THE TIMELINE
(starting when events differed from real life)
(with particular focus on North America)
2000-2100: The Epoch of Curiosity The 21st-22nd century was a time of massive scientific and social advancement for earth. During this era world peace was established and maintained, and for once humanity breathed a sigh of relief. Through the formation of a global spanning organization of scientists that held no allegiance to any government or ruling body, dubbed UNISCI, came the introduction of Plasmoid energy. Generators the size of cars could power entire hundred floor buildings, utilizing the everlasting power of miniature Plasma Constructs within, fragile though they were. Plasmoid technology also ended human reliance on fossil fuels, and the environment flourished. Through the endless potential of plasma energy, humanity invented and discovered like never before.
2101-2243: The Age of Degradation At the dawn of the 22nd century, things were beginning to take a noticeable turn for the worse. Without problems of war and energy, nations and societies began to turn inwards, cannibalizing themselves over issues and politics. Revolts and protests were sparked en masse over those issues that did continue to persevere such as starvation and disease. Scientific and global advancement gradually stalled to a halt as the world was once again wracked with strife and unrest, as humanity for one reason or another decided to rip apart the future they had built for themselves and start anew.
Corporations and capitalism at large benefited from this destabilization, and picked up right where the former governments had been shattered. People flooded from rural communities and suburbs to billion strong Mega-Cities, towering thousand floor apartments and other buildings the sum of which could cover entire US states, such as Florida 2 and New New York City. National governments eventually faded into obscurity, with what nations remained in this period coming to be represented by their largest corporations interests, such as Obsidian Conglomerate Holdings for the United States, Kanjo-Tech for China, and Better N’ Best Superstores for Eastern Europe. While the relations between these companies were at first pleasant, they eventually soured over competing businesses, market shares, and the ever more lucrative Plasmoid Technology.
2244: The End of the World November 12th, 2244, every citizen on earth received an alert on their cellular devices, televisions, and radios;
“ATTENTION EARTH. THIS IS UNISCI. WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING. YOUR CORPORATIONS HAVE BETRAYED YOU. THE WORLD WILL END IN 7 DAYS. PROCEED UNDERGROUND. UNISCI WILL KEEP YOU SAFE.”
UNISCI, the global organization of scientists and founders of Plasmoid Technology, had taken a backseat to the goings on of the past century, but had not remained idle. Seeing the inevitability of nuclear war as the corporations greedily bought up nuclear arms stock, they invested their vast wealth into massive humanitarian shelters beneath the earth, allowing for stable, if incredibly cramped living for approximately a quarter of the earth's population, around 5 billion at the time.
While the corporations all claimed slander and vehemently denied the accusations of UNISCI, they quietly continued to ready themselves for devastating war, each seeking to wipe out the other and finally “win” capitalism, controlling 100% of the market share and owning the earth, in the truest sense.
With the forewarning provided by UNISCI, there was enough time to pack the shelters full of people, although it did not come easily. Rioting and fighting consumed the exteriors of some shelters with people desperately trying to squeeze in, while others simply didn’t believe the warnings and chose to wait it out, putting faith in their corporate jobs or believing that surely, no one would end the world over money. What remained of the old governments provided a few antiquated shelters and bunkers for officials and citizenry, but as was the case for the past century, their efforts were too little, too late.
November 19th, 2244, at 6:15pm CST, the world ended. The quarter of earth that had disappeared waited with baited breath underground, hoping against hope that the warnings had been wrong, but they were dreadfully correct. With the flash of millions of red buttons being pushed simultaneously, the mega corporations decided that the world would end. Nuclear strikes hit every conceivable city center, plasma generator, military base, antiquated government center, and populated area imaginable. With blinding flashes, capitalism and humanity were wiped from existence above the crust.
2245-2344: Humanity Underground Far below the earth, humanity waited for their home to heal from the nuclear fallout. Information from the surface was limited to the scans and research of UNISCI, in their own specialized bunkers separated from the masses that they protected. Trusting in the scientists reports that the surface was uninhabitable due to radiation, the citizens of earth settled into peaceful, but menial routine as they waited.
