“Gone are the days of Human vulnerability. Past is the time we should fear injury. Invalids, paraplegics, rejoice! Your salvation is at hand! The body you always wanted is yours for the taking!  Now you can be strong enough to withstand any* disaster! Fast enough to escape your fears! Smart enough to bring the galaxy to your fingertips!
The EVAS 4 is here!”
-MitsuBrowning Enterprises advertisement for the first model of the fourth wave of Extra-Vehicular-Arms, Armor, and Augmentation System, the EVAS4.0, “built for skill and dressed to kill”, the MitsuBrowning M0.4 Jackal.

The EVAS gave us a new way to live. The space race had just fired up again with a fervor, the likes of which hasn’t been seen or felt since the 1960’s. Acts of terrorism, all too frequent these days, claimed few, and natural disasters took fewer. The first wave of suits weren’t sealed, more of an exoskeleton without a shell. They enhanced the user’s strength and allowed the viability of jetpacks to the military-industrial complex. Men could move with new freedom. By the time the first EVAS 2’s rolled in, jetpacking to work was commonplace to the average citizen. 

“Since the Wright Brothers took that fateful flight in Kitty Hawk, mankind has reigned over the skies… clumsily. Bring finesse back to flight. 
Zephyrtech Industries: the future of “Extra-Vehicular”.
-Actual internet advertisement for the first model of EVAS2.0, the Zephyrtech Industries Aeromancer One, the first self contained suit, with a vacuum sealed shell, pressurized compartment, collapsible wings, and a massive tri-bine™ system designed to spin the wind current projected through the jets, providing a more stable thrust. It was pricey, but only until the other EVAS2.0’s released. 
War, more than anything, changed. World War 3 was considered the first real conflict fought exclusively in orbit. The stratosphere was the playground of infantry. What were once considered combat recon had become the “Bravo-Alpha Mike-Foxtrots”, the “Guardian Angels”, and “The Birds of Prey”. They were named “Skywalkers” by their admirers, and “High-Altitude Combat Specialists” by their superiors. The “Air Force” was all too eager to become “United States Space Command”, and specialized in high-altitude, orbital, and interstellar defense, (and offense), constantly dueling and at odds with the Navy over whose jurisdiction was whose. The Navy, meanwhile, focused on their excellent, incredible, and uncompromising Space Marine Corps. They were gods among men, the five-man company racking up over two hundred confirmed kills in just one tour in orbit. They each earned Purple Hearts, two earned Silver Stars, one received a Congressional Medal of Honor, and another was given the British equivalent after singlehandedly defeating a German SAK Assault squad and rescuing not only the son of the Prime Minister, but also his entire platoon. Also present was the daughter of a certain Second Sky Lord Alloa, a prominent figure in the war at the time. Nuclear weapons were never even placed on the table. The risk was considered too great even when China had Germany in a chokehold, and Mexico penetrated the U.S. border. Once they controlled the sky over their enemy, they could drop troops into any soft target, easily shooting down or evading any anti-air efforts. Mexico took Texas, Nevada, and much of California.

“The EVAS 3 was actually a secret development. It was born out of a new breed of Patriotic American hackers, that had been specially designed to destroy enemy suit programming, and kill its enemy computers, stealing information as it went. This is where the first real artificial intelligences come in. The cool thing is, the guys in the suits, operating these complex weapons and modified armor, these, these, fucking wizards were just American nerds. Oh, yeah, did I mention we built it in Mexico-controlled Texas? Yeah. It was awesome.”
-Mitch Grandeau, A.K.A. “L33C4”, (“Leech”), infamous “Tech Rebel”, self proclaimed “Technomancer”.  
 E          e         
The EVAS3.0 was horrifying to witness throughout Texas. It could march through a concentration camp, and with a wave of its hand, deactivate the guards’ weapons. Another wave, and they couldn’t move. It could short enemy superconductors, drain power, (L33C4), or even turn some poor sap’s suit into a bomb. It looked like magic, it felt like The Force, and Mexico’s robotics engineers couldn’t stop it when it sabotaged their drones. In the end, the U.S. declared Texas won, while Mexico called it neutral territory. The U.S. Army recruited as many former Tech Rebels as they could, and after much debate, and some playful cyber-vandalism, officially named the department of hacker warriors the “Technomancer’s Guild”. Their emblem changed several times the first year, but finally settled on a line pyramid. Some say it’s a four-sided die, others that it represents the All-Seeing Eye on the dollar, some still that it dates back to Egyptian warrior wizards. The Technomancer’s Guild has declined to clarify.

Mankind’s reach stretched throughout the solar system, the furthest space station being Atë Station, and on the opposite end, Allegheri Station, specially shielded to protect it from the sun’s heat and radiation. We found new secrets. We uncovered new evidence that either we are not alone, or we are not the first intelligent life here. A strange configuration of glass and hematite that had strangely resonant quality was found imbedded deep in the ice of Europa. We played this “instrument”, producing a fluctuating subsonic to hypersonic hum that could be felt in the orbiting ship. Still, no one answered. The subterranean moon colony stretched wide enough to warrant political boundaries between lunar territories. Short hair was in, Mohawks, fauxhawks, and other similar hairstyles were big favorites for all genders. Social unrest on Earth was particularly due to a small number of people who denounced the use of powered armor, claiming it to be an affront to God. After several acts of “righteous terrorism” on Osiris Colony, martial law was placed, and a power hungry General became a power-hungry Warden. 

The EVAS4.0 was released not in a wave of corporations rushing to the same end, but in quiet personal research and development. Small independent EVAS firms popped up, Private Ventures, Lord Byron and Co., Durandal Arms and Armour, each bringing something new and different and amazing to the table. Private Ventures designed custom works of art that floated like butterflies and stung like bees, Lord Byron and Co. built a suit with such extraordinary cyber-warfare capabilities that it had to be sold illegally. Durandal Arms and Armour crafted an EVAS that could withstand antivehicle munitions and even meteorite impacts. 
Twas the golden age of the Augmentation Generation. 

The Augmentation Generation. What a name. What a title. We were the first generation to live, birth to death, encased in exoskeletons. We were the first to proclaim loudly and arrantly that the EVAS was the future of human evolution. How little did we know, how short was our sight, how conceited we were, to take evolution for granted.

Welcome to the new world.