Around now-ish the planet is hit with several massive pulses of… something from space that basically act as a multi-burst EMP, shutting down all microprocessors functioning on Earth. It doesn’t destroy any other hardware, and anything that was shut off at the time was fine, but it still caused a MASSIVE problem as cities and countries are plunged into chaos as infrastructure crumbles and electronics fail and die.
From there things go downhill - first world countries are hardest hit, there’s massive population die-off, revolutions and collapses and all that good stuff.
Fast forward maybe 150, 200 years and several generations and things have stabilised - the population is a fraction of what it was, the largest settlements are small cities, and though there’s still tech and the ability to generate electricity around most people eschew it in favour of more reliable sources of power, like steam.
Towns are connected by rail lines; people travel by steam engine, handcar, stagecoach/carriage, etc. Agriculture is quite big and most people contribute to it in some way (kids help harvest in the summer, there are celebrations after planting, etc). Think Victorian/western mashup in terms of technology, sensibility, aesthetic.
One other side effect from the strange pulse - people are sometimes born with strange abilities that manifest in their late childhood/adolescence, things like sensing emotion, being able to communicate without words, etc. Though they were initially viewed with much hostility that has started to fade, provided they don’t get up to anything too hinky.
NPC List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H1sgrynm3PPmPLFvx7ZVcn_Ds6Bv0rf7P3CNO4d8Rks/edit
Hosted and narrated by:
Erin 🐝 (erindubitably)
Started 07/03/14.
Scenes played: 11
License: Community License
