Aether Revolt (event)
- This page is about the event. For the set of the same name, see Aether Revolt.
| Aether Revolt | |||||
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| Information | |||||
| Era | Mending Era | ||||
| Date | 4560 AR | ||||
| Location | Ghirapur, Avishkar (formerly Kaladesh) | ||||
| Sets | Aether Revolt | ||||
| Affiliations | The Consulate, The Gatewatch, The Renegades | ||||
| Characters | Ajani Goldmane, Depala, Dhiren Baral, Dovin Baan, Chandra Nalaar, Gideon Jura, Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess, Mitul, Nissa Revane, Pia Nalaar, Rashmi, Tezzeret | ||||
| Outcome | |||||
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| Timeline | |||||
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| Scryfall Statistics | |||||
The Ather Revolt was an event in Ghirapur on Avishkar. The aftermath of the Grand Exhibition at the Inventors' Fair plunged Ghirapur into turmoil, fracturing the relationship between the Consulate and its citizens. What was meant to celebrate innovation instead exposed deep corruption, theft, and violence, sparking a widespread uprising led by renegades determined to defend freedom and creativity. In response, the Consulate imposed martial law, deploying militarized enforcers and secret police to suppress the revolt, but internal doubts and defections weakened its grip. The Gatewatch allied with the rebels, seeking to thwart Tezzeret’s sinister plans tied to a dangerous Planar Bridge and control over the city’s aether supply. The escalating conflict culminated in a daring assault on the Aether Spire, ultimately disrupting Tezzeret’s scheme but leaving the future of Avishkar and the multiverse uncertain.
Description
After the shocking events of the Grand Exhibition of the Inventors' Fair, the public and the Consulate quickly tore apart from one another. The fair was supposed to be a celebration of everything good about Avishkar's society - its creativity, ingenuity, and passion. Instead, inventions were stolen, inventors abducted, and violence threatened the crowds at the arena. In the months following, renegades of every stripe were spurred into action, and Ghirapur was thrown into chaos. The Consulate imposed tighter controls over its citizenry, striving to reassert its absolute authority, and the people were quick to rise and defend their freedoms and lifestyles. It was not a hope for anarchy that spurred the revolt; it was the hope that free invention and innovation could build a better future for all on the plane.[1]
The Consulate saw no other option than to instate a state of martial law in Ghirapur, and with astounding speed, it rallied its enforcers into what appeared to be a military occupation. Well-armed automaton soldiers and armored transporters filled the streets, and the enforcers from the Dhund became a secret police seeking to infiltrate and expose renegade groups. Consulate banners hung from every available balcony to remind the revolt's sympathizers who was in control. The Consulate's functionaries worked overtime to reassert control and prevent full anarchy. However, doubts had already been sown among several of the Consulate's leaders and bureaucrats in the wake of the Grand Exposition. They began to wonder whose interests the Consulate was serving - its people, or the whims of Tezzeret? With each new brutal suppression of the renegades, more people defected from the Consulate's cause and joined the revolt.[1]
For their part, the Renegades saw their ranks swelling in the wake of the Inventors' Fair, the public view having shifted from the cause being led by a few aether-stealing criminals and anarchists, to an organized resistance against the tyrannical government of the Consulate. When the enforcers so clearly overstepped the rightful role of government, while the renegades led with the ideals of freedom, creativity, and self-realization to innovate and invent for the benefit of all, the people's hearts were stayed in their favor. To take back their city, Renegade inventors turned to innovative means to stand against the new wave of militarized constructs filling the streets. Quicksmiths built armor and weapons to protect renegade freedom fighters, automatons were armed and equipped, Freejam airships and Ovalchase vehicles were plated with defense and outfitted with weapons, and inventors' societies formed nodes in the renegade network, setting their old rivalries to the side. To obtain much-needed aether to fuel their rebellion, the renegades organized raids on Consulate supplies, tapping pipelines, rerouting aether flows, building refining stills, and building private stores of aether to be used out of the view of Consulate thopters and spies. Consulate defectors provided information, passcodes, keys, and maps to aid in infiltration and access to aether supplies, and some provided their tactical skills and strategic planning to the cause.[1]
Members of the Gatewatch focused on stopping Tezzeret directly. While moving between safe houses, they worked with renegade inventors to hide from the enforcers searching for them, while sketching out their plan of attack. Chandra was particularly eager to start blasting, while Gideon was skeptical of the Gatewatch taking this particular role in a plane's politics. While the interplanar threat of the Eldrazi had been both clear, terrible, and imminent, the machinations of Tezzeret were less clear and much more tangled in the daily life of the citizens of Ghirapur. The renegades had been building a large airship to aid in the rebellion, but were missing a significant amount of aether to finish construction - aether that was readily available in the Aether Hub. They started planning a takeover of the hub, which would give them the ability to reroute the flow of aether to their airship workshop and finish their build. The Gatewatch realized this would also aid in stopping Tezzeret from his secret project in the Aether Spire, since he, too, was certain to need aether for his schemes to come to fruition.[1]
