Differences to History in the Wider World

The entirety of the page is written in OC. Its purpose is to establish what is canon in the world of Echoes, as the game is set in a parallel world to our OC real world. It highlights events that happened in Echoes' world history which are important differences to our standard OC world history.

• This world has very little institutional sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of institutional bigotry. Please see the CAT Policy for notes on what is permitted in game.

• Prehistoric and ancient historic periods are not determined by the system of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age as many tools and weapons, especially those used in war, had unpleasant echoes attached to them which lasted many, many decades. So whilst many tools and weapons from early periods of human history still do exist, an overwhelming majority were melted down and forged into new objects, as this was widespread worldwide practice. As such, because so many tools were repurposed over the centuries, it is difficult to accurately determine which time period they were originally forged- especially metal. Periods of early human history are instead widely categorised by architectural styles (e.g. Pharaonic, Classical, Gothic) as buildings and ruins are much more likely to survive over the millennia relatively unchanged.

• Trade, especially transcontinental trade routes such as the Silk Road and the Trans-Saharan Trade Route, are very highly regulated from the start. Merchants do not want their goods, especially very long-lasting ones like dried foods, spices, clothing, perfumes/incense, metals, and coins to carry highly unpleasant echoes to other lands- as negative-feeling echoes from goods production/extraction as well as events that occur on from the journey of transporting the goods (such as emotions from bandit attacks) could form on them. Across different cultures, it is a common courtesy to check stock for lingering visceral and/or uncomfortable echoes, and merchants who do not are not welcome in most markets, particularly in foreign markets where they know few to no local people. The production, inspection, and transport of goods takes much longer than in our world, and long-distance travel is slower. Different areas of the world are much more disconnected from each other than ours is, as less people travel less often and less quickly on very long trade routes.

• The cumbersome process of ensuring profitable long-distance trade affects the development of transportation technology, especially ships. It takes a couple of more centuries in the world of Echoes compared to our real world timeline, (the 1600s instead of the 1400s) for ships to master global circumnavigation. As a result, Europeans did not start sailing to North America, South America, Africa, and parts of Asia in mass numbers until the 1600s and 1700s.

• In the world of Echoes, what is known to us in the real world as “The Age of Exploration” (in the 1400s-1600s) has been relatively recent, and has only been occurring for about 100-200 years at the point of the game. The Portuguese, Spanish, British, Dutch, and other European forces have only been sailing to other continents and establishing colonies from the 1600s. As a result, many colonies or countries (that are ex-colonies) do not exist in this world yet, such as the United States of America, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia.

• This is far from an idyllic world, however. Wars and empires are still very common, and many of the wars that happened in our world (especially those that are within the same country or fought by neighbouring countries) have occurred, see Town History. Even though certain horrors such as the transatlantic slave trade has not happened, other brutal systems exist. For example, the primary system of mass labour in colonies all over the world from the 1600s-1800s in the world of Echoes is similar to real world indentured servitude. Whilst those in power are often selfishly motivated not to perpetrate the worst atrocities towards their barely-paid or unpaid workers, to prevent horrific echoes from forming in their or their family's vicinity, lower-class people still suffer greatly.