SETTING PRIMER
Start here! Your character knows
about the following events:
Thanks to the invention of hardlight and cold fusion, technologies which were only theoretical until then became financially viable, such as climate engineering, space elevators, personal rapid transit or artificial general intelligence. Humanity experiences almost 50 years of post-scarcity.
Out of nowhere, a solar flare of unprecedented magnitude hit Earth. It was so powerful that it triggered the planet's magnetic poles to start flipping. Since then, Earth has suffered the following effects:
Because of the Flare, society was torn apart. Long range communications became nearly impossible, so the governments all around the world couldn't coordinate an appropriate response to the crisis. The supply chains broke down, so city-dwellers starved and quickly grew desperate. Parents sold their children for a loaf of moldy bread. Others resorted to violence to increase their chance of surviving just one more day. Un-controlled forest fires covered the skies in ash for years. Acid rains killed most crops.
Civilization is reduced to thousands of small groups of just a few dozen survivors, barely aware of anything happening beyond the walls of their camps.
It has been 20 years since the Flare. The world is still dangerous, but things have settled down and it is time to think about what to rebuild. Earth has become a blank slate, and your actions are going to determine what goes on it.
Phytozoids are a genetically-engineered life-form, an animal capable of absorbing sunlight like a plant. They were originally created to terraform Mars. After the Flare, they broke containment and started colonizing Earth instead. Their eggs, recognizable because they grow roots, can be found almost anywhere. Some survivors use them as mounts or cattle.
Winston Bexley became the world's first quintillionaire by using cold fusion to power super-computers and creating artificial general intelligence. After the Flare, BexTec security robots still protect almost every government & corporate building. Some are still following orders given to them 20 years ago. Others have become independent...
Nexus was the beating heart of the holo-age: they manufactured prisms, miniature cold fusion reactors, harvested deuterium fuel from the sea, and supplied energy to an entire generation. After the Flare, most of their products have stopped working. Survivors fight over the few pieces of Nexus tech that still works.
Founded by a scientist who spent their life warning about the dangers of a superflare, A.E.G.I.S. has one goal: to reboot the Earth's magnetosphere. To do this, they need an incredible quantity of metal. Their soldiers, wearing armors made of ceramic and plastic, scour the wasteland to strip it bare of any resource they could use for "the project".
A community of teachers and storytellers, whose purpose is to ensure humanity, and its knowledge, survives until the Earth returns to normal... in a couple thousand years. They weave tales and create legends, to help future generations adapt to this new hostile environment, even when the resources of the old world have run out.
A syndicate of former railworkers, whose bosses have died in the Flare, and whose skills quickly became the life-line of the wasteland. Where most found hardship in the Long Winter, the Union found opportunity. In just a couple years, they became incredibly wealthy, and powerful. But nouveau-riches are often flawed leaders - ineptitude, corruption, and internal strife are rampant. Those working for the Union, or depending on it, are often left to pay the price.