From the first pale years of the 2030s into the long, bruised dusk of the 2040s, technology advanced with a relentless hunger that seemed almost alive. Each year brought a new cascade of inventions, each more dazzling than the last, each promising salvation, comfort, and a future drawn in luminous neon lines. The cities glowed with it. Towers climbed higher, their skins of glass and smart-steel shimmering with data and light. Networks threaded through every surface and every mind, whispering possibilities into the not-so-quiet hours of the night. It was an age that told itself it had conquered limitation. That distance, disease, and scarcity were relics of a more primitive time.. if one could afford it. Yet for every miracle unveiled in a polished hall or a broadcast announcement, something quieter slipped away. Rivers lost their clarity and turned to slow, choking veins with a chemical sheen. Forests thinned until they were memory more than place, a thought in the mind of the few who could remember them. The air, once something breathed without thought, became a hazard. Progress did not arrive alone. It brought a shadow that lengthened with every step forward.
The warnings had begun long before the collapse could no longer be denied. Scientists, activists, and scattered communities raised their voices in reports, marches, and desperate petitions. They spoke of tipping points already crossed and others close behind, of warming seas that swallowed coastlines and of storms that grew teeth and damages far in excess of anything seen previously. Their words were clear, their evidence overwhelming, yet they found themselves speaking to a proverbial wall. Corporate powers, entrenched and vast, held the levers that could have altered the course of things, and they chose profit and control over preservation. Governments, bound by debt, influence, or fear, hesitated until hesitation became habit. Those who pressed harder found themselves sidelined. Some were discredited through quiet campaigns that painted them as radicals or frauds. Others simply vanished from the public eye, their absence explained away in the dry language of legal notice or not explained at all. The lesson spread quickly and settled deep. Caring carried a cost that few could afford to pay.
Even as the planet faltered, the engines of energy roared to new heights. Fusion reactors, long the dream of a cleaner age, finally stabilized under the guidance of refined algorithms and exotic materials. Fission plants were rebuilt and reimagined, their designs safer, their yields greater, their networks integrated into grids that spanned continents. Cities that had once dimmed under rolling blackouts now burned bright through every hour of the day and night. There was triumph in that light, a sense that humanity had at last seized the fire it had chased for generations. Yet the same mastery fed a darker appetite. New nuclear armaments, smaller, more precise, and devastating in their efficiency, entered silent arsenals. Nations spoke of deterrence and stability, while quietly testing delivery systems that could cross oceans in minutes or slip unseen through orbital paths. The balance of power grew more brittle, not less, as each advance invited a countermeasure. The atom, once split in terror and awe, became a tool wielded with calculated confidence, and the world learned to live beneath a sky that might burn without warning.
Medicine transformed with equal ferocity. Genetic modification, once tentative and controversial, matured into a suite of procedures that could rewrite the body at its most fundamental level. Diseases that had plagued humanity for centuries receded into footnotes and archived footage. Cancers were corrected before they could take root. Viruses found themselves without purchase in hosts whose cells had been taught to recognize and neutralize them before infection could bloom. It was a revolution that should have been universal in its benefit. Instead, it was parceled out along lines of wealth and status. Clinics that offered full genomic optimization stood behind layers of security and cost that few could breach. The wealthy emerged from these sanctuaries with bodies tuned for longevity, resilience, and performance. Their children were born with these advantages written into every strand of their being. Meanwhile, vast populations made do with older treatments, partial fixes, or none at all. The divide between those who could afford to edit their fate and those who could not grew into a chasm that shaped every aspect of society.
From this same well of genetic mastery came the soldiers. At first they were marketed as enhanced security personnel, guardians capable of protecting high value assets in a world that had grown more volatile. They were stronger, faster, and more resilient than any baseline human. Their reflexes were honed, their senses sharpened, their loyalty reinforced through a mix of conditioning and carefully curated identity. As conflicts simmered and flared across regions strained by resource scarcity and migration, these enhanced forces found wider application. Private militaries expanded, their ranks filled with individuals engineered for obedience and efficiency. Governments contracted them for operations that needed to be swift and decisive, or deniable. The line between human and weapon blurred. For those born or altered into these roles, choice was a concept that faded into abstraction. They were tools shaped by the will of those who paid for their creation.
