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The United States government effectively
ceased to hold absolute power within its
own borders in March of 1981 after President
Ronald Reagan was fatally shot by John Hinkley,
Jr. in a random act of insane obsession
with the actress Jodie Foster caused by
a strange fixation on the movie Taxi Driver,
though it would take 11 years of flailing
and collapse before the Union was officially
sundered. And who could have forseen such
a bizarre twist of fate? That a movie, a
form of popular entertainment, nothing more
than one more scion of increasingly mediocre
mass media could have so much influence
on the tapestry of history as to shatter
the most powerful nation the world had ever
seen? |
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Years later Hinkley would be among the first
diagnosed as having EIO, a form of psychosis
caused by Extreme Information Overload;
exposure to too much sensory input via mass
media, an ever growing problem in a world
increasingly beset by overwhelming streams
of information that converge into a veritible
flood of unnatural stimuli. But by then
people had much bigger concerns than "why
Hinkley did it". |
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The US was in shambles. Coming off the unpopular
Carter administration plus long years of
frustration and decline before that from
the unrest of the 60's and 70's and the
Vietnam War era, and beset from within by
massive society-altering technological strides
the Pax Americana that had kept the "Sleeping
Giant" nation snoozing for so long
destabilized and finally failed after the
death of the charismatic leader so many
had staked their hopes upon. In the aftermath
the nascent Bush administration was unable
to restore balance, and it wasnt long before
the power of the US Government no longer
spread from sea to shining sea. The nation
tore itself apart in a slow decline into
anarchy from 1981 to 1992.
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As government declined, organizations exerted
ever increasing influence on their employees,
their familys, and the environs around their
power bases. Soon the map of "American"
power more closely resembled the era of
the "Robber Barons" of the 1880s
and 90s than anything recognizable to a
modern American.
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Finally the Pacific American Federation
of Free Cities (PacFed) secceeded from the
Union in 1992, like a chunk breaking from
an iceberg with a resounding CRACK. And
just like that, the once glorious US of
A, she of storied star and fabled stripe,
was no more as regional alliances were formed
and added their names to the list of secession
over the next year. |
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And as America fell the world shook, shockwaves
of power rolling out, and then an implosion
as foreign powers were sucked in to fill
the sudden void. Japan, already strong in
the Pacific rim, became a major presense
in the PacFed. German companies established
heavy footholds in the New Colonial Union
(NCU), and Russia annexed most of Alaska
faster than you could say Zdravstvuite.
Without US funding and strong arming the
UN became a completley toothless entity,
and though it never officially disbanded
it ceased to have any relevance and faded
to a handful of squabling nations sprinkled
with some well meaning people. |
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Of course it was assumed that the Soviets
would swell to dominance without American
opposition, but quite the opposite was true;
deprived of the Great Enemy to bogeyman
factions into line the internal inequities
and strife that had plagued the Soviet Union
since the October Revolution 80 years before
saw the Iron Curtain crumble from within
as the Central Committee fractured and member
states melted away.
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By 1992 the world was a very different place
than it had been just a decade previously.
But with the fall of world powers, smaller
nations vied for power with themselves and
also the growing might of swelling Mega
Corporations, huge conglomerates with sufficient
wealth and clout to effectively be sovereign
entities. |
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Of the old nations Japan and Germany, ironically,
were the strongest. Canada absorbed parts
of Alaska and some adjoining US states,
particularly in the great lakes fringe,
and renewed old alliances with England and
Australia as the Commonwealth was reinvigorated,
but as more of a true triumvirate than the
old London dominated hegemony. |
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Several US successor states held on to power
as well, though greatly reduced from the
previous American dominance. The PacFed
collection of Free States arose as a commercial
power, while the old New England states
comprising the NCU leveraged their control
of Boston and their new capital of NYC to
maintain some solvency, and many an old
truck bore what proved to be prophetic bumper
stickers as the South rose again. The New
Confederacy with Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas,
and all the states south of Maryland and
Pennsylvania emerged as a viable nation.
