The Collapse
The Collapse was marked by societal breakdown, where once-proud cities and powerful technocratic states fractured into disconnected factions. Many of the Vaults that had once been pillars of the Bygone regime became targets, the technology and resources they had locked away itself becoming justification for aggression.
The governments of the world lost hold. Corporations stepped in to assert control, assuring efficient distribution of food, power, and other solutions that the governments had failed to provide. But these saviors were teh same forces that had caused the collapse. Some of them run by the very same people, now living extended lives.
Humanity fractured, retreating into smaller, more isolated groups, all while trying to survive in the wreckage of what had once been a thriving global society.
Was there a singular event that caused the collapse? No. This was widespread systemic failure, created through arrogance and hubris. Humanity had become to believe itself capable of anything, and corporations had become obsessed with profit above all else.
Automata, once thought to benefit humanity through relieving people of menial tasks, replaced workers at all levels. Experts at process, they assured continuation of systems, but they did not respond to change. They enforced protocol. The wealthy benefitted while the workforce was replaced.
Then there was climate change. We thought ourselves capable of reversing it, but without the curiosity of well educated workers, corporations placed protocol and process over new solutions. As the seas rose, walls were built. As the crops died, rationing was implemented. As the heat rose, efficient air filtration and cooling systems were distributed.
At first it was charity. But charity over time is inefficient. As technocrats with powerful control over surviving infrastructure began to assert more control as self-proclaimed ruler/CEO’s, inefficiencies were cut. There were no effective governments to stop them.
Eventually, talents like ESP, kinetic manipulation, and the manipulation of perceptions of others began to manifest in the general population, a byproduct of the wealthy having illicit relationships with those outside the social circles of the elite. Genes they had manipulated for themselves were now being passed on, uncontrolled, into a populace unaware of their existence, or how to manage their effects. This added a new element of instability to an already fractured world.
There was sanctuary from this, though. Outside the cities other ways of life existed. Ways of life not governed by avarice. The split that was once difficult for some to notice became clarified. For some this was reason to distrust. For others it became reason to learn.
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