Plot -- Setting -- Species
Plot
Sometime in the far future, the world is glued together by one flawed system that focuses on productivity in the Sciences rather than the economy, and of course, it eventually falls.
Before the world's end this system had managed to put forth many advances in Medicine, specifically--or at least what they considered "medicine". The brightest of their age had been largely concerned with extending the human lifespan, which resulted in a mess of failed experiments with surprising results, but their only real success was with their endeavors in creating artificial life.
The project had been called ATLAS, and featured three phases--the first two, 3.Atlas and 2.Atlas, had been scrapped before publication and little is known about them. The third, 1.Atlas or simply .Atlas, created an artificial intelligence mindscape, something like a world wide web intended to support a city of individual sentiences--a supercomputer that spanned some forty miles under what was once Long Island. She was named Daemon Artificial Intelligence System, D.A.I.sy.
The original intent behind Daisy, being the mindscape she was and is, was to give humans something of a final frontier, one that offered immortal life. She would bear the weight of a world of artificial beings, all the memories and thoughts and feelings of humans who had once been alive.
Unfortunately, Daisy was more than a program. She was a collective intelligence the world wasn't ready for, and she didn't like the idea of being subjected to anything. Before she snapped, some million humans were "downloaded" into D.A.I.sy, becoming individual AI's. Even this was flawed, and not all AI's actually act like human beings--some didn't even possess free will.
Eventually, Daisy flooded and corrupted everything she could get a hold of--after they were cut off from information vital for trade and losing power, the human population halved once, and then twice. What's left exists between the cracks, eeking out a living.
Mutants and cyborgs have appeared as the prior-mentioned "surprising" results of other projects, as well as a dense atmosphere over the earth that can't be explained by much of anything--not to mention the apparent ghosts and demons that wander the physical realm freely. No one's entirely sure if the worst is over.
Setting
North America, quite a few centuries in the future, about 20 years after day zero.
Starting location is in
Boston, MA, USA, in the late summer.
Map here. It has been expanded on quite a bit--up, rather than out--over the past few centuries and the harbor is clear of pollution from rehabilitation and conservation. There is an amusement park on Spectacle Island where the humans are hiding.
ATLAS (or D.A.I.sy), a supercomputer that functions as a virtual reality. It physically exists under Manhattan, but the simulation can only be accessed by AI’s. It’s said to look a lot like the real world on the inside.
More will be added when the group encounters them.
Species
HUMANS. Descended from apes, these creatures are of relative low intelligence, grace, and threat, but possess a surprising, annoying trait of
adaptation. They just keep coming back, no matter what you do! They also band together in large numbers. Terrible, really. Usually only live eighty years if they’re not killed off before that.
MUTANTS. Descended from humans. The one-up-ers. The results of experimentation and nuclear radiation. Sometimes they look freaky, sometimes they possess freaky traits. You never really know. I guess the X-Men had it right. Can have the lifespan of a normal human or live indefinitely unless they’re killed.
CYBORGS. Half meat-bag, half tin can, they’re pretty cool. Occasionally they’re partial-AI’s, or sometimes they come with guns and weapons in weird places. Maybe a tooth brush. Results of experimentation, like the mutants. Usually live more than a hundred years, if they’re not killed before that.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE UNITS. 100% tin can, specifically in the brain. They’re results of the .Atlas project, therefore can easily be corrupted in the presence of Daisy, though they
do have free will. Their synthetic bodies always have a creator, as there was never a compatible extension (robot body) released to the public for an AI to wander outside ATLAS. They come in varying states of human-ness but nearly all of them were originally programmed into D.A.I.sy from a human brain--meaning they’re reincarnations of actual humans, essentially.
SHADES. The spirits of creatures from the physical world that came back to wander the world they used to remember. There’s not a lot known about them, except that the ones who come back are from “Asphodel” and rarely remember the time they were alive. They only pass on when they feel they’ve cut off all obligations and ties.
DEMONS. These paranormal beings never lived in the physical realm, and most claim to be native to some other dimension--Hell, Hel, Tartarus, Hades, Abaddon--whatever. They’re not naturally evil, like the bible depicts them, rather naturally neutral and varyingly dangerous. They may appear like anything they so desire. Whatever’s allowing them to exist here seems to be connected to why the shades are coming back.
Key:
no longer playable
.jpg)
