It is a Lisk fork? What distinguishes from other coins with smart contracts?
You will get your ASC automatically via the IPO site. When trading is implemented you will be able to send ASC from your account, we will release a client/server for every platform likely in Q4 2017 or Q1 2018.
Before that you will be able to trade via your account on the website.
You can take a look at our roadmap:
It is no fork at all, Ascendancy is written from scratch.
Ascendancy is not a coin but a framework, Ascendancy allows users to build their own decentralised applications, A smart contract is effectively a DApp in this case.
I hope this answers your questions, in case you've got more questions don't hesitate to ask us!
Sincerely,
Axel aka SparkIt.