The way the world can change in a century is astounding, no? The 20th century saw the rise and fall of empires, of ideologies and cultures in the course of a few generations. The permanence of the world lived in hasn’t been granted for centuries now, for it is the year 2325, and the world we live in is vastly different from what people lived in at the turn of the millennium. To understand how the world has changed, you must know the history of the old order. In the early 21st century, there were only probes on other worlds than earth, with manned missions to other planets not occurring until 2030. However, with the advancement of industrial technologies came the cheaper price at which rockets, and later spacecraft, could be manufacturing. However, the biggest revolution in the 21st century had to be in the biotech industries, for life itself begun to become programmable. Habitation technologies improved dramatically as tailor made food products to live off world made permanent research centers on other worlds attainable. The build up of solar infrastructure, thanks to technologies invented in the 21st century revolutionized where humans could habitat. Even worlds as hostile to humans as Venus would have ways to be built up as areas for civilian access. The colonies themselves weren’t initially intended to have humans calling them home, more places to gain access to solar resources, space tourism and research. Yet, as more people worked off world the colonies grew as children from those at the colonies for long periods of times stuck to the world instead of returning to earth. Earth itself was increasingly connected, with the blooming of multiple countries on the planet causing the increased needs for ever greater energy, especially as automation of numerous industries led to mass unemployment to the point where the majority of people by the 22nd century spent their time free from hard labor. However, the sustainability of such high standard of living for the 8.3 billion people living on earth came with a cost, as the amount of water in the world that was drinkable struggled to keep up with the amount of vertical farms needed to sustain the global market. Much the world at the time was not free, however, for there was a global aristocracy that went unchallenged by most of the world thanks to not only the bread and circus, but also due to their high positions that came as a result of being the controllers of the robots that maintained much of the world’s infrastructure, assisted by the fact automated militaries made them near-impossible for civilians to topple. The economic apparatus that made the world function for over a century would be completely compromised in 2082, not from without, but from within. A massive plague broke out from the failure of antibiotics or nanotechnology to handle what was created in a lab, the free trade much the world had at the time causing tons of people to die in just a day after contracting the disease. The plague lasted for a decade, and is there were attempts to reform the system, but these attempts to alter the very economic fabric of the world led to serious ideological divisions in the global aristocracy that also clashed with the newly forming super-states whom developed from supranationalist ideals. The clash would cause the global system to collapse to the point where trade connections were limited at best despite having underground networks around the globe to transport resources. The physical meeting of other people being highly restricted and often requiring multiple tests to even step out of a superstate. This affected the off-world colonies the most, as while isolated to a high degree before the plagues, after the plagues people off world were banned from returning to earth. The people on the colonies would still get supply shipments in return for infrastructural support, however the colonies became progressively more self-sustaining due to having less support from earth than in the past. For the old order, made of super-states would become increasingly more authoritarian as terrorism increased dramatically for a decade, of which in of itself caused even more terrorism to spring about with virtual worlds being compromised on a regular basis. However dissent was minimal on the whole due to the bread and circus, as well as the state apparatus being hard to break in the most developed of countries. There was a confederate world order that did exist at this time, but it wasn’t unified with super states maintaining their own government and military alongside the planetary peacekeeping forces designed to keep things in check. Things became stable, but stagnant. The innovativeness of terrans declined, with the only major revolutionary innovation being the use of Fusion power. This system lasted for decades, but ultimately fell apart as the system didn’t try to address the issues of the world ecology that was going increasingly out of whack, nor the increasingly aggressive sentiments shown in super states that wanted to rid the world of tiny, useless provincial states like kurdistan through conquest, which in a several instances each super state actually did, despite the other super states condemning the conquests. Eventually resource control on earth started to drain out, with off-world resource centers becoming a major dependency for the world, especially for rare-earth metals. Yet the need for water was far more pressing, as the whole world relied on vast quantities of arable land and water, which was becoming increasing more scarce despite Russia thawing out and becoming a bit of a breadbasket in the 22nd century. These resource limitations caused terran civilization to, for decades look as if it was frozen until the mass death occurred in the mid 22nd century. For the stagnation of earth became a serious concern to those at top, of whom wanted to try to consolidate earth to the point of becoming a global, unitary body and the elites who wanted to go back to the more globalized system that was far less restrictive. Despite the similarities of the ideals, this ideological conflict became a second cold war that went on for decades until one of the super states had the confidence it could conquer the world using its vast armies. The militarization of the terran super states at first was seen as something hat wouldn’t lead to any disaster, since after all despite there being the occasional tactical nuke used in a war somewhere on the planet civilization never stopped moving forwards. So many citizens in super states were actually very apathic to the militarization, with some of them seeing it as just another creative outlet since now there’s a reason to make machines of war. The ascension of AI in the time would caused for a unexpected consequence, as one of the super states had a exceptionally more powerful military that all the others, and to the shock of the other super states went about on a global crusade that the leaders believed they would be able to do as defense tech against nuclear weapons may mean winning even a nuclear conflict could be viable. But they didn’t factor in the infrastructural damage they would cause, and the damage that would be wrought on their own civilization when the other super states united against the world conquerors, who made use of bioweapons that spread throughout the communications systems that would completely impair the conquers, but not before they occupied much of the world and already was beginning to plan bringing the off-world colonies into their fold. However, their unified government lasted only two years as strikes against the capital of their world government killed off the leader ship and brought anarchy to the whole world as multiple military generals kept annihilating each other and pretty much forgot about the off world colonies. The bio plagues from earlier surged throughout much the two year-lasting world government, killing off billions of people as famines and droughts caused by the automation distribution systems falling completely apart and salinity plants being shut down without funding led to there being no real states left on earth. The earth’s human population shot down to just a hundred million people with the only civilization left being in isolated city-states bunkered down in the earth. Without much food and much of the cities being looted or irradiated neotribalism became common in much of the planet, but unified states would start to appear again using knowledge stored in underground libraries and data centers to make the cheaper technologies, however the more advanced technologies such as rockets or fusion plants would take a lot more infrastructural demand to create. The geography of the world, altered by the orbital bombardments and flooding would make some of the metropolis into sites of vast ruin and the ecology of the world would be dramatically altered by the abrupt temperature changes along with the dark decade. The dark decade essentially was a nuclear winter that caused mass extinction as bad as the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs. By 2325, the world is green again and there are factions on earth whom have recently been building back up once more in a world where global civilization had launched humanity beyond earth, but had regressed from a elite that was too powerful for their own good and tragically collapsed. Now there is interplanetary powers descended from the off world colonies that seek to colonize earth, despite those who still live on it.

Type: Organization Location: Earth Headquarters: "Wonderland" Synopsis: Despite their influence and size, little is known about ALICE's motives or structure, except that they hold nearly complete control over the vast Terran Underground, and worship an untouchable, enigmatic figure of the same name. They are a secretive and troublesome group, whose widespread followers on Earth have caused quite a few headaches for those attempting to create successful colonies on its surface. Some call them a religious cult, while others call them terrorists or anarchists, but they have only ever vaguely referred to themselves as being the "Seeds of the New World." They rarely act out in the open, and instead prefer to stick to the shadows and serve Alice's purposes in secrecy. It isn't uncommon for members of ALICE to integrate themselves into colonist society, working towards the organization's goals from within the various factions on the surface. Its immense influence in the shadows of Earth have allowed it to have some influence in the surrounding Terran space, including the Moon and whatever large orbital implementations are present.