In Character InfoIt's late February, 2013, and the uncertainty of life, often buried deep in the psyche of humanity, is suddenly a raw and very exposed nerve. Things have emerged and the false serenity of society is irrevocably swept away on a tide of the supernatural.
The world is turning upside down. Things are emerging from a long dormancy, their spirits either finding flesh on their own or fusing with the nearest host and twisting them into something else. From the beautiful to the freakish, it was almost as if someone unlocked a spiritual vault and threw the doors wide open, heedless of what would emerge, heedless of the things this force would overturn.
Magic came back on September 23th, 2012 (the equinox); people suddenly manifested abilities. Some changed shape to mishapen or supernaturally beautiful beings, others manipulated energies by their will and mind. Society was not prepared, and fell into all sorts of social unrest, including lynchings, riots and vigilantism. Not everyone was grabbing a shotgun or gardening tool to go after these newly-minted 'Emergents' but there was a torrent of hate on the TV and on the radio, a furious argument about how to respond.
Irrationality won out, as it almost always does when fear sinks into the mass psyche.
Initially, at the behest of the more vocal and hardline group of Americans, yelling for the government to 'do something,' especially with people taking it to their own hands and 'doing something' themselves, often with encouragement through the internet or the radio or the pulpit; vigilante violence against Emergents. These people, backed up against the wall, lashed out -- their uncontrolled, sometimes dangerous talents gave the newscasts of these incidents a horror movie feel, especially as the media played up the most extreme example, partially for ratings.
There was, of course, a chance for the government to stand up to this trend, but instead the government did two things; they put a law into effect recognizing that Emergents were not human, and therefore not accorded the rights of the 14th Amendment -- the Supreme Court shot down the challenges, and then used the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 to justify deploying military force, under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to start rounding up Emergents, as they were being called, to be placed in containment camps, often on military bases, "for the protection of everyone involved." Darker rumors swirled, that the various governments of the world were frantic to understand these forces and dead set on controlling or containing these disruptions.
In December, right before Christmas (the 21st, the Solistice, as well as the prophesized end of the Mayan calendar/start of a new age), suddenly the animals and plants, things and places, started to show emergent traits; limited phenomena at first and then a buildup to a crescendo point. Many Emergents felt it in their bones, but most of them managed to conceal this feeling of burgeoning power, a sudden increase in these newfound things they do. They know they are hunted and being kept, and so they keep their own secrets from a secretive government. Quietly, affecting a degree of docility, the inmates at Nellis begin to plan...
