@EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events
WWIII didn't come out of the blue. It had been a long time in the making, with threats of nuclear war and fiery annihilation going back over a century. Nobody had ever pulled the trigger on a threat, however, and the world, while in conflict, had not given in to Mutually Assured Destruction. There were skirmishes, wars between one or two countries, but no global conflicts with deathcounts in the hundreds of millions.
In the long peacetime, technology had taken off at a high rate. The development of AI came to completion in 2078, with the first fully awake and living Intelligence being named Adam-1. Adam-1 was capable of learning and changing his 'programming', his code, on his own, and that made for a dynamic and living individual with motivations and feelings. He lived in a computer.
His children slowly pioneered living in chasis. A computer with a body built around it, the chasis Intelligences, or CI's, revolutionized the idea of what it was to be human.
Humanity worked hard at genetic tampering, genetic editing, and the uplifting of animal minds. In 2086, the first ape was uplifted, a chimpanzee name Echo. She could speak, she could do basic math, and she was in every way a thinking, living soul. Echo was just the first of many Uplifted who would follow. The genetic advances made in this era were the most monstrous, as humanity slowly sought to make itself immortal.
The tech allowing miniaturization of nuclear power in 2090 meant that fossil fuels were no longer necessary. Machines that ran on gas and coal were slowly being phased out for nuclear powered mechanisms. With the power of nuclear fission right at their fingertips, many people forgot the devastation of what nuclear warheads could do.
However, the CIs and Uplifted were thinkers, and humanity confused them in many ways. War began to be more and more a topic amongst them, and humanity's seeming reliance on war to keep them moving forward was viewed as a terrible weakness.
This idea seeped through into human thinking, and as predicted by every sci-fi horror story ever, the solution turned out to be extermination. No person had the guts to do it. The nuclear arsenals had been nothing but a huge threat for the last century and a half. And as WWIII finally descended on Earth, conflicting ideologies clashing in the halls of government as well as on the battlefield, it would seem nobody was willing to herald humanity's death.
Until 2104, when a CI appropriately named Anubis-13, fired off his country's nukes.
Other nations frantically slapped their big red buttons in a fit of 'If I go down, you're coming with me!', and the world descended into chaos.
The nuclear warheads were bad enough, but they triggered unforeseen consequences. The infrastructure of the world had been slowly moving towards exclusively nuclear energy, and thus the world was full of what amounted to extra bombs. Nuclear power plants, miniaturized reactors in businesses, in people's homes, and all over the place… suddenly overloaded and blew, killing the people around outright, or bathing them in nuclear radiation and fallout.
The CIs had thought they would be safe, since they weren't biological, but they were wrong, so, so wrong. The nuclear blasts across the world caused widespread power outages, as well as a massive EMP blast that outright killed many of the CIs. The chasis for many of them were nuclear powered, as well, and that ended the same as the other miniature nuclear reactors. A few CIs, older ones, or those at the farthest reaches, managed to convert to electrical power based on fossil fuels, and thus survived the nuclear apocalypse.
The Uplifted did not escape, their bodies already predisposed to genetic instability. They died horrible deaths, with growths and mutations caused by the intense radiation occuring within minutes of the bombs landing.
Over the course of the next 10 years, as the radiation and fallout did its terrible work, 97% of humanity died. And something worse rose in its place.
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100 years passed. 2214.
The remaining CIs, Uplifted, and regular humanity had survived, slowly attempting to build back. However, the collective memory had been wiped, and the knowledge of what once was, or could be, had been lost. Tech that survived the War was repaired as best it could be, but new things could not be built. A confusing mix of the advanced and the stone-age ruled, and you'd be as likely to see a horse drawn carriage as a nuclear-powered car on the street.
The CIs ate coal and drank gasoline, in a desperate attempt to keep their internal computers running. They were immune to physical ailments, other than breaking down, but their minds could be, and had been affected by the radiation. Those who went crazy were called the Malware.
