Elysium

**Elysium** is the world and setting of *Disco Elysium*. The name is a Dolorian era term of endearment.

## Geography

Elysium is comprised of two basic geographical characteristics which cover the surface of the world; isolas, and the pale surrounding them. Each isola acts as a continent. Elysium consists of seven isolas: Mundi, Seol, Samara, Iilmaraa, Graad, Katla, and Insulinde.

Because the inhabitants of Elysium have not yet been able to reach orbit, images of the world are compiled from the lower ionosphere. Scientific studies utilizing weather balloons from the ORG nations (Occident-Revachol-Graad) have begun to piece together something resembling a "dark grey corona," as opposed to the sphere shape the world was presumed to be.

### Perikarnassis

Perikarnassis is repeatedly cited as the oldest known ancient civilization, located on the "super-isola" of Perikarnassis. Since the Perikarnassis Incident, or their fall, there has been nearly 8,000 years of recorded history. It is unclear what exactly caused this incident; but it is implied that the pale was involved.

### The Innocences

From this point forward, the known history of Elysium is heavily centered on the innocences. Not much is known about the isolas outside of innocentic influence, including Seol: an isolationist panisolary west of the Insulinde. There are six elected innocences, though only four legitimate ones are known: Pius, the First Innocence; Franconegro, the innocence of militarism; Dolores Dei, the innocence of interisolary travel; and Sola, the anti-innocence.

#### Pius and Franconegro

500 years ago, Franconegro was coronated in an unspecified isola, starting the approximately two centuries of the Franconigerian period. Franconegro gave "The Perikarnassian," the first innocence, the name of Pius.

Not much is known about Pius (even his gender is ambiguous), but he is often depicted as a young man with molten gold pouring out of his mouth. Some claim he invented god and equality of men before god, and he also introduced the gold standard. It is presumed that his disciples were the beginning of the Holy Party, also known as the Founding Party. To this day, the Holy Party seeks out the re-emergence of the innocence.

Franconegro implemented reál as the unified currency, codified hereditary rule, ended serfdom, and invented the concept of the Nation. Franconigerian troops wore lamellar and carried flintlock guns, and the heavy calvary was known for being very wide. The Mesque see him as the father of nations due to his militarism and nationalism.

At one point of his reign, Franconegro attempted to solve rising tensions between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie by building a unified society, in which every man could rise to nobility based on "virtue."

Trains existed in the Franconigerian era.

#### Dolores Dei

300 years ago, Dolores Dei was introduced to Queen Irene La Navigateur's Suresne court by way of her husband, an influential marchese. Like other women of the court, she was expected to play both contract bridge and chess well enough, and to have a decent enough education, to be entertaining to the men. Compared to others, however, she was exceptionally charming and smart. She learned much from the court, which solicited great thinkers and artists, and amassed much influence even before she became an innocence, eventually becoming the queen's primary advisor.

Under her advice, Irene La Navigateur sponsored numerous costly voyages into the pale, which eventually led to the discovery of the Insulindian isola, or the "New New World." Two years after the first successful voyage, she was crowned as the new innocence.

At her coronation in Advesperascit, her homeland located in Vesper-Messina, it is said that her lungs began glowing from love. Thus began the Dolorian Era: widely considered to be the golden age for humanity.

Deora, Rheasilvia, and Advesperascit were the three "Crown Cities" of the Dolorian era. It is implied that airships existed at this time.

Dolores Dei was an innocence of humanism, internationalism, three scientific revolutions, balance of terror theory, and the welfare state. She codified parliamentary democracy and created institutions, including Moralist International, or the Moralintern.

Modern critics point to her campaigns against the Mesque state, which tried to detached itself from innocent/secular rule, and the resettlement programs of upstream Magritte. She suppressed dissenters with a military force called "The Army of Humanity."

Dolores Dei kept a secret service called "Therriers" that protected her safety. 22 years after her coronation, she was killed by one of the Therriers who suspected she was not entirely human. He is reported to have screamed "We were supposed to come up with this ourselves!" before shooting her eight times in the chest.

Her legacy is the Moralintern, which was founded by many of the same Founding Party members that elected Dolores Dei as innocence. Other Founding Party members also moved to Sur-la-Clef and proceeded to invent modern corporate finance.

Her colors are silver, white, and apricot.

#### Sola

Sola was anointed within the previous century and even lived to see the current one. She was an urban planner who spoke her mind, encouraging people to excel on their own. As such, she is often called an "anti-innocence." She resigned after an assassination attempt by a Yugo nationalist, who blamed her for not taking the side of the left during the Antecentennial Revolution.