Each breakthrough carried a cost that was rarely included in the announcement. The rare earth minerals that fed the new reactors and the ever expanding lattice of devices were torn from the ground in operations that scarred landscapes and poisoned water tables. Communities near these extraction zones bore the brunt of contamination and displacement, their protests muffled by contracts and security forces. The data centers that powered the world's networks consumed staggering amounts of energy and water, their cooling systems drawing on resources that surrounding regions increasingly lacked. Even the miracle of genetic medicine relied on supply chains that stretched through exploited labor and fragile ecosystems. Progress demanded inputs, and those inputs were taken wherever they could be found at the lowest cost to those who demanded them, not those who paid the price in health and home.
In the great urban sprawls that became the primary habitat for humanity, life took on a rhythm dictated by systems that few fully understood. Megacities rose behind walls and domes, their interiors regulated to maintain livable conditions as the world beyond grew harsher. Within these enclosures, climate was controlled, air was filtered, and food was cultivated in vertical farms that climbed like green spires between towers of steel. The wealthy occupied the upper tiers, where light was plentiful and views were curated to hide the decay beyond the walls. Lower levels housed the majority, their streets lit by artificial suns and screens that projected a curated sky. Outside, the land struggled. Droughts turned fertile regions into dust bowls. Floods erased coastlines and displaced millions. Refugees moved in waves toward the cities, only to find barriers both physical and bureaucratic standing in their path.
Information itself became both a tool and a weapon. The same networks that connected people across continents also served as channels for surveillance and control. Algorithms learned to predict behavior, to shape it, to nudge populations toward desired outcomes. News could be tailored to reinforce certain narratives, dissenting voices buried beneath floods of distraction or disinformation. Those who spoke too loudly against the prevailing order found their access curtailed, their reputations dismantled piece by piece. In some cases, more direct measures were employed. The disappearance of a prominent critic or organizer would be followed by a brief cycle of speculation, then silence. In a world saturated with stimuli, attention moved on quickly, and the absence settled into the background noise of an age accustomed to loss.
Culture adapted in strange and often contradictory ways. There was a hunger for authenticity in a world increasingly mediated by screens and synthetic experiences. Underground movements formed that sought to reconnect with what remained of the natural world. Small communities established themselves in the margins, in regions deemed too marginal or too dangerous to exploit further. They cultivated what they could, shared resources, and passed down knowledge that might have otherwise been lost. At the same time, vast segments of the population retreated into digital environments that offered escape from the pressures of daily life. Virtual landscapes flourished, some idyllic and pastoral, others fantastical, all designed to provide a sense of control and possibility that reality no longer reliably offered. The line between these realms and the physical world blurred, as work, social interaction, and even governance found expression in both spaces.
Amid this, the language of hope persisted, though it often rang hollow. Corporations spoke of sustainability initiatives, of carbon capture and circular economies. Governments announced accords and targets, timelines that stretched just far enough into the future to avoid immediate accountability. There were genuine efforts within these structures, individuals and groups who sought to bend the arc toward something more just and balanced. Yet they operated within systems that rewarded short term gain and punished deviation. The inertia of profit and power proved difficult to overcome. Incremental improvements were celebrated even as the larger trajectory remained unchanged.
The human cost of this era was measured not only in statistics but in the texture of daily life. Families were split across regions by economic necessity or displacement. Work became both more specialized and more precarious, with automation eliminating some roles while creating new ones that demanded skills and augmentations not everyone could access. Mental health struggles grew as people navigated a world that felt simultaneously hyperconnected and isolating. The sense of shared reality fractured, replaced by overlapping narratives that rarely aligned. Trust, once a quiet foundation of communities, eroded under the strain.
