The Past, the Present, and the Future
Brief and general overview of the known past:
Close to all of the more distant past has been forgotten, records of historical events presumed either lost to the general annihilation of war or systematically destroyed. The earliest the collective memory of any modern-day faction will typically go is to the nominal "Downfall," an all-encompassing global war which, depending on who to ask, ended in either a Pyrrhic-at-best victory, retreat into hiding during the latter stages of the war, or a narrow survival of otherwise complete destruction. No one seems to have definite information on why or how the war began, but almost everyone remembers the war itself and its final outcome, though each through their own and potentially twisted perspective.
By the end of the war, the old factions of the Downfall-era had been torn apart and only fragments remained - not even splinter-factions in the typical sense, but rather just small clusters of survivors scattered far apart across the now nigh-inhospitable world. These fragments of already diverse factions then proceeded to develop independently, each striving to build upon the equipment they had managed to salvage and often ending with strange discrepancies in the relative levels of advancement in different branches of technology, each drifting further from their origin-faction till even the components which had once fought alongside had changed beyond recognition to one-another's senses and sensors, each carrying their own selective memory of the time that came too close for comfort to being their end, each either dying out or slowly and surely establishing itself and prevailing as its own new small faction.
It took time to rebuild and increase the general area of influence. The low starting numbers, often fairly random selection of pre-existing technology, and the general condition of the world did typically not facilitate fast spread. Not only was the directly post-Downfall land largely barren, slightly radioactive, and just as segmented as it had always been, but some war-time hazards still remained in passive waiting of unfortunate wanderers, and the occasional sunbursts and other natural environmental phenomena had the tendency to either cut off long-range communications, or - much like the mines and relict automated defense systems one could wander into - downright destroy and kill passers-through without discrimination. The "white fog" in particular had a tendency to hold certain infamy in everyone's mind. And the land was rich in various deposits - more over than not, the need for at least some measure of additional safety outweighed the immediate demand for additional resources that could not be found in relative vicinity.
And thus, time passed. Much like it had always been, reinforcing everything was a must set upon everyone by the environment itself, but the means were often limited. Humans of the new seedling-factions reorganized and built small settlements, some regressing in their ways of life, having to hold onto abandoned wares and structures for as long as they could in order not to be wiped out, others managing to set up new factories and processing plants, and perhaps also succeeding in recreating missing or creating entirely new technologies. SDAM commander-overseers, left to their own devices, were forced to reconsider their priorities and to some extent repurpose their remaining production and units - out of all, they were the ones who generally changed the least, as they were already used to being in charge of everything under their domain. Independent SDAM-, SDAC- and other higher AI-units grouped and, for the first time in their known history, delved into creation and replication. Very low-level AI and hardcoded automatons, if they were not picked up by another fragment, lied in waiting or proceeded with their assigned tasks aimlessly until they eventually inevitably broke down. And then there were fragments which were composed of random selection of entities, not only humans or machines. The world, however, was just the world - unthinking, unfeeling, and ultimately indifferent to everything transpiring on its surface.
Outside of the seedling factions, plants recovered the quickest and spread uncontrolled. In but a handful of years, the extremely fast-growing flora of the world had conquered the barren land, and for several decades after, the plants' domination was uncontested. Beasts, birds and other critters, having escaped being driven to extinction by the war by unknown means, soon followed suit. Wrecks and ruins, half-swallowed by foliage, were the only reminders of a different time. It was a period of peace, an interlude, but the calm was not there to stay.
The seedling factions had gathered power in their isolation, and they were beginning to rediscover others' presence in the world.
Close to all of the more distant past has been forgotten, records of historical events presumed either lost to the general annihilation of war or systematically destroyed. The earliest the collective memory of any modern-day faction will typically go is to the nominal "Downfall," an all-encompassing global war which, depending on who to ask, ended in either a Pyrrhic-at-best victory, retreat into hiding during the latter stages of the war, or a narrow survival of otherwise complete destruction. No one seems to have definite information on why or how the war began, but almost everyone remembers the war itself and its final outcome, though each through their own and potentially twisted perspective.
