Re: Cyberpunk Game
The year is 4126. And the question on everyone’s mind is "who you are?" The question on everyone’s mind for the past 1000 years is "who are you?"
In 2056 the planet earth broke out in the Last War. The inhabitants of this world thought this was an appropriate name, unaware of the irony, and apparently unable to learn from history. North Korea a country well known for its many kings and rich proud history of honorable war making launched a simultaneous attack on China and a young but avaricious country called the United States of America, a country that at the time had been responsible for destabilizing the world for the previous 55 years. A country called Iran who had been receiving military aid from North Korea seized upon the opportunity and created a blockade of the Straights on Hormuz. Which a young theocracy called Israel had long held as the same as a declaration of war. The United States of America focused their assault on Iran to help their ally Israel. Iran had been strengthening it’s navy and the naval battle carried out between the United States of America and Iran were some of the most treacherous in the history of their planet. Syria and Jordan became entangled in the combat taking the opportunity to attack Israel. An Ancient and proud country called Russia came to enforce recent treaties it had made with local countries. Although the intent of the Russian forces was to police the events with the aid of a state called Germany, the United States of America propagated the idea that they were enacting much imagined old rivalries by not immediately coming to their aid. The United States of America can be thought of the Gôrmic Alliance today, an oligarchy that fails to police their own issues and makes their problems the problems of the Galaxies through sheer military force and stubbornness.
2068 the surviving countries formed a collective polity, run predominately by the Dutch, the World Unity government, which later changed it’s name to the Earth Collective in 2594, but has existed in basically the same form since 2080. The Unity Government was able to police the world effectively mostly by declaring that those territories which had been eviscerated in the Nuclear holocaust of the Last War were out of bounds to all who wanted to be protected by the Unity Government and Receive all the benefits of its laws. The Restricted Zones, or as they were commonly referred to as the Badlands were like the Silk Voids of the galaxy, or to use an Earth Term, the Badlands became the New Old West.
The World Unity Government in 2214 began arranging a 110 year trip to a planet a telescope had identified a planet capable of sustaining human life. In a mission the Earthlings called "The Voyage," which the government planned and designed for 40 years, a not insignificant portion of a person’s lifespan at the time, the people of earth intended to colonize this planet.
During the Voyage the first human generation to be born in space in the Voyage fleet would be the first generation to see their progeny inherit a new earth. Unfortunately for the earthling fleet, if someone had pointed an earth telescope from the planet Cyre at earth they would see Dinosaurs, the ancient fossilized inhabitants of their planet. For with their technology they had engines that could compete with the speed of light, but they could not induce a state in which light would travel more quickly. If earthlings had started their research on travel by manipulating the speed of light, rather than manipulating themselves or the environment then they might have become an even more advanced race than the Vox Paranis, but their egocentrism had always slowed them down.
So when the Voyage first saw that the Crye was inhabited by the Drom it was a shock. The Drom helped the humans establish a colony. The Drom and the Voyagers worked together in relative harmony.
In 2430 the Vox Paranis compelled the Drom through their relationship, to hold the humans in house arrest until the Vox Paranis fleet could catalog them. The Voyagers rose up and fought killing and wounding many of the peaceful Drom. The Voyagers mobilized for another attack. For the first time in their history humans would fight a war away from their home planet. The war raged for 7 Earth days. The remaining humans were cataloged pursuant to the Vox Paranis galactic law.
2511 The next fleet of the World Unity Government arrived on Crye. By then the Drom had reestablished relationships with the Voyagers. The Voyagers were made subjects to the new human fleet of the World Unity Government. And while the tension there brewed, the new fleet established a stronger relationship on behalf of human race with the Vox Paranis.
2594, the Voyagers left in a bloodless succession for a frozen and volcanic but very fertile planet called Agavoid. The Voyagers wanted to use the planet as a launching pad for further exploration of the galaxies. In the meantime the second fleet of humans called began calling themselves the Harmonics sought to build stronger relationships with the other alien races. Voyagers tended to call Harmonics “Earthlings” mocking their Earth localism.
Over the next five hundred years, Voyagers continued to colonize and explore space, while the Harmonics developed ever more intricate relationships with the advanced foreign races. For many this was the golden age of space travel. The stories that took place in this period could fill libraries and still inspire stories to this day.
In 2740 a group of Harmonics and Vox Paranis created a company called Cengenics, little known at first, but one that would eventually change the galaxies.
By the next millennia, 3000, The average human lifespan almost tripled via the Cengenics body parts replacement program. Humans could live to be 210 years on average as long as they could afford to keep replacing body parts as they failed. The additional body parts were grown by Cengenics.
80 years later, the same lifetime, Cengenics was able to resolve the issue of the body eventually failing by being able to save an individual’s memories and place them in a grown body for their clients. These grown human clones were intended to continue the lives of those who had commissioned them to be vessels for their memories. They began to call themselves the Amnia. Initially this was a success, but over time the Amnia came to question their following their installed memories. Waking up in a Cengenics Clone Hospital for the first time but with the memories in their brains, they couldn’t shake the feeling that they were someone else. They had been given someone’s memories, but not their personalities, not their values, not their dreams. Some took to their installed memories, but for some others, the memories were more like watching a film after waking up, it was still meaningful in some way, but you could get up at the end and be your own person. Most however couldn’t determine who they were, or what they were supposed to be. For these and the ones who completely resisted the installed memories, they were referred to as Amnesiacs. Although the Amniasics still preferred be called the Amnia.
In 3113 what had started as an occasional problem of Cengenic limbs breaking down and needing to be replaced, became a staple of a product. Shortly after the Amnia’s newly grown clone bodies of 20 year olds needed to be replaced after about 25-30 years.
After another 1000 years the humans had developed a spread out society across the Galaxy. There were no central governments except the Vox Paranus who enforced galactic law. The Earth Collective still ran the affairs on Earth, and set certain standards for colonies, but they had lost authority over the human race long ago, and the Vox Paranis had some power over the leaders of the Earth Collective Leaders. The Descendants of the Harmonics still sponsored the Earth interests, but they did so from a newfound position of power in the Galaxy. Companies ran the Galaxy now, companies that sold ships, power, androids, food, water, and although some corporations weilded power to make the Vox Paranis home world think twice, none controlled the standard of living quite like Cengenics. Companies sold arms, soldiers, and weapons systems, but they never chose sides. Most companies ran their own armies, police forces to protect their interest and colonies. Some of the most powerful control an entire home planet. Cengenics ran all of the hospitals and produced all the medicine. The Militias run small arms, gambling and prostitution in their space stations or from a moon revolving around a planet. While more acceptable Private Military Companies deal in strength for other companies. In space, in transit, everything was up for grabs. Even planets could be taken. Wars were not uncommon, but they were complicated, and while cargo was frequently raided by pirates and enemy companies, Wars usually only began on planets, but they could boil over and embroil solar systems.
In this time in the Galaxy, the Harmonics and the Voyagers control their own industries. Renewable body parts deteriorate through planned obsolesce. Amnia’s wrestle with an identity crisis that no one but them can truly understand, one that is crueler than any before. The Drom exist as a peaceful cattle race for the Vox Paranis. While the Vox Paranis themselves watch it all take place like gardeners watching seeds grow. The year is 4126, and the question on everyone’s mind is “who are you?”
