verse - mutually assured damnation (wip)

[feargach]

Background

In the twenty-second century, the world as we know it comes to an end. It is ravaged by the Resource Wars, man turning against man in order to pillage what they could to preserve themselves in the wake of the growing realisation that there just wasn’t enough left on the planet. Energy concerns, survivability and the viability of life itself had been brought into question and the natural disasters predicted in the twenty-first century started to rear their ugly heads.

Nations turned against each other in order to establish themselves as a winning factor and retain whatever power was left to ensure one last ditch at survivability in an attempt to research the chance of self-salvation. The concerns prompted by nuclear energy were outweighed by the idea that the planet was being consumed at an unsustainable rate and as fossil fuels and oil were diminished nuclear power plants appeared across the globe like a cancer; every nation seeming to split their time between arming themselves and building these plants. However with the development of nuclear plants and energy came further research into nuclear warfare, the unsustainability of the planet and rising tensions proving to be the tipping point against peace, plummeting Earth into a state of conflict the likes of which it had never seen.

The War

The Resource Wars of the twenty-second century were the marking point of a hostile decade for planet Earth. Nations abandoned their peace treaties and the idea of human rights or even civilians were forgotten in favour of military drafting. New techniques were developed alongside machines, ways that military factions could enter a country and siphon their resources to stockpile what they would need for what was viewed as the coming apocalypse.

Mutually Assured Destruction became the pertinent idea of warfare, with the development of nuclear warfare being paramount. Those countries who didn’t have nuclear programmes in place suffered the worst, with no chance of defending themselves against the stronger countries’ munitions. Countries that began rich and developed maintained their positions in this hierarchy and wastelands started to be seen across the globe in those areas that’d been pillaged and more so, areas that’d been destroyed by the catastrophes of nature; floods, earthquakes, volcanoes- it seemed as if mother nature had her own stake in the war.

The problem with the Resource Wars and the problem of humanity in general is that these wars lead to greed, the greatest sin of man. No one nation was content with the position they held in the world, the fear of loss and of never having just quite enough resources to keep going meant that dissatisfaction was constantly at play, leading to all out nuclear warfare that nearly obliterated humanity from the face of the earth. There were no set allies nor a concept of sides when it came to the war, but instead it was as if most of the world’s war councils has decided that it was do or die, launching their missiles. This lead to devastation caused by the meltdown of nuclear plants themselves.

The world was left virtually destroyed… but with it, came the idea of peace, in a sense. The depletion of munitions and the fact that the planet had been ravaged in such a way meant there was practically no need for war. What the world needed instead, was restoration.

The Cities – (The Towers, The Fringes, The Wasteland)

The reformation of the modern world came in the form of Supercities. With the landmass of planet Earth radically reshaped and the vast culling in terms of resources and population, it became necessary for those left to group together within their nations, with the added threat of mutated monstrosities these walled Supercities marked the dawn of a new human race. New capitals were made while retaining their old names to which each population flocked regardless of where they may have stood in the old world.

These Supercities when rebuilt primarily took the form of towers, as it was easier for them to home people in their hundreds through this method. However, beneath these towers the fringes existed; buildings grouped together like camps where the latecomers came and were forced to inhabit space outside the towers.

Beyond the Supercities were the wastelands, vast barrens that’d been left to rot where mutated wildlife was left to roam, becoming more monstrous than what we were familiar with. It was a new threat and more importantly, a threat that meant humanity became less interested in fighting each other and more interested in simply surviving. These monsters becoming something that united humanity after so many years of contention.

In modern times, these towers became the epicentre of the Supercities, vastly developed shining beacons of both defence and opulence. Most inhabitants lived within these towers with The Fringes now being considered the slums of their society. The Towers were now multi-floored monstrosities, each floor the equivalent of a twenty-first century district.
The structure of the Towers also became hierarchical in nature, with the upper floors becoming the most opulent and job allocations becoming dependent on which level you were born into. Not only were the towers used for accommodation but eventually commerce and production, with scientific advances being made to designate floors towards livestock farming and agriculture. Beyond that, there were entertainment sectors, commercial sectors, leisure sectors and with time and further development these towers became as similar to the old cities as was possible for the new state of the world, showing how society and humanity despite their setbacks always manage to grow and flourish.

The Augmented / The Corrupted

One of the unforeseen side effects of the nuclear warfare of the twenty-second century was the effects it had on humanity. The new levels of radiation on the planet created a jump start in terms of evolution, with the world’s population so diminished there came a new trend. Those born in the twenty-second century had the chance to be born gifted with powers that humanity had never seen before. Whether it was magic, science or an act of the divine humanity had been given an advantage when it came to the necessity for redevelopment. These powers were seen by some as a blessing, a sign that humanity was destined to continue and by others as a curse, a sign that humanity had fallen from greatness and been corrupted for it. Attitudes varied between nations and even more so between the factions present within those nations, with some hailing their new gifted young as a new wave, treating them the way one might treat a decorated champion. For others, these children were slaughtered, sacrificed to the concept of a true god with the idea that it might bring them salvation in the new world.

Regardless of whether or not these new evolved humans were held in a high or low regard, it was clear that they were vital. As these children developed into adulthood it became apparent that they would be crucial in the fabrication of the Supercities and later, in the power structure of humanity and its place in the fight against the unfamiliar threat of these nuclear monstrosities.

The Facility

On paper, the Facility was a corporation geared towards the training and development for the new wave of evolved humans. In practice however, it was a corrupt place geared towards weaponizing these powerful youngsters for their own needs. It was a faction that still existed which wanted war in the world, more involved with the idea of the augmented being able to be used against other powerful factions to assert dominance. The Facility was a concealed group, operating outside of any one nation, recruiting from across the globe that used these augmented as a counterinsurgency method, built up to dominate any threat to the facility’s own power.

This had, of course, been an extremely efficient method back when it was still in development; until the world governments started to see just how powerful this new wave of humanity could be and got afraid and the project was buried... or at least on paper, all trails of The Facility disappeared, agreeing to cease their projects for threat of facing the unified front of several of the world’s most powerful nations.

The few people still in control at the Facility were the more driven of the lot; those few who failed to see what they were doing as anything bad. As with most things, though, with the threat of being uncovered hot on their heels they were forced to galvanize their productivity through any means necessary. Before, their main method of training had been mostly military, dubious in its nature thanks to the age of the recruits but still mostly principled. Once that went out the window, those still in charge turned immoral and unethical. Exacting their training in a way that could only be branded as both psychological and physical torture, conditioning the Augmented both physically and mentally, making them more monster than man.

Modern Life

When the dust finally settles on this new dawn of humanity the Supercities have become highly developed societies once more, a stark contrast with the exclusionary areas of the wastelands separating them. The Augmented fall within their respective ranks of these societies, being an exclusive group within modern hierarchies. The towers went from quickly formed abodes to towering symbols of humanity's resilience.

The world once more invested in clean energy, using nature- a force that'd once turned against them, to gain energy for their societies once more. With time humanity once more had the accoutrements they'd become accustomed to- cell towers, portable communication, energy, the internet.

They still, however, had the constant threat of the mutant beasts that now roamed the earth and as such armies redeveloped to fight these foes, with squadrons formed that were greatly comprised of the Augmented fighting alongside regular humans.

While the world is no longer on the verge of nuclear destruction or international warfare the threat of the mutant savages and the complications created by The Augmented and their place within the world become the new issues of the twenty-third century.