By the end of the war, the old factions of the Downfall-era had been torn apart and only fragments remained - not even splinter-factions in the typical sense, but rather just small clusters of survivors scattered far apart across the now nigh-inhospitable world. These fragments of already diverse factions then proceeded to develop independently, each striving to build upon the equipment they had managed to salvage and often ending with strange discrepancies in the relative levels of advancement in different branches of technology, each drifting further from their origin-faction till even the components which had once fought alongside had changed beyond recognition to one-another's senses and sensors, each carrying their own selective memory of the time that came too close for comfort to being their end, each either dying out or slowly and surely establishing itself and prevailing as its own new small faction.
It took time to rebuild and increase the general area of influence. The low starting numbers, often fairly random selection of pre-existing technology, and the general condition of the world did typically not facilitate fast spread. Not only was the directly post-Downfall land largely barren, slightly radioactive, and just as segmented as it had always been, but some war-time hazards still remained in passive waiting of unfortunate wanderers, and the occasional sunbursts and other natural environmental phenomena had the tendency to either cut off long-range communications, or - much like the mines and relict automated defense systems one could wander into - downright destroy and kill passers-through without discrimination. The "white fog" in particular had a tendency to hold certain infamy in everyone's mind. And the land was rich in various deposits - more over than not, the need for at least some measure of additional safety outweighed the immediate demand for additional resources that could not be found in relative vicinity.
And thus, time passed. Much like it had always been, reinforcing everything was a must set upon everyone by the environment itself, but the means were often limited. Humans of the new seedling-factions reorganized and built small settlements, some regressing in their ways of life, having to hold onto abandoned wares and structures for as long as they could in order not to be wiped out, others managing to set up new factories and processing plants, and perhaps also succeeding in recreating missing or creating entirely new technologies. SDAM commander-overseers, left to their own devices, were forced to reconsider their priorities and to some extent repurpose their remaining production and units - out of all, they were the ones who generally changed the least, as they were already used to being in charge of everything under their domain. Independent SDAM-, SDAC- and other higher AI-units grouped and, for the first time in their known history, delved into creation and replication. Very low-level AI and hardcoded automatons, if they were not picked up by another fragment, lied in waiting or proceeded with their assigned tasks aimlessly until they eventually inevitably broke down. And then there were fragments which were composed of random selection of entities, not only humans or machines. The world, however, was just the world - unthinking, unfeeling, and ultimately indifferent to everything transpiring on its surface.
Outside of the seedling factions, plants recovered the quickest and spread uncontrolled. In but a handful of years, the extremely fast-growing flora of the world had conquered the barren land, and for several decades after, the plants' domination was uncontested. Beasts, birds and other critters, having escaped being driven to extinction by the war by unknown means, soon followed suit. Wrecks and ruins, half-swallowed by foliage, were the only reminders of a different time. It was a period of peace, an interlude, but the calm was not there to stay.
The seedling factions had gathered power in their isolation, and they were beginning to rediscover others' presence in the world.
Twelve decades have passed since the Downfall, yet everyone remembers the last war...
The current world is once more in tension and conflict. The relationships between different factions typically range from cautious alliances of necessity to grudging non-aggression-pacts to "we will not hunt you down, but come too close, and you will be shot" to track-down-and-destroy-upon-discovery. Everyone remembers that peace was never settled in the face of destruction, and even people and entities deriving from a shared ancestor-faction have grown apart, become ... different.
"Why did they never seek us out after they had recovered?" it will be asked, and then eyes turned to their new allies and non-enemies whom history remembers as once-common foes. And to constructs amongst their lines which are more akin to those that used to hunt them all rather than ones they all know and remember as own - if there were mechanoids on their side during the last war to begin with. And, worst of all, scrutiny would befall on those of their ideologies which have come to deviate from one's own after more than a century. Traitors, it will be thought, and resentment held towards those whom one's predecessors once considered kin.
And that is if one ever gets as far as realizing that they all were once one to begin with. Not everyone stops before firing first. (Is the friend of one's enemy anyone whose presence should be tolerated, and is the enemy of one's enemy a friend or just another enemy? Ought the past to be forgotten, and how grave must an error be before it becomes unforgivable?)