Yet even in this landscape of imbalance and loss, there were moments of resilience and grace. In neighborhoods pressed close together, people formed networks of mutual aid, sharing food, knowledge, and care. Artists found ways to reflect the age back upon itself, using the very technologies that had reshaped the world to question and critique it. Scientists continued to search for solutions, some working within established institutions, others forming independent collectives that operated on principles of open access and shared benefit. Small victories accumulated in pockets, rarely enough to shift the global tide, but sufficient to remind those involved that change, however limited, was still possible.
By the late 2040s, the shape of the world had been irrevocably altered. The promises of the early decades had not been entirely false. There was more energy available than ever before, more knowledge, more capacity to shape matter and life. But the distribution of those gains had followed the contours of power rather than need. Ecological collapse had not arrived as a single apocalyptic moment, but as a series of cascading failures that became the new normal. Seasons shifted, storms intensified, species vanished. Humanity adapted as it always had, but adaptation carried its own costs and compromises.
In looking back across those years, it became clear that every leap forward had been accompanied by a shadow that few had been willing to fully acknowledge at the time. The brilliance of new technologies had dazzled the eye, drawing attention away from the systems of extraction and exclusion that supported them. The rhetoric of inevitability had smoothed over the reality of choice, of paths not taken because they threatened existing hierarchies. The world that emerged was one of astonishing capability paired with profound inequity, a testament to both the heights of human ingenuity and the depths of human short sightedness.
And still, within that world, the story did not end. Even in a time defined by imbalance, there remained those who sought to redress it, who worked to reclaim what could be reclaimed and to protect what still endured. Their efforts were often small in scale, fragile against the forces arrayed against them, yet they persisted. In that persistence lay a different kind of progress, one not measured in patents or profits, but in the stubborn refusal to accept that suffering and loss were the only possible outcomes of advancement. It was a quieter current, running beneath the roar of reactors and the hum of data, but it was there, waiting for a moment when it might swell into something capable of reshaping the course of things yet again.
Scarcity did not descend in a single, dramatic collapse. It crept into daily life with a slow and suffocating patience that made it easy to ignore at first and impossible to deny in time. Crops failed in one region and strained another. Water tables dropped, then fell away entirely in places that had once relied on them without question. Shipping lanes grew dangerous as storms intensified and piracy rose in the gaps left by weakened states. Markets fluctuated, then shattered. Governments issued assurances, then ration cards. As the pressure mounted, the nations of the world began to look outward with a calculating gaze. Diplomacy grew sharper, edged with threats that were not always spoken aloud. Leaders who had once pledged cooperation began to measure their neighbors as competitors, then as targets. The logic was simple and brutal. If your people were to eat and drink and breathe, then someone else might have to go without.
The first clashes were small enough to be dismissed as regional disputes. A border skirmish in a desert where an aquifer had shifted course. A naval engagement over a convoy rumored to carry medical supplies that could not be replaced. Each incident was accompanied by statements that framed it as a limited action, a regrettable necessity, a temporary measure. Yet each one left behind graves and grudges. Alliances that had been formed for trade or defense began to creak under the strain of competing needs. Aid shipments were diverted. Treaties were interpreted in ways that favored the powerful. When the first of the Mega Storms rolled across the oceans and into the continents, tearing through cities and farmland alike, the fragile balance broke. The storms did not respect borders, but the aftermath did. Nations hoarded what they could salvage and braced themselves for the next blow.
War did not announce itself with a single trumpet call. It spread like fire through dry grass, catching where conditions were right and jumping gaps that should have contained it. One nation moved to secure a neighboring region rich in resources. Another responded in defense of a treaty partner. A third seized the opportunity to settle a long simmering dispute. Within a handful of years, the map began to change in ways that were both subtle and catastrophic. Smaller and less wealthy countries found themselves unable to withstand the pressure. Some were annexed outright, their governments replaced and their populations absorbed into new systems that cared little for their identity. Others fractured under internal strain and were carved up by stronger neighbors who moved in under the pretense of stabilization. The human cost climbed quickly into the millions. Cities were bombarded, supply lines cut, populations displaced. It was a scale of suffering that would have defined an era in another time. Here, it was only the beginning.
