AVE

The **Academy of Void Exploration** (AVE, pronounced *AH-vay*) is the central organisation in charge of building, dispatching and crewing voidships. The Academy is in many ways the defining institution of Veltheria, or at least shares that honour with the University of Halsteyr, which typically houses the Keystones.

The Academy primarily occupies two facilities: the main Academy campus is on the Homeworld, and houses most of its operations and public-facing aspects, such as its libraries. The facility that most associate with the Academy, however, is the Overlook, the shipbuilding and ultranaut training facility on the Neptunian moon of Triton.

## History

The Academy has its roots in the *Expeditio Orbis*, an institution founded not long after the discovery of Maua with the purpose of charting the whole world. In AH 168, the *Expeditio*'s then leadership renamed it the Institute for Planetary Research and Expedition, which it would remain until not long after the discovery of Ylias on the surface of the moon in AH 222.

With the Keystones of Harmony, Continuum and Bond, humanity was at last both certain that other planes of reality existed, and capable of beginning to understand them. In combination with scholars of the multi-planar nature of reality, the Institute was once again reborn in AH 240, now styling itself the Academy of Void Exploration.

Contrary to common belief, the name was not intended to refer to exploration of a void, but exploration via a particular method known as a 'void shell'. In any case, it soon became clear that astral bodies existed in a dark vacuum, and this void so captured the popular imagination that the misunderstanding stuck.

In AH 251, the second generation of cosmonauts appeared in their comparatively primitive craft on the surface of Mars (in fact, they arrived a few metres above the surface, and their landing was just a little rough), and a new generation of heroes were born: the philosopher-knight, adventurer and scholar all in one being. If cosmonauts were heroes, however, the next evolution of humanity's exploration of the universe produced demigods: the ultranauts.

With the discovery of the Aether in AH 297, the mysterious dark matter whose weight could be felt in the astral sea, but which could not be detected by mundane means, the Academy began working on a new type of Voidship that could persist in realms of being where the physical laws of the material sphere did not wholly apply. Two decades of work produced what was the finest achievement of humanity: the voidship Acheron, pride of the silver sea. When the expedition bore fruit, and Legate Ulwazi strode into the University of Halsteyr with a delicate mithril cup, bearing not the mysterious substance of aether but the Keystone of Mind itself, the possibilities of void travel truly revealed themselves.

In AH 350, the voidship Splendour returned from a dramatic week in the Maelstrom, a place of boundless energy and matter in states hitherto unimagined, where dwelt the Keystone of Life. It would be another century before Discovery dared to venture into the realm of the erstwhile gods, and retrieve the very source of miracles, Jadu.

## Recent Events

In AH 468, the strange and complex song of the Keystones seemed at last to be complete, when Jadu was added to the collection. Yet when its complex echo was discovered to have originated from another reality altogether, the Academy faced the seemingly impossible task of venturing into another universe.

The project was also controversial among both scholars and the general population, who believed that the risks outweighed the rewards. This was especially true when it was revealed that in order for the mission to succeed, the Keystones would have to be taken as well. Yet the momentum of the project was difficult to divert, and when no alternative to the plan to take the Keystones emerged, the new ship began construction.

As well as sending seasoned cosmonauts, such as the world-famous Legate Solin, it was decided that ordinary citizens would be given the chance to train as 'seekers', envoys of Veltheria to foreign realities. Unexpectedly, almost a billion applications were submitted, painstakingly whittled down to fewer than half a million. Five years after the call went out, the five seekers were chosen, and trained.