Eras

Scholars divide the history of the Mantle and the Golden Basin into five distinct eras as follows:
 * The First Era was when the Visitors still lived on the planet, before it shattered and became the Mantle,
 * the Second Era was an age of emptiness, with very little life to speak of at first.
 * the Third Era had small, isolated settlements being founded and erased rather often, with no major civilization,
 * the First Intermediary Era was a short period with no traces of civilization,
 * the Fourth Era gave birth to the Zodiac Readers and the Merownans,
 * the Second Intermediary Era saw their destruction, any successive settlements also vanished,
 * and finally, the Fifth Era saw the rise of Sterling and other city states of current day.