Conflict has always been a crucible for innovation, and this war proved no different. Cybernetics, which had been advancing in controlled environments and limited applications, found a vast and urgent testing ground. At first the enhancements were restricted to the military of a single nation that had invested heavily in research and development. Soldiers were fitted with neural interfaces that allowed them to process information faster and coordinate with machines in real time. Limbs lost in battle were replaced with prosthetics that were stronger and more responsive than flesh. Implants regulated pain, enhanced vision, filtered toxins. The advantages were immediate and stark. Other nations took note, and the race began. What had been a closely guarded edge became a global standard in a matter of years. Production scaled at a pace that would have been unthinkable in peacetime. Civilian applications followed close behind, marketed as tools for survival in a world that was growing more dangerous by the day. In a short span of time, the presence of metal and circuitry beneath the skin became commonplace, a visible marker of an age that had embraced augmentation as both shield and weapon.
As the conflicts multiplied, the realization dawned slowly and then all at once. This was not a series of isolated wars. It was a world war in all but name, a web of battles and campaigns that spanned continents and oceans. Alliances formed in haste, driven by shared threats or mutual convenience. They were rarely stable. The pressures that had pushed nations into conflict in the first place did not disappear when they stood shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy. Resources remained scarce, ambitions remained sharp, and trust was a commodity in even shorter supply than food or fuel. Agreements were broken when it suited the signatories. Offensives were launched without warning. The phrase everyone against everyone else ceased to be hyperbole and became a grim description of reality.
The weapons deployed in this environment reflected both the technological heights humanity had reached and the moral depths it was willing to plumb. Conventional arms were supplemented by systems that could cripple infrastructure, poison ecosystems, and erase populations with chilling efficiency. There were munitions that turned fertile land into sterile dust, agents that lingered in water and air long after their initial deployment, and strikes that combined kinetic force with cascading technological sabotage. One entire continent, once home to a tapestry of cultures and biomes, was reduced to an uninhabitable wasteland over the course of brutal campaigns that left its soil scorched and its skies tainted. Survivors fled or perished. The land itself seemed to recoil from what had been done to it.
History would later mark that date for the formal beginning of the war, though those who lived through it knew that the lines were far less clean. June 13th, 2056 became the day etched into records and memorials. On that day, Australia was struck with a ferocity that stunned even a world already accustomed to violence. A barrage of nuclear detonations, coordinated with other weapons designed to maximize destruction, shattered the continent. Cities became craters and ash. Infrastructure collapsed. Those who survived the initial onslaught faced a landscape stripped of support, with radiation seeping into everything that remained. Many died in the weeks that followed from exposure or starvation, cut off from aid that could not reach them in time or at all. The world recoiled, then continued on its trajectory, because by that point the machinery of war was too vast and too entrenched to halt.
In the years that followed, the pace of innovation did not slow. By 2060, near full body prostheses had been developed that could replace almost every part of the human form with engineered components. These bodies could withstand conditions that would have killed a natural human, operate in environments that were otherwise inaccessible, and interface seamlessly with the systems that now governed so much of daily life. At the same time, frictionless drive technology emerged, allowing for the movement of goods and weapons with a speed and efficiency that transformed logistics. Supply lines became less vulnerable to disruption, and offensives could be launched with unprecedented coordination across vast distances. These advances did not bring peace. They made the continuation of war more feasible, more sustainable, and more devastating.
Then came a leap that altered the fabric of reality itself. Pocket Dimension technology, often abbreviated as PD, represented a breakthrough that seemed to defy the limits of space. By folding space in controlled ways, engineers created storage and transport capacities that far exceeded what was possible in conventional dimensions. Weapons could carry reserves that never seemed to deplete. Vehicles could conceal entire arsenals within compact frames. Supply caches could be hidden in plain sight, accessible only to those with the keys to unfold them. For those with the means to acquire and control PD systems, it was a revolution in capability. For those without, it was another reminder of the gulf that separated them from the powers that shaped their world. The downtrodden, already pressed down by scarcity and conflict, found themselves further marginalized in an age where even the concept of capacity had been redefined by those at the top.
