Quick notes for those who might skim first to get an idea. [hider] -first, the background so far is purposely relatively vague, no specific names, organizations, or settings and the like. It's just a concept, and I wanted to put it out through the perspective of someone who didn't know every detail >w> -I plan to 'start' with a small group, to warm up, then maybe open for other players later. We are also very likely to start separate from eachother and work our way together, except perhaps in rare cases such as two players making characters that are extremely close, i.e. family, blood brothers, so on. [I'll do my damndest to keep it interesting ;3] -The extremely summed up theme is a cataclysmic event bringing about the appearance of various fantastical creatures, or causing the transformation, or mutation, 'into' such creatures, along with the advent of magic itself, in a recently ruined High-scifi world. -Humans still exist, they've just become the exception instead of the rule, so to speak. -My vision currently, for the early stage, is a small group seeking the standard things: safety, security, survival, interaction, and so on. How this comes about will be up to the group [though I do like the idea of building a self sufficient 'settlement' from scratch], and where the RP progresses beyond that will be worried about when we come to it, whether that entails trying to find out 'what happened', or simply eeking out survival slice of life style. -I treasure variety and imagination, though common sense limits inspired by past negative experiences can be expected, I encourage you to create what 'you' will truly enjoy RPing with in this RP. I also encourage you to really think about that concept, be certain of it!... though multiple characters and 'replacements' are allowed if someone dies. Somewhat Bigger note: I'll include a basic rules section, you know, obligatory courtesies, standards I'm forced to keep after past experiences, expectations of upholding the quality of the causal section this is posted in outside of periods where shorter faster posts just make sense... After many failures in the past cause by people who eek in a mary sue because I was too nice and gave them a chance, or dragged the RP down by contributing next to nothing because I was too much of a wuss to kick them out after the first few times they did practically nothing... I'm forced to look for a Co-gm with an imagination, interest in this setting, and willingness to crack down where I won't, and of course to continue it if something irl stops me from appearing regularly. [/hider] [hider=History] Progress was trucking right along... or, at least what had been defined as progress by those who held all the power. It was far from perfect, it was far from safe, and it's purpose was undeniably profit over people... But damn if it wasn't still a history of amazing achievements, even if it had devolved into a contest of who could be the better criminal businessman without getting caught. It started way back when endless dirty schemes led to the Corporations becoming too powerful to challenge, and claiming the world's governments for themselves... ohhh, pockets of resistance will always exist, there's simply too much 'world' for them to hope to control willingly, though this isn't exactly relevant. Under the monopolistic demand for 'the next profitable thing' and without government over-sight to regulate it's development technology boomed, both wondrous things that made life a little more amazing, and horrible mistakes, some of which we were lucky if the only result was a handful of dead people. Of course we never delved into the depths of Artificial intelligence, one of few things that strictly regulated... afterall, the Corps didn't want anything to have the possibility of challenging them, and even they heard all the horror stories. More importantly though, this period brought with it incredible advancements, sometimes horrible or oppressive, but truly incredible. I-phones became tablets, then merged into Hand-held PCs, then gained projection screens, then touch screen holograms, eventually becoming 'personal assistant projection suites' and the like, mere chips under the skin that would respond to mental impulse to project the screen and let people interact with them, though mental 'control' of these system was only possible with the simplest programs, other's still required physical contact with the hologram... though physical computers still had vastly superior processing power, and the 'best new thing' was always so expensive that either only the rich and elite had it, or those who stole the technology and supplied it to the 'criminal element' Medical science exploded, allowing life-spans to be extended, of course only in ways that required frequent payments to keep it working and clearly favored, again, the rich and elite, still, from new but familiar chemical and physical 'solutions' for all manner of illnesses, to clone farms pumping out organs by the truck-load, to regrowing/attaching lost limbs, and of course engineering 'superior limbs' to replace the originals... you know, mechanical augmentations ranging from simple replacements to full body modifications and even walking arsenals... well that got out of hand fast, but thems the breaks! Naturally, there's a full array of 'criminalistic counterparts' for every corporate owned business. ... you know what, this is taking too long, and i'm sure you get the idea. roads became massive spider-web networks of automated vehicles, cities became monoliths surrounded by seas of smaller buildings wrapped in countless roads, 'airborne' cities even became a thing! Borderline indefinite lifespans became 'possible', weaponry became more 'awesome' yet always designed with limits in mind that kept them at a level where it would be insufficient to over-come the corporate overlords, unintelligent robots became common... There was always something new being advanced, some new 'upgrade' that was needed, some new report about criminals somehow getting their hands on the newest thing without corporate will... Oh hey, speaking of that- [/hider] [hider=Catastrophe unleashed] As is typical with those who have too much power and an endless lust for more, the corporate leaders always tried to drag themselves one step higher, one step closer to so called god-hood, and one