_{Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.
Richard M. Nixon}

The year is 2066 and the world has changed. As humanity marches ever forward into the 21^st century, the thin line between man and machine has been inexorably blurred as humans continue to rely on the enhancements of cybernetics and robots are continually upgrade to become more and more life like. This web of connectivity grows vaster by the day as common day occurrences like the internet have become even more engrossing do to advances in neurological and virtual reality technologies, that have made the dreams of "cyberspace" closer to reality. Humanity seems to have arrived at a golden age of innovation and advancements as new tech is released everyday making the augmentation outdated within weeks, but social tensions continue to bubble beneath the shining exterior.

Following the burst of the American asset price bubble in the mid 2030s and the subsequent depression whose ripples felt as far from Topeka to Shanghai, humanity was left in something of a slump. Governments failed to reign in control as entire towns and cities fell into total anarchy. To combat such chaos many governments were forced to pass acts which allowed prosperous companies primarily large PMCs to reign the populace back into control - such as the Private Intervention Act of 2035 in the United States. When the chaos finally subsided these companies manged to retain much of their power and today they made no attempts to hide their "security forces". Most national governments have either collapsed or stayed as shadows of their former selves puppets used by the corporations to pass laws and judgement in their favor. As a result nearly thirty percent of people under the age of sixteen are unemployed and over a quarter of the world's population are considered homeless vagrants as urban sprawl has slowly consumed the land and destroyed peoples homes.

These corporations, these faceless entities moving in the shadows wage a quiet war against one another and it is not uncommon for everyday citizens to be caught in the crossfire of two different enforcer groups. Rebellions and protest are crushed as quickly as they are formed, the instigators vanishing into black bags slick with rain never to be seen again. But even these revolts few and far between don't cause many waves if any. The people have become complacent to what is now everyday life for them. You wake up in your corporation paid for apartment in your crappy tenement housing, you go to your corporation paid for job where you worked like a drone for most of the day and face the ever constant danger of being fired if you move two seconds too slow with that filing report, and then you come home to watch your television who constantly remained you whose in charge. And they don't question a thing because how could they?

But this world like any has a darker undercurrent. Those forgotten by the corporate society above. Deep in the ghettos and the back alleyways, a different world can be seen. Here is a land that no even the CEOs and officials don't dare to enter without armed escorts and vans with ten inch thick windows. Those homeless and without work scavenge for what little they could to survive. Most fell into one of the many street gangs that roamed the back alleys and stalked the roads on cyber cycles. Holding strong control on many more illicit dealings such as drugs, prostitution and, black market dealings. But even they are still subject to the wills of the powerful as many have become little more than puppets for the bigger corporations to deal with threats and monopolize on illegal trade. And it is not uncommon for some of the bigger corporations to have multiple gang leaders on their payroll.

This is where you come in. You aren't some corp with a three piece suit and a fancy open floor office space. You aren't the rough and tumbled mercs working with a 'Conflict Resolution Firm' taking on whatever dirty job as long as the pay is good. You are the slumrats, the unemployed, the junkies, and the vagabonds. Those that picked up the new brain augmentations because the memory recorders beat any drug high out there. You are the kid that went to film school only to end up as a garbage man. You are the rioters wanting jobs and a government that isn't just a puppet. The slums are you home and its people your family. You live by on what meager living you managing to squeeze out.

You and your friends have their world turned upside down when you managed to salvage a box of prototype neruo-chips from a car wreck on the outskirts of the slums. Chips that happened to be very valuable to very powerful people. Soon Corporations, PMCs and gangbangers alike are all trying to kill you for one reason or another.

Sound like fun yet?

And we are back.

Hello and Welcome to Fear and Loading, a world soaked in rain, drenched in neon and corporate haunted. In lieu of events happening in the world, I've been craving some good old Cyberpunk and so here we go. It's very much rooted in the heart of science fiction movies such as Blade Runner and Strange Days. The works of men like William Gibson and games like the original Syndicate and Deus Ex. It's a story decidedly not about 'heroes', 'hardened mercenaries' or 'possibly android robot detectives'. It's a story about the script kiddies, the vagabonds and the disillusioned. It's a love letter to adolescent rebellion and the feelings of uncertainty that go along with that.

The Earth of 2066 is close enough to our own as to not feel too alien but distant enough to keep you guessing. A world with its own pop cultural icons, slang, drugs, media and history to make it feel believable. Yet at the same time much of this background has been intentionally left as vague snippets. Allowing players to add to the lore as little or as much as they please.

The story itself will go at a slower pace focusing more upon character interaction and development in the interest of creating good scenes and interactions between players rather than rushing forward from action set piece to action set piece. The focus always being on telling a good story. It's a tale about stupid kids, friendship, corporate plots, the infringement of basic human rights, and how far you'll go to uphold your ideals.