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So I got the Starship Operations Manual when it came out but only tonight did I actually bother reading the Manufacturer's section & two things caught my eye. The first was the Guttertooth Processing Company; we need more lore on them, they seem amazing.
But the second thing & the thing that inspired me to create this thread, is this sentence from the first paragraph of ATech's section;
Pre-Gap records indicate that the company now known as ATech originated on the planet Golarion as a manufacturer of atmospheric vehicles such as jet aircraft and hovercars. The exact details of who or what financed such cutting-edge research is lost to time, but speculators have suggested that it may have taken an entire country devoted to technological advances, a league of individuals with extraordinary knowledge for their time, or even the cult of a lesser god.
So that's interesting in that it both suggests Golarion was a bit further along than present day PF Golarion before the gap started but not so much further along that a company producing jet aircraft would be common place. I don't know if it's worded that way to give DM's a bit of leeway in where they want the gap set in their games, or if we should be keeping an eye on stuff coming out of Numeria in the immediate future.
Anyway, hadn't seen anyone bring that up in any Gap-related threads since the SOM came out & I figured it might spark a little discussion or pique some interest.
I don't think is creates any issues.
With the wreckage of the divinity, Numeria, and time those technological advances seem inevitable. Likely, the things described as being produced by ATech existed on the Divinity, or plans for them did, and it was just a matter of understanding the information or making the items function and figuring out how to reproduce them.
That, or the particular writer had their PCs start a modern company on golarian and included that little Easter egg.
Also, from what I remember 'pre-gap' is flexible. More a jagged line where history started disappearing, not so much a straight line cutoff.
Yeah I'm not trying to say it creates issues or problems. More, thinking of it as a potential clue or hint, or more likely an easter egg.
I don’t think that’s from Numeria; the Land of Northern Lakes has “steam-powered carriages,” if I remember right.
Well it's still a big leap between "steam-powered carriages" & jet aircraft & hover cars.
Still, Numeria was just a guess on my part based on the "entire country dedicated to technological advances" line & also the cult of a lesser god line being that, one assumes, Casandalee's cult is strongest in Numeria. Could be the Land of Northern Lakes(I confess I haven't read into that particular location) or maybe Alkenstar branches out into more than just fire arms in the future.
Point being, a company producing jets & hovercars isn't a thing on Golarion as of now, so we have a thing to point to as "this has to happen before the gap starts", at least for Golarion, or for the Pact Worlds, if the variance in Gap time applies to individual planets or individual systems.
