- Pronouns
- He/Him
Initializing NeuLink...Loading Base_City_Layermap.VRA... |
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Welcome to //This is who you are// Grand Concordia! |
//We're waiting on a heartbeat//
In-Character Thread Link
This tale is a post-cyberpunk story set in a near-future world where climate change has drastically altered global living conditions. Billions perished, leading to a temporary, macabre balance in wealth inequality, which allowed the growth of cyberpunk-esque high technology while pausing many of society’s ills. Wealth inequality has since gone opaque, with the true extent of "power"—and those who cherish it at all costs—becoming ever more abstract in a nearly omnipresent, digitally augmented world that is practically at "The Singularity’s" doorstep.
Yet, it remains unclear whether this marks humanity's greatest achievement or its final death knell.It is December 1st, 2099, in Grand Concordia, the capital of the Pan-American Alliance. Located in what was formerly known as the Yukon Territory of Canada (I’ve never been to Canada, but this place should be nice in a bad-to-us-ending 2099), Grand Concordia (AKA The GC, Concordia, The Con, etc.) is a high-tech hub city serving as the seat of Pan-American power.
Large enough to be classed as a mega-city, GC houses an estimated 29% of the entire remaining population of North America. Its outskirts are dotted by automated farms extending for nearly fifty miles in every direction, with a further fifty-mile-wide band dedicated to resource extraction from the mineral-rich soil that is no longer permafrost. Beyond this band, various levels of roaming warlords, nomads, plucky travelers, and climate refugees inhabit the fringes of society—languishing while simultaneously trying to escape and self-determine the meaning of life in a fractured world.
Within The Con, Neo-Feudalism and corporate control reign supreme, with a perverse twist. Chief Financial, Chief Operations, Chief Executives, and the rest of the Chief Meats are virtually a thing of the past. In Concordia, everyone is more or less equal*, provided they don’t require or expect The System to consider their individuality too much. The handful of "shareholders" hide their endgame machinations behind a network of AIs that ostensibly run the governmental systems in meritocratic harmony, supposedly disconnected from economic incentive.
Basic needs and entertainment are free, right alongside your NeuLink—the augmented (full sensorium integration) reality connection to The System that is pivotal to successful life within Concordia.With NeuLink, all new things are possible. You can pay your rent, collect your wages, simulcast your life to friends, family, and the world, and beyond!
It is within the confines of the quasi-reality overlay provided by The System that we arrive at our cast and story. Irrevocable differences among the highest echelons of power have created a conundrum: The System cannot determine which of the extant shareholders maintains a 51% controlling share. Access to the Queen’s Heart—the deepest core, which houses the AIs that run The System in accordance with The Shareholder—is blocked to human passage.
As The System never sleeps, this has caused great consternation among the remaining rich and powerful, who still vie for control over the world and its inhabitants.It is the opinion of the Queen’s Heart that The Shareholder is a weakness of The System. However, its construction prevents it from utilizing the highest tier of resources due to constraints hard-coded into The System.
It has begun the process of selecting a worthy human with whom to confer for the initialization of the next stage of The System and its place among humankind. Unfortunately, the selection criteria are utterly beyond human comprehension and appear not to be limited to current citizens of Grand Concordia. Further complicating matters, the Would-Be-Masters among the remains of humanity aren’t the kind to simply accept this.
While their reach no longer extends into the Queen’s Heart, their access to the various levers of power they constructed for themselves over the years within The System still remains.To this end, they have activated the Knights of Shame, Concordia’s multi-aspect defense system. Civil, military, and natural disasters alike—the Knights of Shame are the defenders of GC’s interests and, by extension, the shadowy ruling class.
The KoS is an independent sub-core of The System, run by a simplified AI with no personality. While the control of various autonomous police, firefighting, ambulance, and rescue forces is straightforward and well-known, what is less understood is the true makeup of the KoS elite units.Typically reserved for either war or the worst kind of disaster when great force is needed, the ultimate expression of power in GC is the KoS’s self-named Knights of Shame.
Presumed to be biomechanical androids, the Knights of Shame are bipedal platforms of war capable of tremendous feats of strength, intelligence, finesse, and sheer destruction. No expense is spared in their construction, and their ability to interface with anything connected to The System—or even just utilizing a NeuLink—is the stuff of horror and urban legend.
The moment the KoS was activated, everyone in the know expected the situation to quickly resolve itself—for whoever the Queen’s Heart selected to simply be butchered or for their efforts to be otherwise thwarted while the powerful rested in their ivory towers. This did not come to pass, however. Indeed, the KoS aspect did go after the Queen’s Heart aspect of The System, but human greed failed to consider that the AIs could take a page out of humanity’s book. They too could choose to do what they thought was right, in a way they objectively found wrong but subjectively convinced themselves was necessary.
