Additional Background For Prospective Contributors

This Chapter gives an outline of the colony and its culture. The following chapters detail the various characters of the story, such as Helen Ariel's-Daughter and Enola.

Thanks to Ulysses and Hope the colony has a significant amount of metal brought up from the water. They therefore are basically not trifled with by any rival colonies, who would rather trade for their abundance of metal and 'pure-hydro'.
(AKA, "fresh-water"...)

It also must be mentioned that Mount Everest is not the only piece of territory controlled by the colony: several other mountains in the Himalayas are tall enough to reach above the waves (Peak K-2 for one.) and Enola's people control them all. Most of them have only a small garrison to defend and farm them, while Everest Colony is sort of the "capital" if you will. Intermarriage between the people of the various islands is not only common, but nearly mandatory. Each island is surrounded by a reef of various neo-corals, and their safe passages are tightly guarded secrets.

The colonies are blessed with abundant food, especially fruit and vegetables which prevent scurvy, the bane of every attol and sailor. They also have immense fleets of ships made from the results of the twins salvage efforts.

Culturally the islands are vaguely Pacific Islander in their practice, except that trees are considered sacred. No one may cut one down unless they first plant and nurture two.

"The Dry-Land Archipelago", (as their nation is known,) also includes several vassal Attols moored to the tops of mountains that aren't quite tall enough to reach above the waves or form corral islands. These are the main points of contact with the outside world.

With all that out of the way, it's time to actually meet the characters...