Setting, Part 1

Well, I said I'd blog some setting things, so it's time to start on that, with the general state of the world.  The setting is futuristic scifi, with heavy cyberpunk elements and maybe a few light touches of transhumanism.  But, I'm not too fond of a lot of implications of "transhumanism," so it's not going to be much of a thing.  The world's been relatively stable and peaceful, but 20 (or more) years ago, a series of meteor impacts killed millions and caused severe damage to infrastructure across entire regions.  The status-quo was quickly disrupted, by this event, and things have been getting worse since. 

The meteors brought additional problems, as after the impacts, the Mist came.  The Mist is one part weather pattern, one part terraforming system.  It usually spreads slowly, and never dissipates over areas where it's taken hold.  In those same areas, it changes the land, and everything in it, altering it into an alien landscape.  I'm not sure yet whether it should be meat moss and biology gone awry, inorganic beauty like forests of metal and crystal, or a little of both.  Whatever the case, the Mist changes the world, in strange ways.  It alters any animal or plant life just as well, usually resulting in mutations or death.  It wouldn't be too bad if that's all it did, though.  It can be dangerous to people, as it'll do to them the same as to anything else, but with sealed protective clothing, you can go out in it just fine.  And brief exposure is usually safe.  Sometimes, though, something takes hold, and results in horrible mutations or crystallization of a limb, or what-have-you.  Good news is, whatever pathogen causes this is localized, so removing the affected areas stops it from getting worse.  Bad news is, losing an arm sucks even when cybernetic replacements are available. 

The Mist also harbors its own life.  Some sort of alien invaders, or so it seems.  They don't always show up, but they're usually very large, and very dangerous, when they do.  The general pattern is a large creature will exit the mist zone, and travel a preferably large distance away, where it settles down, takes root, and converts itself into a factory that starts spilling out more mist.  This is the general way in which mist spreads, outside of slow diffusion.  Sometimes, these monsters instead attack human population centers or industrial sites.  In any case, tit's preferred to destroy them rather than leave them alone, although this is rarely achieved without significant expenditure of firepower and loss of life.  Notably, the deaths of such creatures often release a large amount of mist particles into their immediate surroundings, posing a threat to the soldiers who had just defeated them, and requiring clean-up efforts to ensure the area is safe. 

As previously mentioned, the syndrome mist produces in humans is usually treated with cybernetics, and the mist itself seems to have little to no effect on machines or cybernetics of any sort.  Coupled with the threat of alien monstrosities, and the high amount of firepower and durability a cyborg represents compared to a normal human soldier, and most major nations now have a sizable and growing number of combat cyborgs within their ranks. 

That's enough for now.  Next time, I'll go over the specific nations.