#Shard Investigation
-Mariana and Civilization
Mariana is a deep-sea world dominated by intelligent humanoids, the Marianai, who can breath in either water or air. Until the Chelae invastion, the Mariani civilization was a rich underwater kingdom.
According to the description by Lancer "Sonar," the Marianai coexist symbiotically with numerous marine creatures, building cities using their calcareous shells and coral skeletons, utilizing special jellyfish as light sources, and so on. And so, the Marianai were able to deeply delve into the fields of art and literature, creating works of art that we are only beginning to explore and interpret.
Before the Smash-Up, the civilization had been steadily developing for thousands of years.
-Marianai
Every Marianai is well-adapted to the environment with glunite, and capable of living freely within it. Their bodies not only resist considerable erosion from glunite, but also possess substantial physiological strength, allowing them to navigate swiftly through the various complex structures underwater.
The Marianai consider themselves a warrior society, even though they lived in worldwide peace for several generations prior to the Chelae incursion. Their children undergo rigorous combat training from a young age, and it is important for high-status families that their children do particularly well in combat and leadership tests.
Each year, Marianai select outstanding warriors to conduct ritual hunts of dangerous ocean predators. The most successful are sent to explore the deep ocean abysses. Mariana's oceans at their deepest are three times as deep as the deepest trench on Earth.
They also have a rich musical culture. Music is a secondary source of status, and great singers are considered important to inspiring society. Sound carries long distances underwater, so a single singer can reach a great audience, and warriors and hunters will harmonize as they pursue prey or fight enemies.
-Glunite
Like people in many other Shards, the Marianai conducted research on glunite prior to the Smash-Up. They harvest unconverted glunite from their watery environment, using genetically tailored filter-feeding fish to filter it out of the water. However, their research on glunite is recent and not very advanced. They are aware of its applications to energy generation, but did not have Shard Cards prior to the Smash-Up connecting them with our civilization. They are frankly wary of disturbing the ecological balance of their oceans, which are only now recovering from the Chelae War. Hence research has been slow.