### Antecentennial Revolution

The Antecentennial Revolution, also known as the Turn-Of-The-Century Revolution or World Revolution, was a series of interisolary conflicts primarily between the Communists, known as the Communards, and the Moralintern and royalty. It began in Graad, in '02, sparked in part by a virulent prion pandemic, called "tzaraath" and Kraz Mazov.

The Revolution was crushed by the Coalition. In '08, Graad's Eleven Day Government was overthrown. The Commune of Revachol ends with the signing of the Revacholian Instrument of Surrender in '10 following Operation Death Blow: the bombing of Martinaise, Stella Maris, and the Delta. However, the Suzerainty of Revachol was dissolved by the communists with the death of Frissel the First.

40 million people died in the revolution. By the end, nearly all communists and anarchists were wiped out by Coalition forces. Before that, however, communists and anarchists killed two million people within the Insulinde, and Joyce Messier claims that Mazovianism led to the deaths of fifteen million people in Graad.

### Modern Elysium

By '51, there are 3.6 billion people plus an unspecified number of Seol citizens in the world. One line suggests that the total population is 4.6 billion.

Areas such as Supramundi, Yeesut, the Semenese Islands, and Saramiriza are centers of proxy wars. Of note is Co Hoi, a South Safre village wherein numerous atrocities are commited daily, mostly by Graad in its proxy war against Safre. Private military contractors like Krenel operate in these areas, furthering corporate interests.

The Moralintern, in association with the Coalition of Nations, acts as the leading international organization, easing diplomatic relations between countries, establishing trade and commerce, and managing the development of post-revolutionary states and poor nations. All of this is done through a series of complicated systems and subsidiary organizations, including EPIS and the International Collaboration Police.

Harry Du Bois, informed by Shivers, predicts that in 22 years, Revachol will be leveled by an atomic device.

## References

JOYCE MESSIER – "Indeed. There is a term of endearment they coined for it. In the Dolorian century, when humanity was \*high\* on this world, discovering more and more of it -- these archipelagos included...

YOU – "What is it?"

JOYCE MESSIER – "Elysium."
YOU – "Okay... what is the pale \*like\*?"

JOYCE MESSIER – "Achromatic, odourless, featureless. The pale is the enemy of matter and life. It is not \*like\* any other -- or \*any\* thing in the world. It is the transition state of being into nothingness."
ENCYCLOPEDIA – Three hundred years ago, in the wake of the discovery of this isola -- the Insulindian -- by explorers from the continent of Mundi. She is, among other things, the innocence of interisolary travel and the connected world.
JOYCE MESSIER – "Oh, you want a \*picture\* of the world?" She raises her finger to her lips. "there is no complete set yet, dear. They're having some trouble reaching orbit."

YOU – "How come?"

JOYCE MESSIER – "Great things are difficult to achieve. For now, we're viewing the world from the inside -- sideways."

YOU – "Inside sideways? What \*shape\* is this world then?"

JOYCE MESSIER – We used to think it was a sphere, but that is beginning to look less and less likely by the day. You wouldn't know it from the tabloids, but the ORG nations have been launching weather balloons into the lower ionosphere since the Thirties."

ENCYCLOPEDIA – ORG: Occident-Revachol-Graad.