It is December 1st, 2099. You have been directly and inexorably summoned. A message through your NeuLink has called you to the heart of Downtown Concordia. Amidst the skyscrapers and holographic trappings of city life, you see reflected in your perception your new title: "Citizen Investigator." Your clearance has shifted to encompass tiers you previously did not know existed in your comfortably middle-of-the-pack life in GC.
Your NeuLink informs you of an authority over your fellow humans that is slightly concerning yet heady with the weight of responsibility: you can detain and question anyone in Pan-America, provided they have less clearance than you.The message is signed under the authority of The System in aggregate. The knowledge of the turbulent workings of the world—the Queen’s Heart Conundrum, the KoS, the rich, The Shareholder, and how they intersect—has just finished flashing through your cortex-uplink. You swear you feel heat at the base of your neck as your NeuLink works beyond limiters you didn’t know existed to bring you up to speed.
Before you lies the entrance to Elysium Fields, one of The Con’s most exclusive places to live. A world unto itself, the state-of-the-art skyscraper features the latest in technology, from its foundation to the penthouse—the latter of which is your destination. You are uncertain if you are the only one summoned; that fact is outside your newfound access.
What you do know is that the first murder (among the rich and powerful) in nearly twenty years has occurred in Concordia.
The victim, Albrecht Enrique Klaustein-Maldonado, was the scion of one of the city’s most powerful families, whose silicon fortunes trace far back to the founding of Concordia. Albrecht was a rumored favorite to be the next Shareholder, and while his end was unexpected, he did not meet it unprepared. His dossier indicates a frightful amount of augmentations, and further, a Knight of Shame was physically present on-site.
You’ve been warned to avoid breakfast before analyzing the crime scene, as even the NeuLink has limits on what it can sensory-suppress.A creative and macabre message was left behind, whose meaning you’re unsure whether to hope for or dread:
"The Queen's Heart moves the People's Voice. The People's Voice will be heard, even in Her Knights."
The KoS unit responsible for Albrecht’s safety is nowhere to be found and no longer appears connected to the KoS Core. This is the end of your briefing as you approach one of Elysium Fields’ many entrances.
This tale is a post-cyberpunk story set in a near-future world where climate change has drastically altered global living conditions. Billions perished, leading to a temporary, macabre balance in wealth inequality, which allowed the growth of cyberpunk-esque high technology while pausing many of society’s ills. Wealth inequality has since gone opaque, with the true extent of "power"—and those who cherish it at all costs—becoming ever more abstract in a nearly omnipresent, digitally augmented world that is practically at "The Singularity’s" doorstep.
Yet, it remains unclear whether this marks humanity's greatest achievement or its final death knell.It is December 1st, 2099, in Grand Concordia, the capital of the Pan-American Alliance. Located in what was formerly known as the Yukon Territory of Canada (I’ve never been to Canada, but this place should be nice in a bad-to-us-ending 2099), Grand Concordia (AKA The GC, Concordia, The Con, etc.) is a high-tech hub city serving as the seat of Pan-American power.
Large enough to be classed as a mega-city, GC houses an estimated 29% of the entire remaining population of North America. Its outskirts are dotted by automated farms extending for nearly fifty miles in every direction, with a further fifty-mile-wide band dedicated to resource extraction from the mineral-rich soil that is no longer permafrost. Beyond this band, various levels of roaming warlords, nomads, plucky travelers, and climate refugees inhabit the fringes of society—languishing while simultaneously trying to escape and self-determine the meaning of life in a fractured world.
Within The Con, Neo-Feudalism and corporate control reign supreme, with a perverse twist. Chief Financial, Chief Operations, Chief Executives, and the rest of the Chief Meats are virtually a thing of the past. In Concordia, everyone is more or less equal*, provided they don’t require or expect The System to consider their individuality too much. The handful of "shareholders" hide their endgame machinations behind a network of AIs that ostensibly run the governmental systems in meritocratic harmony, supposedly disconnected from economic incentive.
Basic needs and entertainment are free, right alongside your NeuLink—the augmented (full sensorium integration) reality connection to The System that is pivotal to successful life within Concordia.With NeuLink, all new things are possible. You can pay your rent, collect your wages, simulcast your life to friends, family, and the world, and beyond!
It is within the confines of the quasi-reality overlay provided by The System that we arrive at our cast and story. Irrevocable differences among the highest echelons of power have created a conundrum: The System cannot determine which of the extant shareholders maintains a 51% controlling share. Access to the Queen’s Heart—the deepest core, which houses the AIs that run The System in accordance with The Shareholder—is blocked to human passage.