Despite the term "Confederacy",
slavery was not reinstituited; life continued
much as it had under the old red white &
blue, but the New Confederacy was definitely
arch-conservative and self-righteous.. |
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The world spanning and ongoing socio-political-commercial
power struggle, the general sense of upheaval
in people's everyday lives, and the changes
in the basic quality of life for people
all over the globe was so great that no
one really noticed in 1989 when European
science juggernaut CERN announced in a typically
off handed fashion that pursuant to some
project or other a contractor working for
them created a shared consciousness virtual
reality technology which they were unofficially
calling Neuralized EnquiryTechnology, or
NET for short. |
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It was only a couple years later when the
bugs had been smoothed out that this new
technology, mentioned as an afterthought
to some other "real" project,
grew to consume the world at a rate that
defied prediction or convention, spreading
from one techie to another across all boundaries
of human society. Turns out there was a
slight misspelling in that well trod nostrum
of yore; the geek would inherit the
Earth, and the NET would be the vehicle
by which they did so. |
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The incredible efficiencies and advantages
inherent to the NET ensured that cutting
edge companies would embrace it, and many
new companies (both viable and not so) sprang
up around it. By 1992 as the USA was in
its deaththrows, the NET was the single
most significant new idea in business. With
the expansion of the NET into commercial
venture there came vast growth in infotech,
and with infotech came new forms of espionage,
and with new forms of espionage came new
forms of security, and with security inevitably
came violence.
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Without strong central governments to step
in and legislate, mediate, or adjudicate
a storm of corporate espionage, sabotage,
and infighting gripped companies everywhere
in an escalating cycle that eventually became
marked by violence in many areas of the
world. Things rose to a head in 1998 and
numerous corporations suffered huge damages
from the internecine struggle; many collapsed
or were consumed by corporate raiders including
the beleaguered old giant Bell Telephone
& Telegraph. |
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An uneasy truce set in as winter claimed
the millennia, while CEOs and BoDs collectively
drew their breath, licked their wounds,
and considered their options. The peace
didnt last of course; it was only a matter
of time. In 2001 rumors which had been floating
around the NET and news services about teams
of mercenaries being employeed by corporations
to conduct covert missions on their behalf
were proven to be true when "Daring"
Darius Lee was skyrocketed to fame thanks
to an ambitious journalist who documented
the aftermath of his raid on a Bio-Corps
facility outside of Seatac (Greater Seattle-Tacoma).
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Though not the first or even the most accomplished
of the early"Runners" (as the
nascent new career came to be known), "Daring"
Lee was the first to be covered by mass
media and thus was the basis for what people
the world over thought a "Runner"
was supposed to be like. This would have
quite an effect on the nature of the business
for decades to come. |
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Darius had suffered severe injuries during
the Corporate Wars of the late 90's and
had received numerous cybernetic replacements
to sustain his life. Not one to be dettered,
he learned to use his cybernetics as a boon
in his line of work and pressed on. However,
though he was actually very unusual for
his cybernetics, due to his recognition
factor a new wave of would be Runners sought
to emulate him and had themselves upgraded
with elective cybernetics and other forms
of bio enhancement.
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Over the next decade and a half the world
more or less settled into a routine as matters
took their course and a sort of parity or
balance was found among nations and Mega
Corps. Then a new turn of events was introduced;
by 2009 advances in genetics and a world
culture infected with the idea of improvement
through science ensured that genetically
tweaked invirto births were, while not common,
within reach of the successful and wealthy.
Some Mega Corps even offered such services
as benefits to certain strata of employees.
Eugenics was alive and well in the Brave
New Millennia. |
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However by 2019 it was becoming clear that
some of the original crops of genetically
enhanced children then passing through puberty
were more than just extra healthy and extra
smart and extra whatever; some of them evinced
remarkable metahuman abilities. Though rare
such individuals demanded special investigation
and consideration by their very nature and
vast resources were expended by Mega Corps
with an interest in genetic research to
discover exactly how the metahumans came
to be. |
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A little past a decade later scientists
the world over still have not been able
to determine exactly what causes such metahumans,
but some new ones crop up every year among
the ranks of genetically enhanced young
men and women. Many go on to have prosaic
careers of some sort or another, and most
have abilities that while remarkable ore
not applicable to combat or espionage. But
a few metahumans use their natural abilities
in a field where that sort of natural advantage
can make for an effective earner; i.e. some
metahumans seek lucrative careers as Runners,
giving cybered out street ronin and well
trained norms a run for their money. |
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The year is 2037; the millennia is 1/3 past
and the world is a dangerous place, but
an exciting one. There are great inequities
and the weak and unfortunate are shown little
mercy, but the strong and the daring can
rise to great wealth and even real power.
If they can survive....and that's a BIG
if.....
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