JOYCE MESSIER – "There's a steadily increasing trickle of images. Between the big three scientific contributors. they're piecing together a dark grey corona."
5. ↑ MEASUREHEAD - "THE AREOPAGITES ARE SLEEK, LONG-HEADED. THE SEMENESE ARE POWERFUL, MESOMORPHIC. THE FORMER IS AN IMMUTABLE PROGENITOR, UNCHANGED SINCE THE SUPER-ISLA OF PERIKARNASSIS. ANCIENT BRAINS REST IN THEIR SLENDER SKULLS..." He falls silent, contemplating the beauty and the mystery.
6. ↑ THE DESERTER - "Not since the serfs of ancient Perikarnassis has History produced a more \*inert\* social class than the Martinaise proletariat. The rest of Revachol at least \*pretends\* to rebuild, these people still live in ruins..."
7. ↑ LENA, THE CRYTOZOOLOGIST'S WIFE - "Alone in the blasted desert heat the doctor wandered eastward, where man hasn't stepped foot in over a thousand years -- since the fall of Perikarnassis."
8. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "\*Entroponetics\*," she corrects, "is the scientific study of the pale. Or a recent iteration of it, by way of Graad. The study of the pale reaches back 6,000 years -- the Perikarnassians called it the Western Plain."
RHETORIC - They had not travelled the entire circumference of the Perikarnassian super-isola. It was not merely in the West -- it was everywhere. Even then; surrounding them...
9. ↑ COALITION WARSHIP ARCHER - "That depends on how you look at it. Since the Perikarnassian Incident, there have been nearly 8,000 years of recorded history..."
10. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - Seol is a protectionist, isolationist panisolary state west of the Insulindian isola. Actually, it's \*quite\* interesting; some would even say mysterious...
11. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - More. An innocence is elected to office by the Founding Party, a precedent that has taken place a mere six times in the entirety of History. The legal system of the Reál Belt is built to accommodate innocentic rule, should it coincide with our time.
12. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - Another discrepancy, although not boot-related, is the coronation of His Innocence Franconegro. Which happened 500 years ago.
13. ↑ YOU - "You know, in the Franconigerian centuries, the quality of water was so bad it was sometimes more hygienic to drink beer."
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - That's the spirit. Here we go! Question 1: Who was the first innocence?
YOU - The Perikarnassian?
THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Correct! Nothing much is known about him. It's not even clear that he was a \*he\*, but Franconegro presumed as such and called him Pius. He's depicted as a young man with molten gold pouring out of his mouth -- all he spoke was gold. It's said he \*invented\* god; and equality of men before god. He also introduced the gold standard as a way for measuring people's love for aurum.
THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - As the first innocence, he declared that there should be more of those like him. It is presumed his disciples were the beginning of the Holy Party (the Founding Party).
15. ↑ ENCYLOPEDIA - Yes. There exists a group called the Founding Party, Known as the Holy Party during the time of the Perikarnassian. This, the world's oldest international organization, spends its time in search of either the re-emergence of the innocence, or new members.
16. ↑ THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Correct! Named the innocence of militarism, he codified hereditary rule -- but at the same time ended serfdom and established the interisolary reál as the global reserve currency. He also established the concept of the Nation.
17. ↑ KNICK-KNACKS STAND - Big men on big horses clad in lamellar armour and carrying flintlocks. The kind that would mow down a line of enemy soldier in a blink of an eye.
18. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - This man means the heavy calvary of Innocence Franconegro, sweeping over the plains and nations of the enemies of mankin, 5th Century style. Unified currency and the concept of \*cool\* came in their wake. They wore lamellar and carried guns. But first and foremost, Franconigerian heavy calvary was really, really wide. That hold in the fence must be \*enormous\*.
19. ↑ THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Incorrect. While Franconegro built concrete churches and cathedrals, and while many people, especially the Mesque, consider him a father figure due to his militarism and nationalsm, João Paolo Salomao Lopez de Fuego argues differently. Another choice, perhaps?
20. ↑ THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Franconegro attempted to solve the rising tensions between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie by building a unified society, in which every man has a place and a mission, but at the same time may rise to nobility provided on the strength of his virtue.
21. ↑ MEGA RICH LIGHT-BENDING GUY - "Ah, a fellow history buff! I, myself, am currently reading up on Franconigerian-era trains. Very interesting stuff."
22. ↑ YOU - Okay. When did she rule?
ENCYCLOPEDIA - Three hundred years ago, in the wake of the discovery of this isola -- the Insulindian -- by explorers from the continent of Mundi. She is, among other things, the innocence of interisolary travel and the connected world.
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 ENCYCLOPEDIA - Wow indeed. When her innocence was declared -- and the queen she had advised for years fell on her knees before her -- she was so overcome with emotion that her \*lungs\* started \*glowing\* in her chest...
