The First Iteration is a term used to describe Jaladrian history up until the Expansion Era. It began in 1939 with“First Landing”, the first wave of pioneers that landed in massive craft the size of small towns, designed to be completely self-sustaining as to avoid contamination with the planet.

These were then repurposed into megabuildings, and became cities within the city. The Expansion Era began 32 years after First Landing (1971-1991). Although Port Worden had already been established (in addition to New Cascade) long before the current city existed, most of the more advanced construction on-world was completed during The Expansion Era. It was not just infrastructure and human influence that flourished then, but culture, art, and science.

The Expansion Era is widely regarded as a time when Jaladri and its population began defining itself as a separate entity from the humans of Earth. It was a period of great growth that imbued the cities of the planet with their own unique and defined aesthetic. The popular documentary, “Jaladri: Our Gift” was released in 1989; a culmination of archival footage, holointerviews, testimony, and scientific exposition celebrating the discovery of Lake Green and its implications for humans across the galaxy.

15 kilometers north of Cape Alsea is a small cove on the eastern shores of Reitoru. It was here that the first complete skeleton of a massive, prehistoric beast was discovered. Sailors of ancient Earth would have called it a sea serpent. Scientists on Jaladri named it exo ambystoma gigapriscus, or Axolosaur.

25.4m in length, the skeleton alone weighed nearly 60k kg. Often compared to a “giant Axolotl” the creature had arms, legs, and a tail. Further research revealed it to be an apex predator that lived nearly 3km under the ocean. Years later, nests were discovered in wetlands and tidelands, some of them containing fossilized eggs, each roughly the size of a larger Expo Van.

This discovery led to the conclusion that when breeding, these creatures could adapt to breathing oxygen, and spent 1/3rd of the year above the water. Similar to some Earth animals, a modern version of the animal does exist, though it evolved into a much smaller (and less frightening) size.

The modern-day Axolosaurs now reside mainly in the tidelands and estuaries of Reitoru. They still make nests, lay eggs, and like to spend a lot of time underwater. They are part of the fascinating, vast fauna of Jaladri.

Upon a cursory glance, someone from Earth would immediately compare Jaladri to Earth’s Hawaii.  Almost all of Jaladri’s land masses above water are the western edge of a massive, ancient crater, the rest is the result of Hot Spot Volcanoes, which makes the Hawaii comparison an apt one.

Because Jaladri’s current form is the result of a catastrophic space collision, the planet was, and will always be, in a state of healing.

Over billions of years, its core and mantle developed into a non-spherical mass. This irregularity is a somewhat recent discovery, and may be related to the many anomalous and paranormal events that have been recorded throughout the years.

The first transit systems on Jaladri were made for travel between city ships. Small, low-altitude jump aircraft known colloquially as “Pelican Craft” (or Pelicans) were used as cargo and passenger ferries and taxis. After continuous years of operation however, they began to fall into disrepair.

By this time, terrestrial transportation options were available between city ships and in the colonies that would become New Cascade. A small group of hobbyists and operators were allowed to “adopt” the mismatched fleet. They spent a year retrofitting and innovating upon the designs, and by 1952, the first office for The Indigo Inter-Island Transit System (Indigo, ITS)  system opened.

Currency is not used on Jaladri in the traditional Earth way. Reputation, reliability, and transparency is the currency used by organizations on-world. In return, employees’ and owners’ energy and material usage is subsidized (both business and personal). In addition, membership and registry with the Jaladri Trust Conglomerate (JTC) and the Jaladri Leadership Authority (JLA) provide additional incentives. 

As New Cascade began to grow and expand, other smaller colonies began to follow suit and the need for mass transportation (for both passengers and cargo) quickly became a looming problem to solve. Indigo (ITS) was up for the challenge. Surveys for elevated mag-lev tracks took 3 years. Identifying low-environmental impact areas to begin construction. Primarily over ancient, dead lava beds.

Construction began in 1968 on the first phase, The Indigo Loop. This project would link 6 stations in the four main districts across the city. Extensions were later added for smaller, fast trains, to more remote areas such as Columbia Reach and Cape Alsea. The Boxen Supplement was built underneath the North-East Marine Station. Most historians would credit ITS as the catalyst for the Expansion Era. 

Up until the beginning of 1994, ITS was utilizing Pelican Craft and cargo yachts in between New Cascade and Port Worden. Initial planning for The Aquamarine Line began in 1977 and construction began in 1981 and lasted through the end of 1991.

The AL train travels faster than any current aerial mode of transportation outside of smaller Enforcement Cutters utilized by Emergency Rapid Response (and Baisho-Caplan Corporate Security). It reduces a 7 hour air journey down to 4. 

Like many things in New Cascade, The Mobile Night Market began out of necessity. When the area around the city ships began to develop, printing technology and the general availability of goods were not yet at the standards that we know today. The Mobile Night Market enabled people located all over the area the opportunity to buy sundries and groceries without heading back to the city ships. 

Over the decades, technology has replaced many of its daily purposes, and now the market offers art, culture, handmade versions of daily necessities, and an extraordinary variety of cultural food from all over Earth. Multiple Pelican Craft and Cargo Yachts travel to different neighborhoods every other night. They have expanded now to Port Worden, Columbia Reach, and Cape Alsea.

Burger Printers, Taco Machines, Bath and Body Supplies, Noodle Boxes and more sit waiting for you in a Vendmat. 

Most supplies on-world are “printed”. Including food! A vendmat is like a vending machine hall that contains most everyday items and craveable foods that one might not be able to obtain easily at any given moment. With an atmosphere resembling Earth’s laundromats, these establishments have very little staff, and are a cozy, yet liminal, place to come relax for a few moments and pick up anything you may need.

