Airships of Camelot — Robison Wells

It was said to be the “war to end all wars,” but in the end, the millions who died in the trenches of France were nothing more than a speck -- a germ -- in the true world war that left nation after nation devastated. The Spanish Influenza (known colloquially to survivors as merely “The Spain”) killed a higher percentage of its victims than the machine guns raking No Man's Land. By the end of 1918 (hereafter called Year One), the earth had returned to a medieval state, plague survivors gathering in xenophobic barricaded villages, hiding from others, attacking the weak, and always living in fear of a return of The Spain.
It was the United States Navy that preserved some semblance of civilization. As the plague spread, quarantined military bases fought off diseased attackers and then finally took to the sky in a fleet of airships. One by one, the captains and admirals fanned out, looking for places to revive society.
It was Admiral Constantine who first settled Camelot, and it was his son, Admiral Uther, who brought it to strength with the power of his three airships. But it was Arthur -- the unlikeliest of heroes -- who turned the land on its head and created what could truly be called a civilized world.

Excerpt from the foreword of Admiral Arthur, First Among Equals
By Jeffrey Monmouth, Court Historian, Camelot
Year Eighty-one