Firmament

Biodata

Background

The Firmament has existed alongside Azure Star since the world’s formation. Lin Ye interprets it as a higher civilization’s control over the planet, though this is his interpretation rather than a confirmed explanation of its nature 1.

Under the Firmament, Azure Star has experienced no true wars. Its peoples belong to the Azure Federation rather than separate countries, while warfare and technological development take place through virtual dungeons 1.

Governance and dungeon system

Authority over Azure Star

• Prohibits real-world war and punishes people who deliberately harm others 8 23.
• Centrally regulates settlements’ resources and economies 34.
• Supports movement between settlements as a way to exchange dungeon-design experience 23.
• Announces promotions and dungeon reviews publicly on the dome above the world 4 8.

Points and levels

Challengers earn points by clearing dungeons and lose them through failure. Repeated losses can result in demotion or erasure when their points bottom out 1 4.

The Firmament introduced the LV1 exemption after established designers repeatedly targeted newly promoted creators, preventing many from building dungeons of their own 4.

Dungeon creation and review

• Creation Space: LV1 designers can build maps, weapons, buildings and technology, including things absent from Azure Star. Creations and hidden mechanisms must follow reasonable logic 4 5.
• Ownership: Dungeon creations belong to their designers, who may reuse them in later dungeons 5.
• Review: The Firmament evaluates completed dungeons for plausibility, originality, foresight and other factors. A dungeon must pass before it can open 5 8.
• Difficulty: Ratings account for capacity, difficulty, technological innovation and playability. Known ratings include easy, normal, hard and hell; Lin Ye’s Raging Waves became the first rated Purgatory-level 10.
• Revision: Designers may modify their dungeons, after which the Firmament rates them again. It can also adjust challenger capacity 6 10.

Dungeon operation

• Battlefield dungeons have a 24-hour cooldown. On an opening, the designer may designate challengers for 20% of capacity; the Firmament randomly selects the remainder when needed 10.
• After the first opening, challengers may volunteer for subsequent runs. If there are too few volunteers, the Firmament fills the remaining places by random selection 10.
• The Firmament deploys challengers, explains maps and missions, enforces dungeon settings, and announces outcomes and statistics 12 29 30 41.
• Designers receive a tiered share of points generated by an uncleared dungeon: 1% of the portion up to 100 million points and 0.1% of the portion above 100 million up to one billion 43.

Rankings and broadcasts

The Firmament maintains the Hero Ranking, which lists challengers with details including their level, race and dungeon works. It also displays dungeon standings on the Heavenly Ranking and broadcasts dungeon runs to viewers 10 12 23.

Role in *Raging Waves*

Perspectives

• Lin Ye — Considers the Firmament a form of higher-civilization control. He later resolves to accumulate enough power to break its rules and discover what lies above Azure Star’s dome 1 25.
• Zhao Jianyu — Compares Lin Ye to the Firmament because he designed Earth Online as an interconnected world rather than a conventional instance. The comparison is figurative: Earth Online itself has no Firmament governing its inhabitants 42.
• Itō Hidetaka — Challenges the fairness of Raging Waves’ sanctions and delayed exit. The Firmament responds that the settings passed review and that his actions triggered their consequences 34 39.