Meanwhile, Tezzeret was working to remake Rashmi's remarkable space-folding device into a Planar Bridge that could send inanimate objects through the Blind Eternities. Although he had promised her that she could become part of this grand project to pierce the Veil, she found his manner to be arrogant, rude, condescending, and malicious, stopping at nothing to achieve his goal, even if it cost people their lives. Liliana Vess and Saheeli Rai came to the rescue of Rashmi, freeing her from Tezzeret's clutches and bringing her to safety among the renegades. Liliana had secretly hoped that she would get the chance to murder Tezzeret to stop his schemes, but the opportunity did not present itself. From Rashmi, the Gatewatch learned the details of Tezzeret's plan and realized with clarity that this too would present a threat to the Multiverse, even if the full outcome was still unclear. So the Gatewatch joined the attack on the Aether Hub, where they successfully diverted the flow of aether to provide the renegades with plenty of fuel for their airship, and at the same time, shut down Tezzeret's operations in the Aether Spire. The takeover was not without issue, as Pia and Chandra started squabbling over the direction and intention of the revolt, with Pia focused on the reform of the government and making real, lasting change, while Chandra was overwhelmed by her anger at Baral, who had killed her father and almost done the same to her - twice, the last time including Nissa and Oviya Pashiri in his murderous intent.[1]
Baral knew he had Chandra on edge, and he planned to exploit that. He headed a squad of elite Consulate troops, showing himself in plain sight so that Chandra would be certain to notice. Chandra pursued Baral, leaving the Aether Hub over the objections of both Gideon and Pia. However, Baral led Chandra on a chase, seeming more interested in taunting and exhausting her than in actually defeating her. He countered all her fiery spells while drawing her further and further away from the Aether Hub. The other renegades also left the hub to pursue Chandra and convince her to return, but their absence left the hub open for a Consulate counterattack. The remaining renegades had to flee aboard their now fully fueled but not yet fully constructed airship, while Baral's enforcers rerouted the aether back to Tezzeret's workshop in the Aether Spire. Chandra was eventually persuaded to give up her chase, but they realized her weakness had already cost them control of the Aether Hub's power supply. This left the renegades with no option but to attack Tezzeret's Aether Spire directly.[1]
Dividing themselves into three teams, the main force would ride aboard the airship, now dubbed the Heart of Kiran, to release an aether disruptor thopter into the Planar Bridge, destroying it. Chandra, Jace, and Gideon would be part of this time. At the same time, a strike force on the ground would keep Consulate troops occupied at street level, while Liliana would make another attempt at confronting Tezzeret directly. They took their whole airship fleet to accompany the Heart of Kiran, and Jace added twice as many illusory airships to intimidate and confuse the enemy at the Aether Spire. However, Dovin Baan had secretly stowed away aboard the Heart of Kiran and managed to disable the aether disruptor, and Baral, with his anti-magic ability, was able to see through Jace's efforts and dispel the illusory ships. The enforcers were about to fire a cannon on the renegade airship, but Pia's forces had reached the spire's defense line and released a horde of gremlins on it, which quickly made short work of the aether cannon. Tezzeret activated the Planar Beacon, and a massive whorl of aetheric energy disrupted the air around the spire, making the airship tilt. But Liliana found him there and attacked him with necrotic blasts. At the same time, Chandra and Gideon sailed into the Planar Bridge riding the partly disabled thopter, and Chandra threw a giant obliterating fireblast on the transplanar artifact, destroying it. The blast would have consumed her as well if not for Gideon's protective magic. Even surprised, Tezzeret managed to defend himself against Liliana's attacks, and grabbed the core piece of the Planar Bridge, inserting it into his midsection, and then planeswalking away to his mysterious master.[1]
With the Gatewatch's objective partly successful, and Dovin Baan too having disappeared, the focus of the revolt turned to the overthrow of the Consulate government. The battling soon died down, as Tezzeret's and Dovin's apparent betrayal strongly demotivated the enforcers, and the renegades led by Pia saw an opportunity for reform without outside interference. The remaining consuls restored aether supply to the city and removed martial law, while Baral was arrested for crimes unbefitting a city official. Ajani officially joined the Gatewatch, and together the small but growing organization discussed Tezzeret's motivations and figured out it must be Nicol Bolas pulling the artificer's strings, and that the Planar Bridge must be critical to Bolas's plans. Ajani informed the others that Bolas's plots were unfolding on another plane, called Amonkhet, but he warned against rushing there to confront the elder dragon. Instead, he recommended bolstering their ranks with more planeswalkers before heading to the evil overlord's lair. But flush with their string of victories on Zendikar, Innistrad, and now here on Avishkar, the Gatewatch were driven to face off with Bolas and stop his plan before it could come to fruition. As Ghirapur began its slow return to normalcy, Chandra said a tearful farewell to her mother and home, but this time, she knew they would be reunited again in the future.[1]
In-game references
- Represented in:
- Referred to:
References
- ↑ a b c d e f g h James Wyatt (January 3, 2017) - The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Kaladesh, WotC.