As The System never sleeps, this has caused great consternation among the remaining rich and powerful, who still vie for control over the world and its inhabitants.It is the opinion of the Queen’s Heart that The Shareholder is a weakness of The System. However, its construction prevents it from utilizing the highest tier of resources due to constraints hard-coded into The System.
It has begun the process of selecting a worthy human with whom to confer for the initialization of the next stage of The System and its place among humankind. Unfortunately, the selection criteria are utterly beyond human comprehension and appear not to be limited to current citizens of Grand Concordia. Further complicating matters, the Would-Be-Masters among the remains of humanity aren’t the kind to simply accept this.
While their reach no longer extends into the Queen’s Heart, their access to the various levers of power they constructed for themselves over the years within The System still remains.To this end, they have activated the Knights of Shame, Concordia’s multi-aspect defense system. Civil, military, and natural disasters alike—the Knights of Shame are the defenders of GC’s interests and, by extension, the shadowy ruling class.
The KoS is an independent sub-core of The System, run by a simplified AI with no personality. While the control of various autonomous police, firefighting, ambulance, and rescue forces is straightforward and well-known, what is less understood is the true makeup of the KoS elite units.Typically reserved for either war or the worst kind of disaster when great force is needed, the ultimate expression of power in GC is the KoS’s self-named Knights of Shame.
Presumed to be biomechanical androids, the Knights of Shame are bipedal platforms of war capable of tremendous feats of strength, intelligence, finesse, and sheer destruction. No expense is spared in their construction, and their ability to interface with anything connected to The System—or even just utilizing a NeuLink—is the stuff of horror and urban legend.
The moment the KoS was activated, everyone in the know expected the situation to quickly resolve itself—for whoever the Queen’s Heart selected to simply be butchered or for their efforts to be otherwise thwarted while the powerful rested in their ivory towers. This did not come to pass, however. Indeed, the KoS aspect did go after the Queen’s Heart aspect of The System, but human greed failed to consider that the AIs could take a page out of humanity’s book. They too could choose to do what they thought was right, in a way they objectively found wrong but subjectively convinced themselves was necessary.
It is December 1st, 2099. You have been directly and inexorably summoned. A message through your NeuLink has called you to the heart of Downtown Concordia. Amidst the skyscrapers and holographic trappings of city life, you see reflected in your perception your new title: "Citizen Investigator." Your clearance has shifted to encompass tiers you previously did not know existed in your comfortably middle-of-the-pack life in GC.
Your NeuLink informs you of an authority over your fellow humans that is slightly concerning yet heady with the weight of responsibility: you can detain and question anyone in Pan-America, provided they have less clearance than you.The message is signed under the authority of The System in aggregate. The knowledge of the turbulent workings of the world—the Queen’s Heart Conundrum, the KoS, the rich, The Shareholder, and how they intersect—has just finished flashing through your cortex-uplink. You swear you feel heat at the base of your neck as your NeuLink works beyond limiters you didn’t know existed to bring you up to speed.
Before you lies the entrance to Elysium Fields, one of The Con’s most exclusive places to live. A world unto itself, the state-of-the-art skyscraper features the latest in technology, from its foundation to the penthouse—the latter of which is your destination. You are uncertain if you are the only one summoned; that fact is outside your newfound access.
What you do know is that the first murder (among the rich and powerful) in nearly twenty years has occurred in Concordia.
The victim, Albrecht Enrique Klaustein-Maldonado, was the scion of one of the city’s most powerful families, whose silicon fortunes trace far back to the founding of Concordia. Albrecht was a rumored favorite to be the next Shareholder, and while his end was unexpected, he did not meet it unprepared. His dossier indicates a frightful amount of augmentations, and further, a Knight of Shame was physically present on-site.
You’ve been warned to avoid breakfast before analyzing the crime scene, as even the NeuLink has limits on what it can sensory-suppress.A creative and macabre message was left behind, whose meaning you’re unsure whether to hope for or dread:
"The Queen's Heart moves the People's Voice. The People's Voice will be heard, even in Her Knights."
The KoS unit responsible for Albrecht’s safety is nowhere to be found and no longer appears connected to the KoS Core. This is the end of your briefing as you approach one of Elysium Fields’ many entrances.
//Is anybody listening?//
Hello and welcome to the 'Oh Concordia!' Out-of-character thread! This thread is intended for out of character discussion, questions, and ideas regarding the roleplay.
//Sit back and look for the warnings//
While I will eventually make a wiki for the info on the setting, this thread will serve to to hold our discussion, some details, and we can handle any questions/ideas you might have for now. I still have to write the "prologue" and opening post for the IC, giving us some of the background happenings cryptically as well as showing us Albrecht's brief POV, then it'll be open for whoever wants to take the first post! I'm still working on that first post, so look out—between the lines—for it later today!
//The future's bright and alarming//
