Constellation: The Setting

This is some background information for the setting I'm running for my strange mecha game. Since the players succeeded in escaping out into the wide world, it's time they finally got some backstory.

The world was going to break anyways, people at the time had just assumed it would be a slower, more gradual process. Underneath the meteor, the monsters, the war, famine, plague and all the myriad heralds of the end was the miraculous discovery that started it all. 

Fishing deep sea meteorites

Before the Rain

While the first case was never publicly identified, sometime after the turn into the 21st century discoveries were being made around the planet about rare, sudden cases of people displaying what would eventually be classified as an anomalous congenital malady: Spontaneous Instant Matter Synthesis, or SIMS. The affliction seemed to suddenly affect people regardless of age, gender, race, or other circumstance of birth around the world at rates of around one in one million people. 

Those affected by SIMS had the limited capacity to create objects directly from thought. As this was researched, it became clear that most people affected by SIMS lacked the finite control necessary for large scale or long duration creations, colloquially referred to as "manifestations", but the possibilities that this provided for production and research were well understood at the time, and a gold rush of unbelievable economic and technological growth was quickly driven by SIMS users. 

The Cyber Demon

 Of course, there were some problems along the way. SIMS users were notoriously difficult to control, and some of them were unable to keep their abilities in check- leading to several well publicized disasters. SIMS users who became too lost in their creations risked severe brain damage, psychosis, and in rare cases would lose their identity and sanity, devolving into roiling masses of everchanging flesh and matter- twisting everything they touch and leaving swathes of destruction in their waste. These cases, though rare and well covered up, began the demonization of those affected by SIMS, with some in the public calling them witches- leading to spurts of violent hunts through small communities worldwide.

Still, the progress that their powers brought was undeniable. While being unable to cause their manifestations to last very long, they were able to use them to manipulate extant matter, and with the proper priming and imaging techniques a SIMS user could manipulate matter all the way down to the subatomic level. Miracle materials began to be synthesized, medical cures beyond possibility, stable cold fusion, self-replicating nanomachines, and more were all within humanity's grasp. 

Around the same time as SIMS was discovered, however, incidents began to spring up around the world of unknown creatures appearing. Small, at first, some were just half-baked meat and matter that fell apart nearly instantly- but others were fast, smart, and deadly- fueling panic in small towns and tightening communities to defend against these threats. 

For the first few years, these creatures were more of an occasional nuisance- strange beasts ranging up to the size of a bear that would occasionally ransack a campground or attack cattle. These were bogeymen, rarely caught on camera and shared online with shaky early internet footage or blurry photos. This all changed with TERMINAL VAGRANT in 2011. 

 

95 feet tall, bipedal, no recognizable biology, covered in absorbent steel-like bone plating and with no regard for human life, TERMINAL VAGRANT left a trail of destruction through Ontario until the RCAF was able to bring enough AGM-65s and GBU-12s into play to put a stop to it. After TERMINAL VAGRANT, things moved quickly. 

Nations pointed fingers at one another, blaming each other for releasing bio-weapons to attack. The world's militaries were mobilized as monster after monster attacked around the planet. Speculation ran rampant about the source of the creatures, with most now calling them monsters or demons. The alien attack theory was very popular in the early days, and with good cause. Small meteorites were raking the through the sky with abnormal frequency and no recognizable source, sending the world's space agencies scrambling- leading many to believe they were seeing the start of an attack from as of yet unidentified aliens.

Constellation logo circa 2011

To defuse worldwide tensions and combine their efforts, 21 nations and corporate conglomerations created Constellation, an international organization dedicated to researching the ongoing monster phenomena and combating their activities. With researchers and militaries from around the world contributing their resources into Constellation, rapid response bases and research teams were quickly set up around the planet to analyze samples of recovered creatures and to respond to any large scale attacks.

Worldwide opinion was still undetermined on the new organization, which was unable to reduce the number of attacks but was able to respond to them quickly. Religious movements caught fire once more, linking those affected by SIMS with the monster attacks and holding them responsible. Witch hunts began with a new fervor, leading to Constellation offering asylum to SIMS users. Taking in these new personnel led to quick development of new techniques and materials to combat the evolving threat. 

