Grey skies, bronze gears, and black coal are what is known to the people in this society. In this alternative world industry is the breath of life. In this time, the industrial revolutions happened much earlier than in ours. This would give birth to the genius that was Edward Voss. Born in England, 1805,  his mother was Elizabeth Voss, a teacher and Elmer Voss, a low-grade engineer. Edward lived a middle-class life as he would go into the market and help his uncle sell potatoes. Edward was a born genius tinkering from a young age. This natural intellect and education from his parents meant that he was destined for greatness. Edward would achieve top marks in all his classes and would eventually he would attend Oxford university however he would eventually drop out to pursue his true passion. Edward knew that the world has finite resources so he spent sleepless nights until he could find a way to subsidize this problem. He would eventually come up with a formula that could create artificial coal in 1834.  Edward would immediately paten this idea to create Voss inc. A company the world would be founded on. Production rose to an unbelievable high. Every corner of the west would be covered in factories.

There came a problem, as there were more factories pollution increased as well and living spaces became tighter. Food was forced to become more hardy with the main foods now available being tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and poultry. Edward would eventually come up with a solution he would call the Voss effect. A method he created that would use this artificial coal to burn to such a high degree that it would create a plasma like substance that could float massive amounts of weight on it while staying in place.

This gave birth to floating islands that would rise above the smog and the cities below. People could now live smog free and could grow fresh crops. While he solved this issue for the rich the poor would see no benefit in this and a class divide that would have no parallel was born. The cities would become divided into the “upper” parts that flew in the sky and the “lowers” the cities themselves covered in smog. The populations would also begin to call each other by new names. The Alders were those who lived in the skies while the Affes were the grease monkeys below.

This fortune that would come with his genius eventually put a toll on Edward as he began to drink himself to death and died on his birthday in 1855. This story takes place in Liverpool, where the grey skies, bronze gears, and black coal will be stained with red.