For the next hundred years the human species existed near exclusively in these nation sized shelters, dedicated to maintenance, food production, and water treatment. While there was fun to be had, it was a characteristically grim time for the planet, as the citizens of the bunkers worked in the half light of humanity's former glory. Surprisingly, there was negligible amounts of unrest, as the cruelest and most ambitious of society had stayed on the surface to fight in the corporate wars, and those intelligent enough to bide their time had no power structures to abuse. A few shelters were lost to unrest and power failure, but overwhelmingly humanity bided their time.
The Lost Generations of the century that followed, as they would come to be known, worked diligent lives in ensuring the future of their species.
2345: Emergence On November 20th, 2345, exactly a century and a day since the world had ended, UNISCI announced that the planet was ready to be retaken. Global fallout had dropped to insignificant levels except for the most concentrated places, and things were as safe as they could get, unless humanity wanted to wait for another thousand years.
Emerging into the weak daylight of a ruined world, it’s hard to imagine what the first alive humans in a century to step onto the surface must have felt. For some, it was surely fear. They emerged into a wasteland of epic proportions, rural communities and suburbs bombed out, or otherwise torn apart by fires and seeming unrest. The megacities fared even worse than their rural counterparts, obliterated by nuclear bombs such that even entering the outskirts of these state-spanning cities would require the usage of a hazmat suit. There were no support structures to assist them upon leaving the shelter, no one to welcome them back to their home, no one to teach them how to reclaim their birthright. Some retreated back into the bunkers, and became the Deniers, ever more mysterious groups that made their home in the vast complexes of the now powerless and lightless shelters, seeing only doom and repeated mistakes in the above ground.
Some people were opportunistic. This new world held no armies or corporations, only endless potential to create and enforce their will on others. Without the dominating purview of the previous megacorporations, some distant relatives of previous government officials, opportunistic individuals or otherwise began refounding nations, rallying wayward, confused souls out of their shelters and promising order, and stability. First of these “New Govs” was USCOM, founded by the remnants of the former United States Government that had secreted themselves away to private bunkers and waited out the end of their corporate oppressors. USCOM was founded on the newly revitalized spirit of patriotism, and stoked that ideal by once again recreating the “American Dream,” citizenship and freedom in new, better mega cities! While tens of millions of Refugees flocked to the banner of USCOM, they slowly realized that they had a huge problem in terms of constructing their new utopias…
Some people were greedy, and violent. They saw only power to be gained from the confusion of reemergence, and seized it with both hands. While USCOM was quick to shut down any newly founded corporations with global aspirations, wary of their power from the previous age, some sneakily argued that capitalism should always exist in a sense, after all, the wealth had to come from somewhere didn't it? Newly created, government backed corporations gradually came about, powerful and ambitious, but checked by the vigilant governments who allowed them to exist under their purview. The Forrest Conglomerate, Innovative Solutions Incorporated, and Blackhawk Capital were just a few of these new corporations that prospered under the burgeoning USCOM empire. Those that flocked to become employees and workers for these new businesses came to be known as Drones.
Finally, most that exited from the bunkers were cautious, and desperate. As power structures once again rose up around humanity, many fled to begin rural communities based around subsistence and communal farming, but these small communities could only eke out a miserable existence for their few members, and had no extra crops or supplies for further refugees. USCOM, already struggling to provide for the millions of refugees streaming to their few places of power, had no place yet for the hundreds of millions more. Starving, with no money or jobs, camps of millions on the outskirts of mega cities existed in a twilight existence, where fear and hunger ruled supreme, and the strongest took what they wanted. Although they didn't know it yet, these people would come to be known as Rippers.