And yet, there are still new-age factions which are yet to encounter anyone else human or machine - plenty of them, in fact -, living on in their perceived solitude and only now starting to branch out farther. Even now, one can come upon wrecks and ruins of the Downfall-era, quite intact but for having been partially consumed by the abundant foliage. (What can one say? Things have long been built to last here...) Those wrecks are often reverse-engineered - seen whether some benefit could be still reaped from the remains of the old tech - and then carried away and melted into new forms. Resources may be abundant, but there is no reason not to make use of additional material that has been ever so conveniently been already brought upon ground, gathered into compact form, and remains largely refined. Incidentally, hardly anyone will willingly bury or leave behind a dead machine, but rather transform it into the body of a new one... Never mind it is not wise to give potentially - let alone provenly - hostile forces additional advantages.
Massive disparities in technological development - be it across factions or over different branches of technology of any specific faction - still exist, and quite a few of those in possession of equipment that gives them an obvious edge wish to perpetuate that disparity. Attempts to violently seize others' technology are not uncommon, and the concept of leaving one's faction is generally regarded with very high suspicion amongst those who are at least somewhat familiar with the idea of there being more aggressive factions out there.
The only common flow of individuals between factions is out of the more "civilian" factions - as much as any at least moderately advanced faction of this world can be termed "civilian" - and into their allied more formidable protector-factions' ranks. And almost never the other way around - who leaves is not likely to come back. Those who are already part of more militarily powerful factions, yet still switch over - or attempt to do so - are most commonly those who have nothing to lose... People and entities who have ended up in an unresolvable conflict with their own factions, be it openly or internally. At other times, it is better explained by lack; lack of food and things to fulfill other basic needs, lack of support or care... In the end, many individuals are just people, and quite a few of them will have had enough at some point, be it when staring a long and unpleasant death in the eyes or before.
More often than not, lack is brought by attrition warfare by hostile forces, and lack of care is just a necessary measure to stop incoming forces ... or so the higher-ups will insist. That it's better to lose a few men, women and entities than an entire settlement, base, or faction as such. At other times it is the fog or storms. Do not store your resources in one place, or it will come back and bite you. Potentially hard.
The storms and other such natural phenomena are one reason why ground-based warfare is much more common than one would expect; flying - while aerial units nevertheless exist in numbers for some factions, and can be a serious force to be reckoned with - simply is not always feasible. (Unless you are using satellites, which tend to have the distinct advantage of being above weather, if in turn a bit more susceptible for cosmic forces and maladies.) That, and foliage, elements of terrain and masking and/or cloaking technologies can hide a settlement well. Arguably, the terrain and foliage may also make full-coverage point-air defense easier to pull off than guarding all of the ground, no matter how well-defensible intersection of the terrain-platelets one has found for oneself... That, or it is simply easier to weld enough steel and lead plates onto a groundbound unit for it to turn nigh impenetrable for reasonable weapons (at which point your attacker must resort to unreasonable weapons if they want to achieve anything) than it is to make flying craft exceedingly difficult to effectively eliminate.
If there is one common tendency in post-Downfall warfare, it is the nigh-disappearance (which generally translates to reassembly into different weapons or exhaustion as energy source fuel) of large-scale weapons of mass destruction. The land was already practically wiped almost clear once during the known history, and it could probably have been done a few more dozens, if not hundreds of times. It is not to say that some of the weapons still in use are not absurdly powerful - they certainly are, and some have arguably become even more so -, but more that their effects are significantly more concentrated. Blanket warfare has been traded for precision warfare, one might say.
Other than that, old and new coexist, in weaponry the same as everywhere else. One can come across anything from classical firearms to coilguns and particle cannons, from nets to area of influence and directed field generators and surge weaponry, from gunpowder-bombs to remote sonic point-cavitation, from acid to nanites, from throwing something at the enemy and hoping for the best to orbital weaponry... And sometimes these things even coexist within the same faction, let alone across the technologically and ideologically disparate independent factions. One faction may use analog computers, if even those, and the next one over be entirely composed of SDAM entities. Some may still use bandages, others can practically build entire adult humans if need be. The same faction may at once use fusion and burn trees for energy. Plants of this world tend to be rather aggressively renewable and fairly conveniently harvestable, and some of those even accumulate otherwise rare elements as a bonus...