ENCYCLOPEDIA - Bystanders reported golden filaments lighting the already sunlit chamber around her, clearly visible beneath her dress.
CONCEPTUALIZATION - That is why the lungs are the symbol of love for the cultures of the Reál Belt.
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 ENCYCLOPEDIA - Many things. You know she was a woman of the court, the wife of an influential \*marchese\*, and eventually the principal advisor to Irene La Navigateur, Queen of Suresne (modern day Sur-la-Clef). Also, that she was gorgeous beyond beauty.
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 YOU - Okay, what else? Was she smart?
ENCYCLOPEDIA - Terribly. Women of the court were expected to play both contract bridge and chess sufficiently well to prove and interesting challenge to a man -- a similar grasp in matters of philosophy, theology, and science was encouraged. She was, by all means, a kept woman...
ENCYCLOPEDIA - She made the most of her position in the Antedolorian court -- a court visited by the most prominent thinkers and artists of the day. In secret, she was becoming the era's pre-eminent philosopher of the state. A scalpel, a piercing gaze...
ENCYCLOPEDIA - She was an almost preternaturally magnetic and intelligent individual. To her contemporaries she appeared out of time, a messenger from the future of the species. We \*all\* fell in love with her, head over heels. Even before she was declared an innocence her influence was tremendous.
YOU - How come? It was on her advice that Irene La Navigateur sponsored a number of voyages into the pale. A costly, often tragic endeavour, ultimately vindicated by the discovery of the \*New New World\*, the piece of reality you're standing on...
ENCYCLOPEDIA - She was crowned two years after the first expedition returned, setting in motion what is widely considered the greatest era in history -- the Dolorian Era.
26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 YOU - Her crowning?
ENCYCLOPEDIA - In a city called Advesperascit, in Vesper-Messina, her homeland. The name of the city means 'Evening comes,' but it happened on a winter's morning with the canals frozen and slush falling out of the sky.
ENCYCLOPEDIA - She was dressed in white and pearl dress on an emptied-out plaza, with the crowd far away. Already her \*Therriers\* -- the secret servicemen of the innocence -- were worried about an assassination attempt.
27. ↑ EGG HEAD - "When Dolores Dei was anointed innocence, her lungs started glowing through her body, for the world loved her and she loved it back! YEAGH!"
28. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - Deora was one of the three \*Crown Cities\* of the Dolorian era, on the Mundi isola -- the others being Rheasilvia and Advesperascit. This theme is all about early airships and beautiful, sad, pearl-laden women. It's quite nice actually.
29. ↑ COALITION WARSHIP ARCHER - "Immeasurable. It includes interisolary travel, three scientific revolutions, humanism, internationalism, the welfare state, and \*balance of terror theory\*. Nothing less than the intellectual foundation of our modern order."
30. ↑ THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Incorrect. Dolores Dei was the innocence of humanism, internationalism, and the welfare state. She codified parliamentary democracy and created modern institutions, among these the Moralintern. She was powerful. And beautiful, on all her icons...
31. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - She was the most socially secluded and least self-aware of all the innocences. Some modern thinkers would consider her a war criminal for the campaigns she wages against the Mesque state. And then there were the resettlement programs...
YOU - What happened?
ENCYCLOPEDIA - The Mesque state tried to detach itself from innocentic rule. Parts of the world were experiencing whiplash from accelerating in secularism. Her mandatory education programs and mass resettlement of upstream Magritte were problematic as well. Dissenters were suppressed by a military force she called "The Army of Humanity"...
RHETORIC - Suggesting those who fight against it are not part of humanity.
32. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - One of the men in this secret service killed her -- 22 years later. A young man who had come to suspect that Dolores Dei was not entirely human, but something else.
YOU - What?
ENCYCLOPEDIA - Something that had walked in our midst, watching us stumble for hundreds, if not thousands of years, until it decided to interfere -- interfere in the course of our history. 'We were supposed to come up with this ourselves!' the man was reported to have screamed at the innocence...
ENCYCLOPEDIA - Dolores Dei was shot in the chest with a fowling piece, eight times. The man, thought to be insane, said he once touched her and her body had been unnaturally warm, like a furnace -- and that sometimes while on duty he observed her forgetting to breathe for over ten minutes...
ENCYCLOPEDIA - This \*inhuman\* quality was witnessed by many others as well -- glowing lungs and all. It is commonly attributed to mass hysteria and religious psychology.
33. ↑ YOU - "In what sense is the Moralintern the steward of Dolores Dei's legacy?"
COALITION WARSHIP ARCHER - "It was established by many of the same Founding Party members who elected Dolores Dei, and who, after her assassination, dedicated their lives to the continuation of her political and intellectual project."
ENCYCLOPEDIA - The \*other\* members of the Founding Party moved to Sur-la-Clef and invented modern corporate finance. Their names may still be found on the pediments of some of the largest investment banks in the world.