Amid this turmoil, a revelation that had lingered at the edges of rumor and myth broke into the open. Mortals discovered and then confirmed the existence of Supernaturals. Vampires who had moved unseen through history, Werewolves who had guarded or ravaged the wild places, and other beings that had been consigned to folklore were now undeniable. Evidence surfaced in the chaos of war, in encounters that could not be explained away, in data that slipped past censors and into the public eye. The reaction was immediate and volatile. Fear surged, fueled by generations of stories that painted these beings as monsters. Some saw them as potential allies or weapons in a war that had already consumed so much. Others saw them as an abomination to be purged.
The Church, drawing on ancient doctrines and newly fervent conviction, condemned the Supernaturals in the strongest terms. Publicly it called for vigilance and moral fortitude. In secret, it began to train an order known as the Commandments. This group was dedicated to hunting and destroying those deemed cursed, operating in the shadows with the blessing of those who believed they were carrying out a divine mandate. Their methods were disciplined and ruthless, informed by both faith and the technologies of the age. Nations responded in varied ways. Some enacted policies that barred Supernaturals from their territories or sanctioned their extermination. Others, driven by pragmatism or different beliefs, sought to integrate or ally with them. This new dynamic added layers of conflict to an already fractured world, as old prejudices and new fears intertwined.
The war ground on through another decade, its toll mounting to numbers that defied comprehension. The global population had swelled to nearly twenty billion before the worst of the conflict took hold. Over the course of those years, around seven billion lives were lost to violence, disease, famine, and the cascading effects of a world pushed beyond its limits. Entire generations were defined by loss. Children grew up in environments where destruction was the norm, where the concept of a stable peace was something their parents spoke of in tones that mixed nostalgia with disbelief.
By 2070, a new class of power had stepped fully into the open. Mega Corporations, fattened by years of profit from selling weapons, technology, and services to the warring nations, had amassed wealth and influence that rivaled or exceeded that of states. Among them, Pentex stood as a colossus, a conglomeration of umbrella companies with interests that spanned every sector of the economy and beyond. These entities possessed private armies, advanced research divisions, and the logistical networks to project force wherever they chose. They had supplied the war. Now they would shape its outcome.
There was no formal declaration when the Mega Corporations entered the arena as combatants. One day, coordinated strikes began to occur across multiple regions. Key infrastructure was targeted. Communication networks were seized or disrupted. Military assets were neutralized with precision that spoke of deep intelligence and overwhelming capability. Nations that had been struggling to maintain their footing against traditional enemies found themselves facing an opponent that did not operate within the same frameworks. Some governments collapsed quickly, unable to respond to the speed and scale of the assault. Others fought back and were ground down over time, their resources insufficient against foes who controlled the very supply chains on which modern warfare depended. In the aftermath, territories were not annexed in the old sense. They were absorbed into corporate domains, their populations reclassified as assets, their governance restructured to serve the interests of their new masters.
Over the next eight years, this process continued until the map of the world bore little resemblance to what it had been at the start of the century. By 2078, all but one of the old nations had fallen or been subsumed. The world was now largely run by the Mega Corporations, which had established a Council among their leaders to coordinate policy, manage conflicts, and divide spoils. It was a form of governance that prioritized efficiency and profit, with little regard for the rights or well being of those under its control beyond what was necessary to maintain productivity and order.
The lone nation that remained independent did so through a combination of resilience, geography, and a willingness to endure losses that would have broken others. It stood as a symbol for those who still believed in the idea of self determination, a beacon that suggested the corporate order was not inevitable. For years it resisted, fighting off incursions, adapting to new tactics, and forging alliances where it could. Its people paid dearly for this defiance, but they held on.
That resistance came to an end on December 20th, 2080. On that day, the United States, battered by years of conflict and isolation, surrendered to Pentex and the other Mega Corporations. The terms were not publicly detailed, but the result was clear. The last of the old world's nations had fallen. The era that followed would be shaped not by flags and constitutions, but by logos and ledgers, by councils of executives whose decisions would determine the fate of billions in a world that had been remade through fire, ambition, and the relentless march of technology.
MegaCorps: