January 13, 2048 was the day the world had changed. The Chinese Supernationalist Party had spent nearly ten years spreading its influence, mostly through diplomatic means, over much of Eastern Eurasia. Their steadily diverging ideals, however, had become a point of contention with western nations and ultimately led to the steady ostracism of many of their foreign interests across the world. In 2043, the Chinese Supernationalist Party withdrew its seat from the United Nations marking a stark end to positive relations with the United States and key representatives of the European Union. Strict regulations were put in place over its steadily expanding empire as the nation essentially closed its borders to the outside world.
Very little was heard from the new Chinese empire until 2048 in London, an event now dubbed Starfall.
What followed was history. Nearly ten years of bitter war brought massive nuclear countermeasures that, though years too late, essentially defined the modern age. Experts tend to agree that the world saw economic prosperity in the face of disaster, but industry took on a shape that the world had not seen since World War II.
Weapons. Like none anyone had ever seen before. Vagabond Industries, LLC. (at the time a small subsidized arm of the U.S. Defense Department), led by Oliver T. Vagabond, developed atomic neutralizers, that were essentially capable of shutting down rapid nuclear reactions in wide areas over the few still-intact supercities that'd become refuge for a vast majority of the world population.
By the end of the year, the war had shifted to a ground war. Up an coming corporations, like Vagabond that'd made their stand in essentially "saving mankind," had shifted into an arms race that ultimately led to the bitter defeat of the Chinese Supernationalist Party and a nearly-immeasurable leap of technology not seen since industrialization.
The world, still reeling from the greatest man-made disaster since our evolutionary apex, found itself in a pit of distrust against the burgeoning political interests that'd brought Earth to its knees. Much of the planet, nearly 80% of its surface, had been reduced to wasteland. Those areas that remained intact had been scrubbed and consolidated into megacities where billions had taken to their heart. The world turned the man who'd saved them, the only man who could have led them from the deep dark depths of hell and almost certain self-destruction: Oliver Vagabond. His company, now the most successful on the planet by a wide margin, had begun the pursuit of humanitarian interests, pioneering, subsidizing, and distributing a new world of biosynthetic metals and cybernetics to victims of the war at-cost, rocketing his simple spotlight stardom into political royalty.
Others, following from his example, led the modern age into one of technological superiority for those apt to receive it, and left those less fortunate behind to wallow in the disaster in their wake. The next forty years saw the wealth of Earth take to the stars, leaving their birthplace for fantastic lunar and Martian colonies. Cybernetics became almost invaluable, staple and synonymous with success.
But has the world really changed at all? Has mankind freed itself from the mistakes of their past? Or has war simply shifted to board rooms and silent deals made in the dark of night. Is it any less deadly?
Home 