34. ↑ THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Everything from interisolary travel, to the connected world, to three consecutive scientific revolutions can be traced back to her. Every decade that passes she seems less human somehow -- and more beautiful...
35. ↑ THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Incorrect. Sola was anointed during the previous century and even lived to see the current one. She was an urban planner who spoke her mind and largely left history to its own devices, encouraging people to excel on their own rather than prescribing to a deified model of history. She is often called an \*anti-innocence\*.
THE GREATEST INNOCENCE - Sola resigned after an assassination attempt by a Yugo nationalist, who blamed her for not taking the side of the left during the turn of the century revolutions. (Innocences don't usually resign). Care to try again?
36. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - The original was blown apart by communards, then further damaged during the landing of the Coalition's airships during the Turn-Of-The-Century Revolution. When Martinaise was levelled.
37. ↑ THE DESERTER - "It was sent to us by our brothers in the Hsin-Yao Commune. Military aid." He pats the rifle.
YOU - "The Hsin-Yao Commune?"
THE DESERTER - "You heard me. It's good now. Like chalk wiped from the board."
ENCYCLOPEDIA - He's right. Almost no one remembers there was a third metastasis of the World Revolution, in the Safre Empire extinguished in '06.
38. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "The Revolution began in '02, on the isola of Graad, though by the end nearly the whole world had gotten involved."
39. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "It wasn't a \*who\*, but a \*what\*. A pandemic of tzaraath, a particularly virulent prion disease, which the authorities in Graad proved unable to contain. Then Mazov came along and overthrew the government."
40. ↑ KIM KITSURAGI - "He's known as the father of scientific communism, also known as Mazovianism. His theories about economic history greatly influence -- some would even say \*sparked\* -- the Antecentennial Revolution."
41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 YOU - "Where did it spread from there?"
JOYCE MESSIER - "From Revachol and Graad? Not far. The world managed to cauterize itself. Mazov's government was overthrown in '08, and the Coaltion crushed the Revachol commune two years later. It was \*The End\*."
42. ↑ YOU - "The communards signed the Revacholian Instrument of Surrender."
THE DESERTER - "Liberal reactionaries signed that instrument -- traitors, who should have been burned alive..." He draws his breath. "I answer to the Communist Party."
43. ↑ RENÉ ARNOUX - "Martinaise was used as one of the three footholds in Revachol during Operation Death Blow in '08. The other two are off in Stella Maris and the Delta." He points to the northeast.
44. ↑ YOU - "Anyone else get shot in the head -- on the opposing side?"
JOYCE MESSIER - "Oh, lots of people. Even the king got shot in the head, or thrown beneath a horse. Or drowned. Accounts differ. It was unceremonious." She shakes her head. "Just as well -- he wasn't actually the king. Just the king's nephew."
JOYCE MESSIER - "The real king abdicated and lived out a long and productive life as a venture capitalist in Graad."
YOU - "Smart king."
JOYCE MESSIER - "Yes, King Guillaume had a nose for bad PR. He ran before it -- what is the expression -- \*went down\*? Anyway, Gil got out alive and his nephew Frissel got shot in his place..."
45. ↑ THE DESERTER - "Calm down? I'm not angry..." His hand still trembles. "I \*adore\* him. He reminds me of everything we fought for. At least we killed that Frissel and his kingsmen..." He's overtaken by a coughing fit.
46. ↑ YOU - "Who got shot in the head?"
JOYCE MESSIER - "Those would be the communists. Generally speaking, 40 million people got shot in the head during the World Revolution. But the communists -- they \*all\* got shot in the head."
JOYCE MESSIER - "Oh, and the anarchists too! They shot them well. So well one forgets they even existed."
YOU - "You could say they got \*totally\* shot in the head."
JOYCE MESSIER - "Indeed. They piled them in mass graves in Ozonne and, well --that's the last anyone heard of those people."
47. ↑ YOU - "Did the communists and the anarchists shoot back?"
JOYCE MESSIER - "Did they ever. Before they got shot themselves, they shot two million people."
YOU - "Sounds like they should have shot more people in the head then."
JOYCE MESSIER - "Don't worry, Kraz Mazov shot fifteen million people in the head. But that was all the way over in Graad."
48. ↑ YOU - "How many people are there in the world?"
KIM KITSURAGI - "Three-point-six billion, not counting those on Seol."
49. ↑ BLOATED CORPSE OF A DRUNK - You really dropped the ball, Harry. Four point six billion people -- and you failed every single one of them. You really \*fucked up\*.
50. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "Yes. All the good conflict corridors: Supramundi, Yeesut, the Semenese islands. Countries that don't have a good record reporting \*atrocious\* military conduct on their soil.
51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 EVRART CLAIRE - "I'm talking \*beasts\*, hardened killers from poxy wars in Yeesut, Semenine, Saramiriza -- you name it, they've done it. Raping, killing, burning villages -- killing little children for the Señorita Pineapple company, Harry..."
52. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - Co Hoi, a village that was the site of infamous war crimes in the South Safre conflict, with atrocities piling up daily. Mostly committed by Graad.
53. ↑ SHIVERS - IN 22 YEARS, THE FIRST SHOT WILL BE FIRED. NOT A SHOT FROM A GUN -- AN ATOMIC DEVICE THAT WILL LEVEL ALL OF ME. ALL OF ME.