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The year is 2027, and the world is a place of innovation and technological advancement. Yet it is also a place of chaos and conspiracy. Powers older than nations, and men with the vision and will to take control of the world, manipulate events from the shadows, intent on designs so large, so intricate, they will take decades to come to fruition. The world is as it has always been: a study in contrasts. The rich remain rich, walled within opulent protected enclaves, isolated within halos of security and consumerism. The poor remain poor, held down by their governments and employers; forced into docility by the output of an ever-present media. The planet’s wounded ecosphere struggles on, slowly choking to death on pollution and neglect, while technology advances inexorably toward a Singularity. When it finally reaches one, the barriers between organic and inorganic will be erased forever. In this time of extremes, corporations have broken free of the bounds of nationstates,eclipsing old world powers as the new players on the global chessboard. Whole cities are now corporate fiefdoms, and the national armies of the First World countries are a poor second to the private military forces of the security industrial complex. Humanity is changing and battle lines are being drawn between flesh and machine. The new technologies of cybernetic implants are creating a new class divide. On one side, the ‘Naturals’ -- humans who eschew implants because they are either morally opposed to the technology, too poor to afford it, or afflicted with a rare rejection syndrome that renders their bodies permanently incompatible with it. On the other side are the ‘Augs’ -- humans augmented with cybernetic implants -- and with approximately one-twentieth of humanity possessing augmentations by 2027, these people are slowly becoming the new face of Mankind. The foundations are laid for the future of our species, but evolution is a painful process. Right now, both sides are on a collision course that threatens to end in violent, lethal upheaval. The choices made here and now will alter the course of history – or usher in an age of darkness... ***It’s not the end of the world… but you can see it from here.***