It's a strange world indeed, rather unusual both by its inhabitants and physical qualities. It's a world that knows no globalization, but rather is split into an unknown number of factions, each holding only one's own area of influence's worth of ground. There are no borders, and no true nations. Too much has been forgotten, and too much has been remembered. Animosity has persisted through decades, and now often sees rekindling. Trust is a rare commodity, in strangers especially. For some, it is simply the momentum of the past, historic memory. For others, it is the difference in ideologies, in the sheer incompatibility of those. For some, it is greed. Or fear. Something primal. The distinct feeling that they would not join others, but rather be assimilated and then erased from history entirely, perhaps. No one knows what factions of the last war no longer exist. Perhaps no one ever will anymore.
Not all who fight even know why they fight. Others do not care to instigate conflicts, and remain neutral as long as they themselves are left at peace. Yet others do not fight anything else but the environment, the storms, beasts and radiation. And hope that whoever else finds them first is either weak or benign. ...It is not necessarily a nice world (though some may say that there is a certain measure of absurdity in it), but some luck out regardless. And for all that anyone knows, luck might be the deciding factor in many a faction's fate.
Or perhaps it is not luck. Perhaps it is chance and the ability to adapt in an inherently unstable and changing world. Most factions are small, and the world itself is unpredictable. It does not take all that much to shift the balance, locally at least. At times, it just takes one decision or one person.
The current world is once more in tension and conflict. The relationships between different factions typically range from cautious alliances of necessity to grudging non-aggression-pacts to "we will not hunt you down, but come too close, and you will be shot" to track-down-and-destroy-upon-discovery. Everyone remembers that peace was never settled in the face of destruction, and even people and entities deriving from a shared ancestor-faction have grown apart, become ... different.
"Why did they never seek us out after they had recovered?" it will be asked, and then eyes turned to their new allies and non-enemies whom history remembers as once-common foes. And to constructs amongst their lines which are more akin to those that used to hunt them all rather than ones they all know and remember as own - if there were mechanoids on their side during the last war to begin with. And, worst of all, scrutiny would befall on those of their ideologies which have come to deviate from one's own after more than a century. Traitors, it will be thought, and resentment held towards those whom one's predecessors once considered kin.
And that is if one ever gets as far as realizing that they all were once one to begin with. Not everyone stops before firing first. (Is the friend of one's enemy anyone whose presence should be tolerated, and is the enemy of one's enemy a friend or just another enemy? Ought the past to be forgotten, and how grave must an error be before it becomes unforgivable?)
And yet, there are still new-age factions which are yet to encounter anyone else human or machine - plenty of them, in fact -, living on in their perceived solitude and only now starting to branch out farther. Even now, one can come upon wrecks and ruins of the Downfall-era, quite intact but for having been partially consumed by the abundant foliage. (What can one say? Things have long been built to last here...) Those wrecks are often reverse-engineered - seen whether some benefit could be still reaped from the remains of the old tech - and then carried away and melted into new forms. Resources may be abundant, but there is no reason not to make use of additional material that has been ever so conveniently been already brought upon ground, gathered into compact form, and remains largely refined. Incidentally, hardly anyone will willingly bury or leave behind a dead machine, but rather transform it into the body of a new one... Never mind it is not wise to give potentially - let alone provenly - hostile forces additional advantages.
Massive disparities in technological development - be it across factions or over different branches of technology of any specific faction - still exist, and quite a few of those in possession of equipment that gives them an obvious edge wish to perpetuate that disparity. Attempts to violently seize others' technology are not uncommon, and the concept of leaving one's faction is generally regarded with very high suspicion amongst those who are at least somewhat familiar with the idea of there being more aggressive factions out there.
The only common flow of individuals between factions is out of the more "civilian" factions - as much as any at least moderately advanced faction of this world can be termed "civilian" - and into their allied more formidable protector-factions' ranks. And almost never the other way around - who leaves is not likely to come back. Those who are already part of more militarily powerful factions, yet still switch over - or attempt to do so - are most commonly those who have nothing to lose... People and entities who have ended up in an unresolvable conflict with their own factions, be it openly or internally. At other times, it is better explained by lack; lack of food and things to fulfill other basic needs, lack of support or care... In the end, many individuals are just people, and quite a few of them will have had enough at some point, be it when staring a long and unpleasant death in the eyes or before.
