| 2010-2015: Global war breaks out. Smaller nations are quickly consumed by the larger ones. The remaining "super nations" are locked in an arms race. Advanced robotics lead to great leaps in cyber technology. |
| 2015-2020: War continues. As national resources begin to run low alliances are dispensed with as each country tries to seize control of each others commodities. The first viable laser weapons are developed. |
| 2020-2025:War extends into outer space, during the fighting all satellites are disabled or destroyed rendering worldwide communications impossible. The D.E.A.D. chip is developed and implemented by the North American Alliance, one thousand subjects are implanted with the cybernetic package. |
| 2025-2030:Western Europe unifies with Switzerland. Both countries resources depleted, they step out of the war and isolate themselves from all contact with the outside world. Rumors go around that they are developing secret experiments. Five man D-units are filtered throughout the world carrying the most lethal and high tech personal weapons ever devised. |
| 2030-2035: The world economy collapsesand the twenty-year war slowly grinds to a halt as all nations resources deplete. Unable to support or protect their citizens most unions dissolve into warring feudal factions. With no one left to control them the DEAD men turn on each other killing all who get in their way. |
| 2035-2037: The first city-state is founded on the Island of Manhattan, funded by a reclusive billionaire named Alex Umbrea it becomes the model for hundreds of others hastily erected in the next three years. Mr. Umbrea reestablishes communications between city-states, allowing intra-net, phone and radio broadcasts. The Helix Code is completed for the Umbrea Corporation; seemingly insane the unknown programmer simply vanishes. |
| 2037-2040: The Umbrea Corporation now has control of all city-states. Mr. Umbrea implements the Helix program; it does what it was intended to do and gives Mr. Umbrea unlimited control over intra-web and thus unlimited control over all aspects of public life. However, a program woven into the program activates, and a second strand of code is unraveled into the intra-web. The second strand of code, by unknown means, is introduced into the genetic code of some unborn children. There it strengthens and alters part of the fetal DNA. |
| 2040-2057: A lone nameless figure wanders through the wastelands passing through outposts and shantytowns. She even passes unseen through the hospitals of the city-states, she is the first Cyber Mystic and her goal is to recruit and train others. She bids her disciples to wait and stand ready to train "Those who are yet to come". |
| 2057-2061: The first generation of Code Slingers are retrieved by the mystics and taught how to control and utilize their unique genetic heritage. After a year and a day of training, this group of eighteen year olds scatter to begin the age of wandering. Colorado city-state destroyed by a force of mystics and Code Slingers led by a religious figure called Helix. |
| 2061-2080: Mr. Umbrea creates an organization to hunt down these Code Slingers and Cyber Mystics. Mystics who are caught are tortured for information and then killed. Code Slingers are captured and used as eldritch batteries to power the city-states mystical shields and alarms. |
| 2081-The Now: The former United States is a vast wasteland dotted by enormous City-States named after the state it was once a part of, or the largest city that used to be near it. Those who are not allowed in them due to illness, madness, or undesirable genetic traits, or those who fled the crushing, overbearing paranoia of a dictatorship governed by marshal law have carved out an existence within the wastelands. Creating settlements, outposts, way stations, or trading posts ranging in size from a single building to large sprawling boomtowns. The structures themselves are created from the odds and ends scavenged from the ruins of the old society.
Few roads still exist between city-states, those that do are either maintained by the city-states for their use or are in great disrepair. The only aircraft that exist are the sole property of the city-states. Electric railways are wide spread and are the safest method of travel and shipping between the city-states. The city-states have a mail system but each letter and package is examined by the Umbrea Corporation. Wasteland settlements make do with those brave enough to face the dangers of the waste to carry letters from one town to another. |
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