Testbed

The first of the mechanized human frames (commonly called frames) were deployed to combat UNDOLANT JESTER, a dangerous monster that emerged in the foothills of the Alps near Liechtenstein. These frames proved to be more reliable and able to adapt to varied terrain than traditional light and heavy vehicles- taking advantage of SIMS-derived materials and technologies they proved to be critical in the future battles- especially as the evolving threat began to defeat more and more traditional weaponry. This period of time, lasting until 2033, is now known as the Onslaught.

As the attacks continued, the monsters that appeared evolved in their capabilities. Most frustratingly to the militaries at the time was their ability to dazzle and jam guided munitions, leading to warehouses of the most advanced weaponry being nearly unusable in combating the attacks- instead relying on dumb-fire rocketry and artillery where possible. The most significant ability of the monsters was their capability at not only defeating nuclear weaponry but being strengthened by it. RADIANT DAWN in Shanghai was the earliest demonstration of this phenomenon, and its transition post-nuclear strike into RADIANT DEVOURER put a moratorium on nuclear weapons usage for all but the most desperate nations. More and more, the monsters displayed unheard of abilities that could mold terrain, change the environment, affect electronics, and even alter people's minds.

Machina

 

Constellation efforts to pinpoint the source of the attacks drove a space race. While the planet below was becoming wreathed in unpredictable and previously unknown weather phenomena, Constellation established monitoring stations in orbit and even the first moon colony. Despite all these efforts, millions were dying every month from attacks and the natural consequences of war: plague and famine. Nations began to shift, populations moved, entire cities were uprooted and as borders began to waiver small conflicts sparked into full blown wars. While their most advanced munitions may not have been effective on the monsters that laid waste to towns and cities, they certainly were effective against their neighbors. Constellation began to supersede its national components, operating on its own without international approval- and sometimes even intervening in conflicts that proved especially jeopardizing. 

The Great Wyrm

 

RADIANT DEVOURER was the first of the monsters that "settled" in one area, leading to a warping phenomenon that changed the area it inhabited and spread- creating the Shanghai Exclusionary Zone. Soon, a number of other zones were established as Constellation proved unable to defeat their occupants, including several zones that exist today:

• HARBINGER WHITE: Ohio Exclusionary Zone
• PANTHER DYNAMIC: Sydney Exclusionary Zone
• FANATIC PYRE: Amazon Exclusionary Zone
• DEVIANT THUNDER: Norwegian Exclusionary Zone
• ABSOLUTE EMPEROR: North Pole Exclusionary Zone 
• WICKED EATER: Babylon Exclusionary Zone

MD NAD

 

These zones each displayed their own warping of established biomes and weather patterns, spreading even further chaos through world as their effects were felt by their neighboring regions. From within these zones, offspring of the "settling" monster would pour forth- leading to even more attacks. As the world began to fall apart and populations began attempting to fortify in defensible areas, Constellation announced they had actually discovered an extraterrestrial threat- though not an alien one. Twenty-five miles in diameter, nearly six times the size of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, and on approach to Earth, an asteroid dubbed Coyolxāuhqui, though commonly referred to by its more popular name as "The Hammer of God", would strike somewhere in South Africa on May 5th, 2033- just two months after the announcement. 

Efforts were scrambled to stop it, attacks were launched using primitive space-borne weaponry and the remainder of what could be found from the world's nuclear weapons supply- but the asteroid proved to be made of an extremely dense material and barely took a scratch from any attempts. Just before it broke into the atmosphere, Constellation undertook an undergoing shrouded in mystery: Operation Swordbreaker. Apparently successful- to some degree- Coyolxāuhqui's shell was brought into orbit around Earth- however its hyper-dense core was unaffected and impacted in South Africa, 25 miles northeast of Cape Town. Fractured chunks of the asteroid's shell would continue to rain down over the Earth for the next fifty-eight years, ushering in the era known as the Downpour.

The Hammer of God

Thunder and Lightning

The Hammer of God not only broke the camel's back- it rendered the camel into an unrecognizable gelatin and rained down camel for decades. Rock and ash was spewn from the impact crater across the hemisphere. The Hammer had already started tipping the dominoes, but its impact ensured a runaway Kessler Syndrome developing in low to high Earth orbit. The shards of the Hammer were highly reflective as well, creating a night's sky of thousands of shards of light in constant chaotic movement. Satellites were destroyed one by one and the era of global communication came to an end. The ash that filled the atmosphere from the impact crater and from the volcanic eruptions it triggered clouded the sky and temperatures around the planet plummeted. 

