dream, and reveal where Irwina truly went.