GURPS Tempest Part three: History of the World Before and After the Apocalypse
According to surviving records from Prior to the Apocalypse*, it seemed that at the time, humanity was finally pulling itself from the brink and approaching a new golden age. Technology had advanced to such a point that clean fusion energy was now achievable, medical advances were putting an end to illnesses that had plagued humanity since the dawn of history, and robotics technology was slowly freeing humanity from labour.
*Due to the Banestorms and Reality Quakes, historical records are unreliable at best.
Nations had slowly unified into larger power blocks, such as the North-American Alliance, the Paneuropean Union, the South-American League, the Pan-African Federation, and the Pan-Asian Defense Pact. Massive global conflict seemed like a thing of the past.
The mastery of genetic engineering and rising advances in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence were even allowing humanity to start pushing the boundaries of what constituted as “humanity.”
The nations of the world had even begun expanding out into space, building space stations and lunar bases, with new expeditions being sent to Mars.
And then it all went to Hell.
Records of the cause of the Apocalypse are spotty, but most evidence seems to suggest that some new artificial intelligence systems went haywire, and determined that humanity needed to be either exterminated entirely, or at the very least culled to a “manageable” level. Other records suggest that this was supposed to be a “planned culling” of the global population orchestrated by the wealthiest elite of humanity to “reorganize the world order.”
Whoever or whatever planned this, however, could not foresee how horribly off-the-rails things would go.
A sudden wave of border incidents sparked war between the global superpowers for the first time in decades, exacerbated by media manipulation on both sides. New diseases emerged, somehow resistant to the latest vaccines and medicines available. Environmental reclamation efforts suddenly failed, causing climate collapse in vulnerable areas. When the first few nukes erupted, it was practically expected at that point.
What was not expected was the results. The day of the nuclear apocalypse coincided with a syzygy of various celestial bodies. This cosmic alignment, along with the death of millions of people across the world, their psychic energies released all at once, unknowingly closed a necromantic ritual. Everywhere the Nukes detonated, the fireballs disappeared, the mushroom cloud remaining and turning into whirling storms of raging magical energy irradiating outward.
The energy from these storms raced across the worlds along straight paths of energy (which would later be identified as ley lines). Along these paths, reality would start breaking down; freak weather conditions would abound, from thick fog banks to mysterious thunderstorms. In many areas, when these freak storms (which would become known as Banestorms for some reason) faded away, so did everyone within their radius, somehow replaced.
Sometimes, these replacements were just normal people who remembered history somewhat differently. Other times, these replacements were far stranger; alien beings, supernatural creatures, beings come out of mythology, or even odder entities. People were not the only thing being replaced by those freak storms; buildings, whole communities, even entire natural regions across the world, disappeared and were replaced by beings and structures from alien worlds.
And among these new transported visitors were a wide range of dangerous threats, both supernatural and mundane. Demons and monsters out of humanity’s worst nightmares. Rebellious machines and rampaging nanobot swarms. Hordes of undead monsters that could only be described as “Zombies.” And most strange of all, actual Magic returning to the world.
As a result of all this turmoil, society as a whole collapsed on a global scale. The great powers collapsed into multiple nation-states scrambling to secure their borders, and one by one, all of those ended up collapsing into general anarchy.
What followed was at least a hundred years of the New Dark Ages. The great nations were gone, replaced by scattered communities centered around various forms of protection, be they military protection, secure vaults, or even powerful magic users, psionicists or stranger forms of power.
In recent years, new powers have arisen in North America and across the world, new nations formed by both human communities, as well as Newcomers brought from the Banestorms. One of the most powerful of these is a collection of technologically advanced city-states calling themselves the New America Republican Coalition; they claim themselves the true descendents of the old American Empire, and claim to value liberty and democracy, seeking to reclaim Earth for Humanity.
To the loyal humans within its borders, the N.A.R.C. is the last bastion of human sovereignty left in North America. To those outside its borders, it’s an imperialistic power seeking to assimilate other human communities to expand their power. To nonhumans within and outside its borders, it’s a xenophobic army seeking to subjugate, if not exterminate, anyone that doesn’t fit their arbitrary definition of “Pure Human.” To free thinkers, it’s a hypocritical nation that claims to value liberty, while actually running a police state where dissent is forbidden.
The NARC is many things; it can be the main threat of a Rebellion campaign, the patron of a Helldivers-style military campaign, or a mere background element of a wandering raiders campaign.
There are other nations in the present day, and those will be covered in future updates.