More often than not, lack is brought by attrition warfare by hostile forces, and lack of care is just a necessary measure to stop incoming forces ... or so the higher-ups will insist. That it's better to lose a few men, women and entities than an entire settlement, base, or faction as such. At other times it is the fog or storms. Do not store your resources in one place, or it will come back and bite you. Potentially hard.
The storms and other such natural phenomena are one reason why ground-based warfare is much more common than one would expect; flying - while aerial units nevertheless exist in numbers for some factions, and can be a serious force to be reckoned with - simply is not always feasible. (Unless you are using satellites, which tend to have the distinct advantage of being above weather, if in turn a bit more susceptible for cosmic forces and maladies.) That, and foliage, elements of terrain and masking and/or cloaking technologies can hide a settlement well. Arguably, the terrain and foliage may also make full-coverage point-air defense easier to pull off than guarding all of the ground, no matter how well-defensible intersection of the terrain-platelets one has found for oneself... That, or it is simply easier to weld enough steel and lead plates onto a groundbound unit for it to turn nigh impenetrable for reasonable weapons (at which point your attacker must resort to unreasonable weapons if they want to achieve anything) than it is to make flying craft exceedingly difficult to effectively eliminate.
If there is one common tendency in post-Downfall warfare, it is the nigh-disappearance (which generally translates to reassembly into different weapons or exhaustion as energy source fuel) of large-scale weapons of mass destruction. The land was already practically wiped almost clear once during the known history, and it could probably have been done a few more dozens, if not hundreds of times. It is not to say that some of the weapons still in use are not absurdly powerful - they certainly are, and some have arguably become even more so -, but more that their effects are significantly more concentrated. Blanket warfare has been traded for precision warfare, one might say.
Other than that, old and new coexist, in weaponry the same as everywhere else. One can come across anything from classical firearms to coilguns and particle cannons, from nets to area of influence and directed field generators and surge weaponry, from gunpowder-bombs to remote sonic point-cavitation, from acid to nanites, from throwing something at the enemy and hoping for the best to orbital weaponry... And sometimes these things even coexist within the same faction, let alone across the technologically and ideologically disparate independent factions. One faction may use analog computers, if even those, and the next one over be entirely composed of SDAM entities. Some may still use bandages, others can practically build entire adult humans if need be. The same faction may at once use fusion and burn trees for energy. Plants of this world tend to be rather aggressively renewable and fairly conveniently harvestable, and some of those even accumulate otherwise rare elements as a bonus...
It's a strange world indeed, rather unusual both by its inhabitants and physical qualities. It's a world that knows no globalization, but rather is split into an unknown number of factions, each holding only one's own area of influence's worth of ground. There are no borders, and no true nations. Too much has been forgotten, and too much has been remembered. Animosity has persisted through decades, and now often sees rekindling. Trust is a rare commodity, in strangers especially. For some, it is simply the momentum of the past, historic memory. For others, it is the difference in ideologies, in the sheer incompatibility of those. For some, it is greed. Or fear. Something primal. The distinct feeling that they would not join others, but rather be assimilated and then erased from history entirely, perhaps. No one knows what factions of the last war no longer exist. Perhaps no one ever will anymore.
Not all who fight even know why they fight. Others do not care to instigate conflicts, and remain neutral as long as they themselves are left at peace. Yet others do not fight anything else but the environment, the storms, beasts and radiation. And hope that whoever else finds them first is either weak or benign. ...It is not necessarily a nice world (though some may say that there is a certain measure of absurdity in it), but some luck out regardless. And for all that anyone knows, luck might be the deciding factor in many a faction's fate.
Or perhaps it is not luck. Perhaps it is chance and the ability to adapt in an inherently unstable and changing world. Most factions are small, and the world itself is unpredictable. It does not take all that much to shift the balance, locally at least. At times, it just takes one decision or one person.
