Enter the Ocean Age

265 Million + 10,000 Years PE

The beginning of a new, informal era within the middle Ultimocene was marked by the death of the last woodcrafter and the dawn of the social gravedigger’s sea-dependent civilization: the ocean age. Actually the peak of the middle ultimocene ice age, this period of time is defined by the majority of surviving plant and animal life being reliant upon an equatorial band of open water along the equator between the continents of Serinarcta, which retains a habitable strip of wind-beaten land extending about a thousand miles inland along its coasts, and Serinaustra, which by this time becomes entirely glaciated. However, these environmental changes were already beginning for millions of years before this arbitrary designation. Extreme glaciation at the end of the early Ultimocene resulted in a massive sea level drop, exposing hundreds of islands of varying size within this last open water, while the seafloors beneath are now all within the range to which light penetrates, allowing plants to take root, and strong currents pushed by fierce winds which whip around the equator easily mix the sediment into the water column. In other words, the sea during this period has been, and continues to be, an extraordinarily productive environment. A time and place with no equivalent before it, aquatic animals and new, exciting civilizations alike are thriving in a spectacular refuge, even as depleted ecosystems upon the frozen continents barely cling to life.

All walks of terrestrial life began to turn toward the ocean to find food as the land became increasingly inhospitable during the middle Ultimocene ice age. From sparrowgulls returning to their ancient roots as seabirds, to herds of seal-like molodonts that haul out on rocky shores, to trunkos that dive into the sea to browse submerged plants, to the gravediggers on their sea-going rafts. The sea is now an oasis for all types of creatures large and small that flock to its frost-free, shallow waters that remain full of vegetation, fishes and fish-birds and crustaceans. And though it is relatively small, it is varied, hosting many types of ecosystems made possible by differing density of plant growth, water depth, and turbidity. In part the sea is so fertile because it is so shallow that currents, formed by strong winds, keep the water stirred up, mixing the sediment and all its nutrients into the water column. Yet the shallow depth of the water also allows plants to reach the sediment and take root between the stronger currents in the shallowest areas of the open ocean, forming thickets that slow water movement and leave large tracts of the water’s surface calm and tranquil like the surface of a pond, with few if any waves. The last place upon Serina where ice doesn't form, due to the insulating effect of the water preventing severe nightly drops, temperatures do not freeze in the open sea at the equator even at night, with temperature swings between a minimum of 38 and 65 degrees F (3.33 - 18.33 C) occurring throughout each day and night cycle. Thus while the air temperatures are cool, they are hospitable and more importantly, predictable enough that a very wide variety of life can still survive here. Water temperatures at the equator tend to even out between the daily extremes of the air, and average a relatively balmy 52 degrees F (11.11 C).