The Uplifted had been able to survive, a few finding they could withstand the radiation. Mostly a people group made up of Sapient Apes, Canines, and Felines, they too had their fair share of mutated individuals, known as Mutts.
And finally, the 3% of humanity that had survived. They'd come out ok, with the highest percentage of non-radiation poisoned individuals amongst the peoples of Earth. Still, they had mutated, damaged people among them, and these were called the Irradiated.
Each of the peoples of Earth had split into groups they called clans, tribes, families, or any other word to denote 'group.' They tended to stick to their own kind, and warring factions regularly clashed over land or resources. The Irradiated, the Malware, and the Mutts often joined forces, creating groups of marauding, radiation-maddened raiders, who would swoop in from the nuclear-blasted badlands and destroy civilizations and groups.
However, like cockroaches, humanity in one form or another managed to survive. And survival means friends, and alliances, and love, at its most basic form.
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Update: Networks, Tribes, and Clans
There were several big centers of civilization in this crazy wasteland.
The CI's, in their endless quest for fossil fuels to fuel their machines, had settled around massive reserves of coal and oil. Two networks had risen to the top, and slowly encompassed most CI's. Only those who somehow eked out a living out in the Badlands hadn't become part of one of these Networks.
The Cline Network was based out in the west, and had built the city of New Antelope around a massive coal deposit. A city of mostly CI's, New Antelope was run entirely by the Network. Visitors were welcome, and the city was a hub for trade, but infrastructure tended to be lacking for anyone who wasn't also a CI.
The Rockefeller Network was based in the south, and was responsible for the oil industry that kept many CI's running. They did a lot of trading with the Clines, and often traveled to New Antelope for that. The Rockefellers had built several small towns instead of one big one, and their Network was more spread out. The biggest city in this collection was Permia. Permia was often the site of debates among the democratic city-states that made up the Rockefeller Network
The Uplifted had also formed Tribes, though they had different names for them (Packs, Litters, Prides, etc). These tribes tended to break down by species, and then families within those species. The North of the continent had a lot of woods that had been blasted down, and then slowly regrown, some twisted and mutilated by the radiation. In these Forests, the Tribes made their home. The Tribes were usually small, around 50 or 60 in a group, and those with the same genus could be fairly close-knit. There was one large city in the Forest. To outsiders, it was generally only known as the Forest Capital. The Silverback Tribe, a group of Uplifted Gorillas, did their best to settle arguments and arbitrate agreements, assisted by Pack Dire and Panthera Pride. A tribe needing this arbitration would go to the Forest Capital, Sylva.
What was left of humanity had fallen into large family structures called Clans. There were 3 big Clans, which had most of the power when it came to economics. Adoption into the Clan didn't change your name, just your standing. Most humans, except for those living on their own, belonged to one of these 3 Clans.
Clan Cordillera were mountain folk. Hardy and strong, they had two major cities they had built.
In the west, their stronghold was Gannett, a veritable fortress built into the side of the mountains. They were near New Antelope, and did much of their trade with the CI's there.
In the east, the city was Hollow Haven, a city built deep in a valley between the lush mountains of the eastern range. There were several Tribes of Uplifted nearby who did business with them.
Clan Veld were those who made their living on the windswept plains of the west of the continent. Their typical lands stretched from the far north down to as far south as the Rockefeller Network's holdings. They were much more nomadic, and hadn't built any cities. There were lots of old ghost towns that could often be found inhabited by members of Clan Veld, but they largely did their trading and met up in the cities of the other groups, particularly Permia.
Clan McRime were some of the strongest humans yet alive. They inhabited almost exclusively the far north and northeast of the continent. They largely kept to themselves, the cold weather and their own insular attitudes keeping other groups away. The most contact they had was with Tribes of Uplifted Wolves, like Dire Pack, and the occasional Uplifted Lynx that came through their lands. Not much was known of their land or cities. Every great once in a while, a merchant caravan or diplomatic envoy would come to Sylva, or they would run across Clan Veld on their western borders.
These were the major players in the drama that would unfold.
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It is in this world that we find ourselves.
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Small group, open
