The Flavor of Dawn
It is quiet on the bridge. The imagers and seers sit patiently while Xulah reads the final calculations. Years of preparation have led to this moment; you can see the anticipation on every face of every member of the Navigation Crew. "Looks good to me, what do you think Adamis?" "The Protector Crew is on standby, ready to jump, sir!" Xulah nodded as Adamis saluted him. "Well....jump stations everyone!" A sigh of relief quickly turned into seers and imagers shuffling about, making contact with the Engine, Rot, and Creation Crews to prepare for launch. Several hours later, Xulah sat at his helm, deep in telepathic communication with the powerful being on the other side. The Dawn hummed and buzzed expectantly, ready for the go ahead. Finally, its purpose can be achieved. Finally, the denizens of Quadrant Beta will receive the understanding that follows with the ability to planeswalk. The high council can only guess the extent of understanding this Quadrant needed however...major instabilities have been recorded in the years before. Planes colliding, planes being destroyed, powerful beings escaping planes and bringing souls from the outside in. All bad happenings that the Dawn was designed to fix. Its distance, however, made it difficult for the Dawn to make its way there. But that was all about to change. The mission of the Dawn is simple: stabilize interplanar interactions and teach the understanding required to responsibly travel the Blind Eternities to those who travel them. Finally, Quadrant Beta will receive that mission. Frenzel tapped Xulah on the shoulder. Xulah slowly raised his eyes, looked to the helm, and smiled. "Punch it."
So why would a ton of planeswalkers meet in one place? What would change in the "spark acquisition process" that would cause a bunch of 'walkers to be made at once? The planes we have been to with planeswalkers have all been pretty stressful, yet not many receive sparks. This lends credence to the fact that planeswalkers are an oddity in the multiverse; a very select minority despite what happens internally in the planes from which they come from. So I gravitated towards having the setting of this set/block not be on a plane, per se. Then I found an angle that is similar to another setting that some are familiar with: Star Trek. In that series, Earth limped along until we got our shit together and went faster-than-light for the first time. The Vulcuns noticed that, then came to us, told us we were not alone, and then began the long process of allying with us humans. I'm generalizing heavily (and probably getting some details wrong), but the point is that it gave me inspiration to draw a similar parallel: the Magic universe was chugging along until the Mending, then planeswalkers started receiving their sparks at a regular pace, going between planes and started interacting with those planes' denizens (and causing havoc in some cases). What if a similar large body of planeswalkers "flew" in on a giant ship and did the same thing the Vulcuns did for these newly-endowed planeswalkers? It could be a massive artificial plane that can move through the Blind Eternities and be able to attract nearby planeswalkers to come visit and learn from them. They could have a large host of planeswalkers and other creatures/humanoids to interact with. They could have an academy to learn combat tactics and deep magics from. Since the plane has to move, they could have navigators, engine specialists, and crews dedicated to the production and recycling of mana. And finally, several of the regular standby 'walkers can come up and check out what's up with the Dawn.
This is very much an brief overview of the flavor of Dawn. I hope it gave you a picture of the vision I had for this planeswalker block and how to rationalize why there are a whole host of them in one place. Next, I will go into detail about the mechanics of the block.
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