User:Jute/Loheta scratchpad
Loheta in the 21st century
Political instability
The octarchs, the political leaders of the country that form the executive, have come under pressure themselves for just being a "pretty face" doing nothing but the minimum that is required of them (the sacred religious rites), and having destroyed lives due to inaction in the face of strange epidemics that have shaken the country and led to many tragic deaths. People very visibly keel over and die on the spot, or some time later, and seem to be able to infectious, but not always.
While they still enjoy sizable support, increasingly many people oppose them and demand more democracy, including many scientists. The situation has also made many into opportunists, who just seek to exploit the situation for their own personal gain.
Genetic labs
In the 2000s, Loheta's healthcare sector begins experimenting with various types of gene therapy after their introduction from abroad, which also brought in many scientists from abroad. Some labs begin to use genetics for more questionable purposes, such as cloning, experiments on humans, or splicing DNA with the goal of creating new creatures and weapons. This puts them at odds with the scientific, but also cultural, religious and political establishment of the country, including the people at the top, the octarchs, but generally they do not care, or oppose them as being “backwards rulers holding back progress” anyway.
One lab in Gollisad, like many critical of the current rulers of the country, wants to create or recreate the Sky Legendary but the lab's experiments fall way short of expectations, despite all efforts and DNA samples. So new samples are needed. Reports of a bird with the right kind of feathers (akin to a golden pheasant) and majestic cry (similar, but not exactly like the Warbaa'd – or is it maybe the Sky Legendary itself?) were made in the hills of the Kezei region and makes the lead scientist send some employees on a dangerous mission to retrieve feather and DNA samples of the bird.
Due to their social pariah status and the opposition of the local octarch to their work, two guards are sent with them, and one member of their research team stays at the lab with the task of helping the other ones with information etc. They have to outsmart, outwit and outright fight certain people loyal to the current octarch, who oppose them in the name of order and stability, but also simply have a healthy skepticism of unrestrained science and believe in the value of religion as a counterweight.
The trouble starts right away, on Gollisad Market, where they try to get supplies. Protests against the octarch are underway and rumors of various spies from other countries operating undercover have made the town increase security measures. Despite their intention to maintain secrecy and avoid trouble, they find themselves at the center of attention as the second trader they visit starts having muscle convulsions and very audibly screams in pain before falling onto their stand, knocking over various merchandise.
The scientists, having worked in the medical sector before, feel honor-bound to investigate the death, and also simply are concerned the trader might have died from the infectious disease going around. As their worries are confirmed, they decide to try to get a better understanding of what the illness is and did to the man, they fail to notice a band of thugs approaching them, and politely, but firmly ask them to leave. Upon getting no answer due to the scientists being too immersed in their work, they begin pushing them around, and finally chase them out of the market to the city walls. However, they arrive to find them closed, the city already having gone under lockdown to avoid further spread of the illness and prevent whoever brought the epidemic to the town from leaving. But then they see men clad in black gesticulate in their direction, seemingly trying to get the scientists to move towards them. With some hesitation the scientists do so. The men, whose faces are obscured by bandanas worn to hide their mouth and nose, have strangely familiar voices, but there is no time to dwell on that to avoid getting caught by octarch guards enforcing the lockdown.
While traveling, the scientists slowly uncover more about the reports their based their research on, as well as the secrets in the medical sector etc. surrounding genetics (the uglier experiments and uses plus how their lab and workers are involved in them). They also discover the current octarch is also involved in shady business.
A foreign conspiracy
Most dangerous is however a foreign weapons company that uses biological weapons, bacteria and aggressive monsters that more or less resemble widespread depictions of spirits, to put the octarch under more pressure and, in order to gain influence in the country, install their own candidate as octarch.
It is the scientist who remained behind, who has secretly been working for this competing company. However, they are not from abroad, but a local, making them a traitor, someone who wishes to get back at their local octarch since their family’s life was destroyed as a result of inaction by the ruler during the epidemics, leading to loss of family members and grief. But as they are an outsider, they have no reputation or connections that would make it possible for them to become octarch. Neither do they have a position or resources to be able to change that easily, as suddenly gaining a lot of money would bring suspicion on them. So instead they first intend to discredit the current octarch via exposing their shady dealings and other covert actions that bring their integrity into question, and then build up the lead scientist as legitimate and better ruler. The traitor then would ensure that they are appointed the successor, and that the new octarch has an “accident” and is “missing”.
As they are however both currently seen as discredited themselves due to their work and experiments, they have to do something outstanding, such as showing to have much more intimate connections to the Sky Legendary, or at least appearing to do so. The lead scientist was convinced of this plan by the traitor, but has no idea of the real intentions behind it, they are simply too ready and eager to work with any kind of questionable actors as long as they are able to advance their own projects and goals, tending to be a bit blindsided and too focused on their experiments to think of their larger social consequences or really society and people in general, while also wishing no ill on them. Both the lead scientist and the traitor are to some extent or another true believers in the religion, but have their own interpretation of it.
When the scientists on the mission to find the esteemed bird finally reach their destination and pick up fire-colored feathers on the ground, the guards with them turn on them, as they are part of the conspiracy, and force them to hand over the feathers and take DNA samples from them, so the traitor at the lab can take credit for their work.
One of the three scientists now also turns out to have been a foreign spy all along working for the competition, a different country, an arms dealer trying to exploit genetics, really all three at once.
As they try to locate a specimen of the bird they were looking for, strange things happen. Later reports mention the two scientists with moral integrity claiming to have actually met the Sky Legendary and having traveled on its wings, blasting some kind of “sacred fire” striking fear in the traitors and their thugs, while skeptics insist it was a collective hallucination upon seeing a golden pheasant. In any case, the efforts of the traitors and their thugs falter, with the latter accidentally prattling away a big secret, that their company was behind the epidemic. The scientist who remained in the lab, after learning that he was working for the company that was responsible for the epidemic that had brought tragedy to his family, breaks off contact and buries the plan, and thus the conspiracy fails. But as the scientists bring back the feathers and DNA samples obtained from them, the lead scientist is able to create a new species that has some resemblance to the Sky Legendary and is presented as its messenger on Earth, which leads to more and more people viewing this kind of gene research as a more benign thing and wedding religion and science successfully in a way that brings together tradition and progress. And with the revelations of the current octarch himself having been involved in dirty business, the lead scientist becomes the new octarch, leading Loheta to a new age of scientific discovery.
The Sky Legendary
Among many other things, its feathers are said to bring happiness. But it will only reveal itself to the pure-minded, shining brightly, and help them. Eldritch being, but benevolent ("Be not afraid!")