[CENTER][IMG]http://art-on.ru/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Manyuhin-08.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Vladimir Manyuhin's post-apocalyptic rendering of the Lincoln Memorial.[/I][/CENTER]

[B]TL;DR Summary:[/b]
[indent] - Earth has undergone an apocalyptic event following a great chaos in the 21st and 22nd centuries that depopulated much of the planet and set it back to a new dark age
 - Hundreds of years later, civilization exists, but as isolated communities focused on subsistence, and some kingdoms of cobbled-together tech attempting for trade.
 - It's a world lit only by fire - In all, the tech level is pre-industrial -- while useful technological knowledge for survival survives in some aspect, the means of manufacturing has devolved. Also, resource depletion makes redevelopment of technology much, much harder.
 - That means electronics and things that are generally made with advanced industry do not exist. Blacksmithing, for example, has made a comeback.
 - Humanity continues, though at a greatly reduced population level with a much reduced life expectancy due to a lack of modern medicine.
 - And then the aliens invade, with advanced weaponry and tech, intent on goals they have not explained, using robotic foot soldiers to do their bidding.
 - The characters are part of the same community -- it could be a democratic city-state or a kingdom or something of that nature.
 - Advanced Standards
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[B]In Character Info:[/b]
[indent][I]In the 21st and 22nd centuries, Humanity shot its wad; they reached their pinnacle of technological development and were in the process of a new frontier in space when disaster struck -- the details are hazy to those left behind, but historians argue about the causes. Some blame religion, some blame a lack of morality, some blame the enchantment with consumer goods and an obsession with a luxury lifestyle. Some play out the old exploiters and exploited model or argue makers and takers. Others invoked Malthus -- population vs. resources. Others pin the blame on the greed of individuals. Whatever the case, that civilization collapsed, and with it the hopes and dreams of humanity with it. What followed was a brutal dark age of depravity and fighting as humans went to war with what weapons they had and managed to exacerbate the problems humanity faced to the point where civilization itself was destroyed as the cycle of wars made people even more desperate to do whatever they had to in order to gain a short term respite from these problems.

In the end, nothing stopped the decline of humanity, the series of increasingly brutish events that brought low all of civilization and left nothing but rust and ashes. What emerged, like in the Fall of Rome, was a new and different human civilization that was shaped by the necessities of survival, with little thought to the things that elevated the society that preceded it -- technology was a dream dimly remembered as people once again toiled and lived and died in nasty, short, brutish lives. The flame of humanity had guttered out, and Earth was finished. Never again could humanity develop the same paths that it did the first time, where it used basic technology to extract certain resources, because those resources were used up and then squandered -- the very things needed to recreate high technology were only accessible with that technology, which became the irony of the age.

Some claim that Humanity is better than it was, even in this technologically devolved state, though most like the idea of returning to a state of great leisure, of short work hours and long lives. Most can't imagine a world like the one that existed before, of the technology of magic.

But when invaders attacked from outer space, they didn't need to imagine this magic. It was being used to subjugate them.[/I][/indent]

[B]Out of Character Info:[/b]
[indent]There's a twist to this RP of course, but I won't ruin it. Instead, I want people to focus on their characters, and imagine what sort of survivor society might manage to claw its way out. I want to pick a location to set this in and craft the place a bit to fit the characters. I imagine a world of barbarism with pockets of civilization, where everyone has reverted to much simpler technology due to resource restrictions and technological limitations. After hundreds and hundreds of years of the fall of a civilization more advanced than our own, the reality is that such technology no longer functions -- places like New York city are concrete overgrown with grass and rust flakes where skyscrapers once stood. The plastic might still be around though (huehuehue) as a grim reminder that petroleum isn't as easy to get to as it once was the first time that humanity developed technology.

All this and then an alien invasion that is going to be fought by these barbarians.[/indent]