While restaurants do exist on-world, not everybody wants to fork over extra energy credits for “analog food”. Energy usage aside, human-prepared food has taken its place among practices like meditation and ikebana as an act of mindfulness. A connection to our home planet, and the Earth cultures we brought with us.

“The Numbers Station has always been there”. People say it didn’t exist before 1954, but nobody knows who built it, or why it’s there. You can tune into its frequencies on any capable unit, but the numbers are a mystery. 

The Empty Sector describes the non-inhabited side of the planet consisting almost entirely of open ocean. While there are a few small islands here and there, the vast majority is just the ocean stretching for thousands of miles in every direction.

The numbers station is built like an enormous industrial buoy, anchored to the sea floor. It was placed over an underwater mountain range, out of supposed necessity as the ocean floor is over 4 kilometers deep on average surrounding the site. It’s too far out for a casual observer to see, most people know it by reputation alone.

There are rumors of a second location, near Port Worden…

Jaladri's days are 28 hours long. Due to the planet's axis, the binary sun system gives the planet very long sunsets and sunrises. The island of Hoshimi is so far in the southern hemisphere that they last seven hours or more. During the Dark Seasons one can begin and end their workday during the same sunrise or sunset. 

On-world, humans have kept the traditional Gregorian calendar of Earth, everything just lasts longer. Days, weeks, months, and years are all a little longer here. If you visit Jaladri, you might be entirely confused by the system, but it’s just part of everyday life for the people that live here. 

Because of this additional time, a new season was named. After decades, locals began to notice a pattern of beautiful, cold, short days in between long periods of intense weather. This season is called Dark Summer because of how calm and beautiful it is generally presented.

Jaladri is a combination of every culture and society from Earth. The great “Melting Pot” society described in Earth history books actually exists here.  Of course, human beings always need to find ways to be petty and exclusive, so you are more likely to be ridiculed for your job or where you live than for your sexuality, race, gender, or beliefs. 

All of this is cast aside during the Dark Seasons Festival. It lasts for a month, during Dark Summer. There is no central location, and it’s more of a long party, all over the planet.

This was the first Native Jaladrian tradition that began long ago during the First Iteration. The first celebrations date back to the City Ships, when people were generally tied to whichever ship they arrived in. You may have a friend or colleague in a different ship, but you don’t get to see them in-person that often.

Early day Festivals were almost like a massive “family reunion” combined with a holiday party. Fast forward to today, and you can print and assemble ornamental “Rain Globes” depicting a miniature City Ship, decorated for the Festival, nestled in the trees, with soft rain falling.

Humans have been planting trees on Jaladri since First Landing. The area where New Cascade developed is almost entirely lava beds. Early on, Jaladri settlers discovered that the top layers of these lava beds could be pulverized and the resulting mixture of substrate and rain turned into one of the most nutritious versions of Earth Soil ever recorded. All the city ships were packed with billions of seeds, saplings, and plant starters.

Not everything from Earth flourished naturally on-world, but almost all of the tree species brought on the journey were viable. After 2 decades of “test groves” being planted all over the area, the Forest Project flourished during the Expansion Era. 

Even more exciting and surprising, multiple species of insects, birds, and other animals, native to Jaladri, took to living in the Human Forests. These areas were also where the first live studies of Lake Green were performed.

A subsidiary of ITS, Omni-Coastal Logistic Solutions (OCLS) is now partnered with Baisho-Caplan. Heavy cargo, emergency supplies, equipment, and personal mail is all transported planet-wide by modified cargo yachts.

There are currently ongoing talks with JTC and JLA about employing the use of Enforcement Cutters for same day delivery usage, the main issue currently preventing this is that they are the most polluting vehicles on-world outside of Deep Freighters and Landing Craft, which are few and far between. 

In town, a lot of people think that Baisho Caplan runs OCLS now, and its reputation has taken on a seedy aspect. The busiest Omni-Coastal office is located in their own private Corporate District in Port Worden.

The Second Iteration started in late 1991. Many people on-world would tell you that it began the day The Aquamarine Line opened. We are at the beginning of this stage on-world. In this short time, we have harnessed our wonderful Lake Green and begun the healing of Earth.

Looking out to the ocean on the western shores of Reitoru, weather systems can be seen approaching sometimes a full day before they hit land. When a particularly spirited system is approaching, during sunrise, the light shines through the storm and will bathe the entire coast in green, pink, and yellow light. Generally the pressure before the storm means a very bright and hot day for the island (until the storm hits). Melon Skies are what this phenomenon is called.

Mountains brace the entire western coast of Reitoru until they subside in the far south end of the island. The rain shadow they provide also ends here. The southern tip of the Island is a dense lowland forest with rain almost every day of the year.

A currently unused station for the Aquamarine Line was built here. A small team of scientists live here full time studying the area, and a very small community of people have begun the surveying process for a small colony. The area is known as Surakineau.

Approachable only via off-road vehicle or on foot, The End of All Known Land is an outcropping of cliffs west of the mountains and New Cascade. The entire area sits so much further into the ocean than the surrounding coasts that, when at its terminus, the ocean would be the only thing in your field of view, looking west. An expedition left the city ship “La Brea” in the fall of 1940.

It took them 3 weeks to get over the mountains to the West Coast. Upon arrival, they lit flares to signal a low flight pelican craft traveling along the beach.

Now there are established paths over the mountains, and every year, to mark the beginning of The Dark Seasons Festival, a marathon is run from the First Landing Monument to The End of All Known Land. All the participants carry a flare with them for the entire run. When they reach the coast in the evening, they all strike their flares. This is an emotional moment known as “The Hour of Lights”.