step deeper into control of those beneath them... Enter the Solaris project. Nobody has any clue what was actually done to make it possible, much like many of the brand newest things the Corporations threw trillions of dollars at to bring into existence, at least until some criminals dig up the truth about it. They did know that one day it was announced that the United Corporate Empire [UCE] had taken successfully devised a method to control the 'sun'!... and they would all now have to pay for solar hours... Naturally, there was an up-roar about once again going much much too far beyond the scope of reasonable advancement or power, and once again there was an explosion of 'arrests based on suspicions of terrorism', followed by countless being released back to the public but much 'quieter'. It wasn't even known if it was true, and legions of conspiracy theories arose about it ranging from a reverse dyson sphere being constructed to imitate the sun, to a false sun and sky being projected into the atmosphere, to even creating their own miniature sun. The only real 'certainty' was that whatever they were doing was causing a great golden beam of light aimed up into the sky, so who knew!... Until short-lived legend of the 'Sunjacker' heist. They hadn't been claiming control for even a whole month before the supposed facility storing the Solaris Project was raided... No, not by an army of angry civilians armed to the teeth, but just a little crew of apparently very amazing thieves who'd pre-emptively boasting 'stealing the sun', and somehow pulled off the grandest heist against the greatest security measures that could be mustered, without so much as a nick... Once more, nobody knows 'how', but it was followed by a message broadcast across the world-net 'We control the sun now.' They didn't actually do anything with it though, and seemingly dropped off the radar as if they'd never existed... oddly though, the Solaris facility's beam of light turned blue, and still glows to this day. Barely a week later the corporations announced that they had simply made another way to control the sun... And that's when the world exploded! Well... not literally, since we're still here, but something happened. maybe something went wrong with their next attempt, or someone decided they'd had enough and unleashed some kind of catastrophe, or perhaps it was just a natural disaster of tremendous proportions caused by all the tampering that leveled... well, everything. Whatever was the source, something swept across the surface of the planet unleashing destruction and chaos with unerring completeness. Great beams of light and explosions in one city, Ribbons of color cleaving the cloud-splitters from their foundations, a grand old eruption in another... It seemed less a singular catastrophe and more a string of hundreds of different ones, either from something unrestrained or perhaps simply a chain reaction of one over-bearing system after another going critical. What followed though is the 'most' important detail for us, because it's what we face as the survivors. [/hider] [hider=Our Present] The great cities of the world lay in ruin... relatively speaking... It seemed as though the destruction depending on the size of something, the towering cloud-splitters were scattered in pieces over the cities around them, or the aerial cities crashed down, yet aside from the monstrous tonnage crashing down on them and whatever side-effects followed, most smaller structures stayed intact. Large under-ground structures were not spared either, caved in or erupted into... Nor was the absolutely titanic world-net, though none know if the central facility is intact or not, it stopped functioning either way. Flying things crashed, the aerial cities plummeted, and even the satellites in orbit came crashing down... though no-one knows what happened to the stations up there. Perhaps biggest of all, the corporations have stopped broad-casting, silence reigns as if they've simply ceased to exist... though that is of course another mystery. While the 'massive' systems of the world were crushed in some manner or another, the smaller one's remained intact. Many vehicles were still perfectly intact, even flying ones, though those in the air during the event invariably crashed. Even smaller factory's tended to remain intact!... provided something didn't fall on it or happen to blow up nearby. While not able to reach too far, communication remained possible through the various smaller devices that got by intact... and these told a greater story between the people able to communicate with eachother. In the wake of the destruction came change... broad, wild, and chaotic in nature, there seemed to be no defined system guiding it, as if something had been unleashed and just left to do whatever came naturally. Whatever this event had been 'changed' people as it came to a close. Countless humans became... some other creature, sometimes some form of fantastical beast from legend, other times a seamless synthetic life-form. Some may become griffons, or simply a humanoid with great magical intensity. Some might become strange little magical equines where other's could have been turned into a great and terrible dragon. Some even became things that history had no words for... Unfortunately, there were a great deal of failures that accompanied these changes. Great swaths of people for some unknown reason simply keeled over and 'rose again' as mindless husks wandering the world and following hungry instincts. Other's had mutated in some horrific manner that either broke them and drove them to madness, or directly ruined their brain and left only some twisted monster in it's wake... Other unfortunate 'could have been' successes had risky implants that were incompatible with their new body... afterall, a cybernetic brain case doesn't meld so well to the wrong kind of head. Most of those at least died quickly, while other's lucked out with their incompatible parts simply being inconvenient rather than fatal. There was however a smattering of communication from people who'd been over-looked, who were still 'normal' humans... not precisely 'rare' per se, but now no longer the majority 'top predator' as the species had once been. The Reign of Mankind seemed to be at it's end, and in it's place was a whole new world waiting to be tamed. [/hider]