>>1784
The saeclum augusta has a certain mythological property to it, it's considered the second age of legend. The first being the events of the trojan war. It was the time of Celcus and his cohorts.
Celcus was a slave and gladiator, possibly a prisoner of war. Although the legend says he just showed up in Rome one day, inside the walls and undetected by the guards. Some stenographs of Roman discourse at that time seem to reference that story.
Celcus was by all accounts a germanic looking man, much taller than those around him. He must have been an imposing figure in the Roman amphitheatre. Combined with his legendarily commanding presence it must have won a lot of fights for him.
Eventually Celcus did earn his freedom and went on to advance his social standing by way of the writings we all know him for. Most aspiring philosopers nowadays are taught pretty much the exact principles laid out in his trias cognitio. Math, Engineering and the Natural Sciences. The three broadly overlapping categories of human genius were first described as such in the writings of Celcus.
Before imperial Rome numbers where writtin down a lot differently, it was with the time of Celcus that the Octal system was introduced. First only in academia but eventually as a universal standard. A lot of other things were introduced around that time too. Modern epistimology, chemistry and the basics of modern medicine. It is often referred to as the philosophical golden age.
Celcus was known as a charasmatic person and natural leader. He eventually worked himself up to the emperor's inner circle but grew bored with politics and went on to live in self-imposed exile in the northest reaches of the empire.
Celcus' presence in germania marked the real expansion of the roman empire. It was here that he created the first railroad. The giant steel behemoth that is a train could only be created by an organization as wealthy as augustus' empire but the invention braught the world to its knees. Suddenly travel time between Italy and Germania was reduced to scarcely a few days and large quantities of soldiers and supplies were quickly and efficiently transported between realms.
Combined with the noteworthy strategic moves of Celcus' himself (worthy of books each on their own) this advance in infrastructure brought the west of the continent to its knees in scarcely a decade. Bringing not only political unity but levels of wealth never before seen to the citizens of Rome.
As Rome became acquinted with this steam technology, that revolutionized industry and widened the class divide Celcus isolated himself in the permafrost of scandinavia, far away from the politics of Rome where a roman would have to travel for weeks to reach it even when taking the railways.
The great college was situated here, a city shrouded in a veil of mist. Few ever saw it and the place took on mythical proportions in the mind of the ordinary roman. The brightest and most diligent scholars were invited to be part of the college and those that came back from it were venerated with the kind of religious esteem usually reserved for high priests.
It's from this mystical city that the first flying machines originated, the balloons and planes that would one day subdue china and result in the vertical cities you see there today, electricity and photography also originated from the great college.
It is these first photos that grant us our only clues in locating the whereabouts of this great college. Ever since the start of our calendar at the death of emperor augustus it has been over 500 years and the stories of Celcus have faded into myth and legend. Eventually the city had stopped communicating with the outside world, the aging Celcus had gone mad and decided the population of his city had to be bred for intelligence like how farmers breed their cattle for the largest offspring and stopped accepting applicants from the outside world.
Right now all the known world is part of the roman empire, the first capsules are being sent into the stratosphere and philosphers are researching the secrets of the atom but the greatest mystery of our time is the hidden city in the scandinavian mountains.