2346-2386: Present Day Starving and fighting over scraps, most of humanity faced a bleak future. The New Govs had no more space in their powerful, but small empires, and the corporations cared little for any outside of their purview. Job queues stretched miles long even within the new cities, and there was no place for the refugees settled on the outskirts of the old, bombed out megacities. But where all others saw only death and misery, Blackhawk Capital saw opportunity.
USCOM was struggling to provide for its newly minted citizens. While their promises of new, better megacities sparked hope with the people, as the first decade dragged on, the only things being made were scraped together buildings and tent cities. In the previous corporate era, while ignoring fossil fuels like oil and coal, they had nearly exhausted the earth's other natural resources like iron and copper. For other materials, such as Mag-Steel, a synthesized metal that allowed for vastly more amounts of pressure to be placed upon it than ordinary building materials, the process and facilities for refining it had been entirely lost in the intervening years. Without materials, humanity would be stuck in the dark ages, surviving off of the scraps of their ancestors and never developing more than slums.
Blackhawk Capital was one of the smallest USCOM sponsored corporations of the modern day, simply responsible for overseeing economic trends and banking for the new country, but with little spare cash available, their services struggled. The founder of the company, William Grant, knew that a change was needed in order to provide the economic fluidity that his company could thrive off of. Where others traveled into long since defunct mines, hoping to scrape what little minerals were left to turn a profit, William instead turned his eyes to the ruined mega cities of old, where innumerable quantities of precious metals and technology still lay buried under rubble, irradiated and desiccated over a century, but with foundational matter intact.
The people of the refugee camps were shocked when Drones and USCOM officials began to show up at the outskirts of the mega-cities, speaking in hushed tones, sending out crude scans, with greed in their eyes. When the refugees spoke to them about the mutants, pale skinned freakish mutations of former humans and animals, they merely chuckled and mentioned something about it being an “occupational hazard.” Soon, supplies and infrastructure were being hurriedly set up by USCOM and the corporations, as the opportunities within the blasted ruins became readily apparent.
Refugee Camps no more, Ripper Camps sprang up across the continent in the span of a single year, and the rusted gears of the economy began to turn once more. Millions of people desperate for work and opportunity would set up camp outside of these vast megacities, bartering the last of their money and food for 3rd and 4th hand hazmat suits, rusty equipment, and crumpled paperwork validating their Ripper Crew for the lottery. While some of the earliest and most veteran crews were able to purchase permanent slots from USCOM, most people were forced to show up at the crack of dawn every day at the gates into the city, where an USCOM official would have the lotto numbers for the day, (officially) random numbers each designated to a different crew, that when chosen would allow them access to the mega city for salvaging and scavenging from 5am to 7pm, a 14 hour day of work. Rippers were not paid hourly, but instead were paid off of how much they could bring back to the smelters, from the most common sheets of corrugated iron, to the most valuable pieces of Plasma Generators.
A new culture and society rose up around this new form of work, where the desperate would flock to earn what little they could. Criminal empires rose where the corporations and government did not, charging exorbitant rent and selling chemical manufacturer runoff as high priced drugs, becoming Syndicates. Especially lucky or skilled individuals could purchase multiple permanent slots from USCOM outright, becoming Underbosses that sold work to the highest bidder and created their own little kingdoms off the backbreaking work of their lessers. Predators would wait near exits, preying on returning crews and creating an air of tension and fear that made Ripper Crews paranoid even after stepping through the gates.
Despite all of the hardships and greedy individuals looking to abuse this new flow of commerce, the Ripper Industry has exponentially grown in the intervening decades. USCOM is now slowly beginning to raise its new megacities into the sky, jealously guarding their new wealth and citizenship behind expensive fees and harsh taxes. Corporations have once again grown fat with their partnerships, jamming their greedy fingers into every slice of the Rippers that they can get into. And way down the pole, back into the slums and the tents of the workers themselves, as they line up to hope against hope that they get to risk their lives for a paycheck, the rallying cry is heard throughout the day;
“Someone has to rebuild the world. Why not you?”