In a parallel 1920, humanity took to the skies centuries early, transforming flight into a way of life—and a mark of privilege. Now, cities choke beneath toxic skies, where clean air is a commodity and masks are mandatory. Once, state sanctioned fleets known as aeronauts and unauthorized or rebel pilots known as sky jacks ruled the clouds, but their age died with the legendary Dr. Irwina Graham, a visionary pilot who vanished over Greenland searching for worlds beyond the smog. Augustus Wright was one of these sky jacks, a talented pilot who as a teenager served under Dr. Graham. Their paths split before she disappeared, but secretly he believes maybe he could have stopped it, and he’s determined to find her. 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. Trade routes, wars, and even some city planning shifted skyward. By the mid to late 1800s, airborne neighborhoods of the high class had begun sprouting above major metropolitan hubs, leaving the ground to those less fortunate. 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 known as Air Barons (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. One of the last places automatons hadn’t fully infiltrated was the intellectual domain—libraries, museums, and universities. But that, too, is changing. In 1910, Irwina’s crew embarked on a classified mission, rumored to involve an experimental craft capable of reaching altitudes never before achieved—and potentially breaching the upper atmosphere, or even leaving it. She was last reported heading toward Greenland, where ancient maps and theoretical journals hinted at an “aether break,” a seam in the atmospheric barrier. When The Dauntless disappeared, the Armada claimed it was a crash caused by an atmospheric collapse. But no wreckage was recovered. What did follow was a global purge known as the Burning, 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. By 1913, most physical traces of the skyjack era had been destroyed, scattered, or locked away in private archives. As the world turned skyward and industrial smog began to cloud the lower cities, many feared the collapse of ground-based knowledge—libraries left to rot, natural archives sealed off, entire disciplines replaced by military-funded innovation. In response, a hidden alliance formed between renegade scholars, mapmakers, and independent skyjacks. Their goal: to protect and disseminate the truth of the world, no matter how dangerous or inconvenient it became to the ruling powers. The Bibliocorps operated out of mobile skyships, secret spires, and remote mountaintop waystations.