Fortifications around the planet that were under construction as sanctuaries from monster attacks were overwhelmed with refugees. During the Onslaught, the teetering world population had dropped from 9 to 8 billion. Over the course of the Downpour estimates hold that the world population receded to as low as 1.2 billion as a result of widespread famine. The already fragile ecosystem under strain from an assault of foreign biomes entirely collapsed. 

Synthesis

Some fared better than others. Constellation had prepared shelters which they retreated their staff and equipment to, holing up deep underground and effectively separating themselves from the rest of humanity that suffered above. Their activities during the Downpour aren't well understood, but it's believed that they continued research with SIMS users and their experimentation on the monsters, now called demons by most people. Data from this time is especially difficult to recover, but there are reports of Constellation operations throughout the Downpour to recover samples, acquire resources, and to recover personnel. 

 The rest of the world had to fare for itself. Some sanctuaries fell to infighting, unable to bear internal strife. Others would succumb to the environment, lack of food, lack of resources, and disappear with not even a whisper. Yet more were destroyed by demons, their onslaughts unimpeded by collapse of the world and climate around them. Eventually, some sanctuaries would suffer yet another burden- the threat from their neighbors, just as desperate as they were.

Throughout the first half of the Downpour, humanity floundered. But by the second half, recovery was underway. The nascent nations of humanity's Rebirth was fueled by the dreams of those born into the underground shelters. A small number of leaders and adventurers, known now to us as the Phoenixes, sought to find a way to bring humanity back from the brink. The sanctuaries would slowly make contact with one another, if only briefly- relying on high speed scouts to pass messages on the surface or through deep tunnels running between the closer sanctuaries. Plans were made, and the sanctuaries banded together into a loose organization that called itself Starfall- which included several breakaway elements of Constellation. 

Afterworld

Times were still dire, but shared resources and information allowed the constituent nations of Starfall to achieve huge leaps in a short few years. Recovered technology from the early days of Onslaught allowed the creation of frames once again- and of even more advanced technology. The stigma against SIMS was still high in the nations of Starfall, the majority of whom believe it was SIMS that brought the end of the world. Still, some of the remaining nanofabrication mills were able to replicate themselves, and advanced technology spread without the use of SIMS. 

Incidence of SIMS was on the rise in the background of the preceding decades. While originally just one in a million, the numbers had risen at this point to one in seventy-five thousand. Most nations in Starfall treated those with SIMS as monsters- but eventually the Staple was developed. A miraculous bundle of nanomaterial and living fibers, a Staple could be used on anyone afflicted with SIMS to completely suppress their abilities. Widespread adaptation of the technology diminished the stigma against SIMS sufferers, but secretive research continued with SIMS by Starfall in well shielded laboratories during this period. 

Nations boomed and pressed up on to the surface as the Downpour lessened. By 2070 there were over a hundred surface cities using frames as their security and slowly reclaiming the lands above. The effects of the global winter were diminishing fast- too fast. Ash and carbon dioxide were being absorbed and sealed away at an astonishing rate, with the source identified as unknown processes undertaken in the Exclusionary Zones across the planet. Cities and food production boomed once more as technology adapted, and Starfall made contact once more with Constellation in 2065. 

Boris Turano

Constellation had been developing in secret during the Downpour. What had started as an icy greeting became open hostilities as most Starfall nations directly blamed Constellation for sheltering SIMS users and for not aiding the rest of humanity during the Downpour. The conflict proved to be nearly one sided at first- as the Constellation fielded a new model of frames they called the Eidolons, heavily modified frames piloted by SIMS users whose abilities were augmented within their mechanized suits. Though few in numbers, the Eidolons were overwhelming on the battlefield. Starfall countered the Eidolons with a swarm of firepower, identifying that enough could be brought to bare to create an opening then the Eidolons were still as vulnerable as frames. 

This conflict, sometimes now called the War of Retribution, brought to light many discoveries about just what Constellation had been up to over the years. Advanced research had yielded an understanding of a method to induce SIMS in newborns, and Constellation created a number of SIMS incubators in secret across the planet where they raised legions of SIMS users called Academies. Treatment in these Academies and the methodologies employed in child rearing were viewed as vile by most of the Starfall nations, which emboldened their efforts in the war.

