Lore



Paris, circa 1896. The University of Paris

Midday sun beams through the writhing coils of the trees outside, beating a flickering shadow upon the window and the desk inside, lighting a small space leaving the majority of the room in darkness. Marie Curie, daughter of Pierre Curie, pioneer in the area of physics, is examining uranium salts in her laboratory in the University of Paris; a few stray beams of light dance over her work, giving barely enough illumination to see what she is doing, the dark oak seemingly absorbing the dim light around the salt, consuming its tainted glow. Most of her work had been average, a normal lecturer in the field of physics, but this was meant to be the work that would mark her name upon history, the work that would change the world.

It did, we all know that, but, this time the change was different.

Heavy Uranium salt spread across the desk as Marie push the electrometer into its midst, taking measurements, comparing, experimenting. Her hand tingled a little as the electrometer registered an electric field; noting this down, she went over to the other salts in the room, applying the same test to each one of them. Taking in the difference between uranium salt, she left the room, locked the door, and walked off to dinner. A shadow in one of the grimy corners of the room seemed to move as she left, not an eye was left in the room to take in that sight.

The shadow seemed to come unfurled, straightened itself into the silhouette of a large man, and strode over to the salts. The figure showed no signs of humanity – each step was perfect, pre-programmed, the same -, it packed the Uranium salt into a cube, crushed it into a block, and then tore through the laboratory’s supplies until it had gathered enough dust to compress into a meter cubed cube. If only it were that someone had walked in now, they may have died, but, this was the point at which time irreversibly tore.

The man-figure, still as dark as it was in the corner, smashed through the window, and allowed itself to be embraced by the coils of the tree, melting down its side and back into the darkness of the twisted streets. By the time anyone came to investigate, it was far too late; the man-shadow had got what he needed, there was no changing anything – that point had already been passed. The man-figure tore across Paris’s streets, skipping from tree to stall to alcove, camouflaged in shadow, flitting through the light. At nightfall, it had reached roughly the centre. Reaching into itself, the Uranium cube emerged from the recesses of its body; he squeezed, did something with it, and hell tore through the world. Nuclear fire, radiation and pressure shook apart the city. Many died in the initial blast, many more by debris and plagues over the next week, after that, the few survivors banded together, searching through the ruins of their cities, fearful of the future, terrified of the past. The radiation from the blast even deformed the creatures of the wilds, giving them strange characteristics.

This was the event that set our history back, tore out humanity’s throat, and left only the scum of the earth – the rich and their minions – behind. They were no longer rich, but now they had a blank canvas to paint their corporate dreams upon.

Over the course of the decades following the event, the Earth took back the cities that had scarred her surface; nature took hold, in its new way; a large amount of the planet was heavily irradiated from the event, and anomalous substances began to appear, alongside these changes were two corporate groups; both of whom were keen to edge their technology ahead of the others, yet they advanced at the same rate, over all this time, with the exception of our knowledge of nuclear radiation and electricity, we have not come much further than where we were before – barely recovering from the event. Most of our devices still rely entirely on steampower and pipes, although a few of the groups have garnered some success from oil or electric power, they are far from reliable or widely used – the cost and skill required to use and maintain such futuristic technology lying beyond that of an average group. However, under the watchful eye of these groups, technology flourished, going beyond anything we have today.

Worldwide, circa 1974.

In the intervening years, technological advance flourished far beyond what we have in the "present". Nuclear power a go-to solution, teleportation, mass mining, aspects of technology that are beyond futuristic. All of this down to a single change in the course of history, although this advance came at a price; War. Culture was left mostly abandoned as corporations tore down surviving structures to use in their own battle; history, art, entertainment, enjoyment... all lay forgotten as humanity's mind turned to grab two things: profit and energy. Still, the only ones with the clout to get this tech easily were the mega-corps, anyone else had to survive, dig, and build.

Author: friedhumanpie