[center][b][i]|HISTORY|[/i][/b][/center]

[hider=Ends and Beginnings]It is the year 2677, half a millennium after a nuclear war ended the Modern Age and its dreams of a rational and humane future bound by mutual respect and cooperation, at least for a while.

There were two groups of Survivors: First was the Independents, a motley band of unimportant cities, rural towns, and even entire countries that were too unimportant or neutral to be directly targeted by nuclear weapons during the war. The people who lived in them lived a hardscrabble life, filled with hardship and loss but also true freedom and the potential to rebuild what had been lost.

Second were the Burrows, large underground cities filled with advanced technology, where the old elite of the world had retreated, ready to take back the surface once the radiation had died down. Controlled first by the remnants of the Great Powers of the pre-war era, then by the ‘Nuclear Security Firms’ that had built and operated the bunkers, the Burrows became company towns in all but name. This was made worse by the fact that the CEOs of the Nuclear Security Firms were losing the belief that a happy and content populace were more productive or even a worthy objective to attain.

The War was taken as proof that the only values which matter mattered were strength, talent, and power, and that ‘Protecting the Weak’ was a luxury at best, an obstacle to true virtue at most. That the future belonged in the hands of an elite that was [i]automatically[/i] better than the common masses of Humanity and that said elite should not be questioned or opposed for any reason. The plutocracy was rich because they were better - If the poor wanted a voice, they should stop being poor.

And so when the Burrows opened to allow the newly-minted Ruling Corporations through, their meeting with the Independents inevitably led to conflict...[/hider]

[hider=The Reemergence, The First NC War, and The Shattering]During the months of conflict proceeding the launch of nuclear weapons, a new technology, the ‘Neural Net’, had made war machines based on the human form somehow practical, as this mysterious innovation allowed the pilots of said humanoid mechs to call forth feats of impossible prowess, a prowess that cannot just be attributed to perfect communication between man and machine. The name of this type of weapon, the first Mecha, was the Neural Combatant, or NC, and it soon became a name to be feared.

While it was true that even the Burrows and Ruling Corporations cannot duplicate the technology of the NCs’ cores, they can, however, make better bodies for said cores, meaning that whenever the Corps' acquired a stash of them, they can outpower any jury-rigged Mech used by an Independent. But to acquire Cores or stashes of Cores, the Corporations had to play nice at first, offering security, medicine, and a better life before revealing their true face. And so many Independents willingly, but foolishly, bent the knee to the Ruling Corporations. 

But a few, such as Fortress Switzerland and the Underground State of Israel, who had Burrow-like redoubts and the facilities to upgrade their own NCs’ bodies, resisted. These were joined by the Independent Alliance of California, the Guangzhou Clique, and the New Japanese Republic, as well as New Nigeria and the Second Ethiopian Empire, which had enough resources to take the fight back to the Corporations. And so the First NC War started. 

Said war lasted for twenty years, but in the end, the Ruling Corporations cemented their domination of most of the World, with Fortress Switzerland and the Underground State of Israel forced into hiding while the larger Independents were disarmed and dismantled - Those among their people who were willing to collaborate and accept the new order were given privileges and allowed to join the Corporate Elite, while those who refused were punished with the most abject forms of slavery.

In time, however, attitudes slightly softened as the Corporate Elite realized that they cannot rebuild the world with broken tools. Because of this, there was some genuine interest in improving lives and working conditions, but only to make sure that the Elite had capable servants to help them with their grand project of 'progress and development'. But underneath this veneer of conciliation and concessions was the old corruption and brutality, only better-hidden.

Then one day, one Corporation decided to go still further, and actually [i]Invest[/i] in the Human Race...[/hider]

[hider=Rebirth of Sanity]It all started with Katlego Kgosi, the CEO of Tshwane Mining Inc in South Africa. The first one to return his headquarters to the Earth's surface, Katlego saw the broken and shattered landscape around him, a broken and shattered landscape that he wanted to restore to its pristine state for reasons which started out selfish. These efforts to restore the past led him to come into direct contact with the lower masses he had taken for granted back in the Burrows, and it led him to realize once more that his workers were other Humans, possessed of their hopes and dreams.

And he began to think... Were not healthy and happy workers an end in and of themselves? Did they only have to improve lives when there was a direct increase in productivity as a result? Katlego wrestled with these moral questions for a while and decided to do something heretical for a CEO - Follow his heart. And so the philosophy of 'Human Investment' was born, in which Humanity and its happiness were seen as the main objective, and money spent improving the lives of other people was an investment towards its fulfillment.

And so Humanity found respite in the first Ruling Corporation to recover its sanity...[/hider]

[hider=Hope Returns]Before The War, the UN Commission for Refugees built its own ‘true’ Burrow in Australia, as an experiment in resettling the increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers across the globe. This Burrow, [b][i]Haven[/i][/b], was originally meant to be a glorified ‘detention camp’, where the undesired people of the globe were to be kept out of sight and out of mind as they worked for the ‘True Citizens’ above-ground.

But Australia was struck by Nuclear Missiles, and Haven was spared that fate. Even then, things weren’t easy: Resources were short, ethnic tensions were high, and the UN Commission for Refugees’ leadership was more corrupt than ever. For a brief moment, it looked like everything would fall apart. 

Then, a miracle happened; the discovery of a large stash of NC Cores, and three NC bodies, by three idealistic teenagers. These three took on the names of Afrin, Kobane, and Qamishlo; the three Democratic Confederalist cities that had brought light to North Syria, and fought the corrupt UN Commission of Refugees to institute a new and fairer system that diminished suffering.

Haven would reemerge later into the world, and find out that while it had enough NC Cores and NCs to keep itself independent from the Ruling Corps, it did not have enough to attack [i]in turn[/i] and spread its philosophy to the surface. So after much debate and deliberation, it offered a deal to the Corporations - They would contribute mercenaries to their wars in exchange for the freedom of Australia and New Zealand. Of course, there was a bias towards Corporations that embraced 'Human Investment' as a philosophy, but that was easily negotiable.

Now, the world shifts - Will this shift lead to greater despair, or to hope?[/hider]