As the world above became more and more available, the scramble for resources began again and despite the ongoing war tensions developed amongst the nations of Starfall. One of the most controversial issues in Starfall is the utilization of exowombs to grow new citizens. With so much work to be done to recover the world and to combat not only Starfall but the demons that continued to plague their efforts, some nations in Starfall began to grow their own citizens using technology recovered and reverse engineered from the Academies. As they each grew to flex their own power, the Phoenix Nations of Starfall- those helmed either officially or unofficially by those who brought humanity back out of the rain- began to push at the boundaries of the tenuous agreement that binds them.

After the Storm

The Peripheral

The Downpour was declared ended in 2091. Small meteorites would still impact here and there, but they were well within acceptable limits. Throughout the years after the Downpour, the nations of Starfall consolidated power- absorbing through diplomacy or force their smaller neighbors. They expanded their borders- as far as the demonic presence would allow- and flexed their wings in the wider world. Communications- though still a challenge with satellite being unavailable- were typically rigged through a redundant balloon network with mounted line of sight transmitters. Radio itself was used in small, localized areas but interference from demons proved to rule long distance communication over more than 10 miles to be unfeasible. 

Conflict with Constellation is ongoing across the globe, but only in small theaters. Their forces rarely directly assault Starfall cities or fortifications, instead usually seen defending held territory fiercely. Starfall has been diligently building an information network to identify key Constellation strongholds and has gotten lucky with concentrated strikes and the occasional Constellation turncoats, including escaped "Academy Graduates", striking at several central laboratories and Academies, most recently liberating Academy 18.

Zygmunt and Zoska

Although life is improving for most people across the planet, demons continue to attack in spurts of violence. Their attacks diminished significantly during the Downpour, but tracking of their appearances since then have seen an increase in their assaults- leading some to believe there may be a Second Onslaught on the horizon. Reclamation of the Earth is a frequent discussion amongst Starfall nations, as the spread of Exclusionary Zones have cut off vital resources and land. Some zones have been cleared for habitation, however the small list of Exclusionary Zones from before the Downpour ballooned after the Downpour, leading to nearly half the planet being uninhabitable by humans. 

The year is now 2123. The War of Retribution is ongoing, but internal factors are increasingly affecting the nations of Starfall. Demon attacks are increasing, but Starfall is much better equipped and mobilized than the Constellation of the Onslaught.

Factions

Constellation: The secretive research organization continues to operate advanced frames and technology out of the grasp of Starfall. Recent operations have put Starfall on the upper hand, however the motives and means of the modern Constellation remain shrouded in mystery.

Starfall: Once the great military and research arm of the remains of humanity, now a cash and resource strapped military defense pact struggling to continue its mission.

Germania: Thriving from a theological revival, Germania holds that demons are in fact actual demons sent to test humanity, and therefore their destruction is a divine mission.

Antarctic League of Republics (ALR): One of the more neutral Starfall nations, the ALR sprouted with heavy exowomb usage during the Downpour to create thriving fortress cities in a very warm and climate changed Antarctica.

Bharin Empire: Merging the remains of Onslaught China, India, and several neighboring nations, the Bharin Empire is one of the largest nations in Starfall.

New Alexandria: The notional capital of Starfall, New Alexandria controls territory as far south as the Hammer Crater and as far east as the Kavir Exclusionary Zone. New Alexandria is a meritocratic dictatorship driven by expansion and consolidation of "lost" sanctuaries.

United American Defense Pact (UADP): The beaten and battered Americas consolidated into one power- loosely connecting their disparate nations. Filled with their own infighting, the UADP still sports a powerful military arm of Starfall.

Minor Factions:

The Nomad States: Some seaborne, some landborne, and even some traveling through the air, thousands of nomadic families sport advanced equipment and weaponry to survive the savage world and make their living wherever they find suitable. Nomads are fiercely independent and tend to look down on the technointroversion of the Starfall nations.

Midnight Sun: A terror collective notorious for several deadly attacks throughout Starfall. They hold that demons are the natural response to human overextension- the Midnight Sun is a radical nihilist collective that seeks the end of all humanity.

Volkharev Initiative: Another radical group, the Volkharev Initiative holds that demons are intelligent and can be communicated with- and eventually can cohabitate the planet alongside humanity

Alkahest: Starfall's second favorite bogeymen, Alkahest is a group of SIMS users branded as witches seeking to hold humanity under their thrall with their unholy power. Especially reviled in Germania.