POST-APOCALYPTIC/ DYSTOPIA This game's narrative is set in the aftermath of a slow apocalypse. I'll leave the precise details up to the referee to decide, but the broad ideas here are set in stone. The human population has collapsed sharply, but not so sharply that people couldn't prepare for it. The dwindling human population survives in a handful of bleeding-edge arcologies built in anticipation of humanity's downfall. Over a dozen of these arcologies were built by various benefactors worldwide. Fewer than half of those survived to celebrate their centennials. Cities and major infrastructures outside of the arcologies have been reclaimed by nature. Power plants, factories, and military installations were shut down and cleaned up to control environmental contamination. The planet is largely depopulated of human life. The largest remaining Arcology still in operation is the BIOEX Habitat located in Manchuria. The BIOEX has a troubled history; it was built in Manchuria by Chinese and South-East Asian laborers but funded by a joint-venture of various Japanese corporations. Consider the current political situation in East-Asia, the anti-Japanese sentiments among the Chinese and Korean governments, and the historical context behind those sentiments, then imagine a mid-apocalyptic global-cataclysm- preparation scenario on top of that. The population of BIOEX traces is primarily Chinese, Japanese, and Korean with small populations of people of European, Eurasian, African, and South-East Asian descent. The population has been stagnant for the last century, but has recently experienced a sudden and uncontrollable population boom. The BIOEX cannot sustain the sudden increase in birthrate. Arcology officials began of an Annex to the excess millions young people until a more sustainable solution can be developed. Millions of kids between the ages of 8 and 14 were packed into the hastily constructed Annex with ubiquitous wifi and scarce food. Robots and automated systems were available to attend to their basic needs to the extent that arcology officials were willing to provide, but caring and qualified adults were few and far between. Unable to develop quickly enough to support the rapidly growing population, construction of the Annex grinded to a halt, and millions of excess young people began flooding out to the derelict Old City surrounding the arcology. Existing and infrastructures were refurbished and repurposed to suit the needs of over a million young people under the age of 19. Wifi hotspots exist around government buildings, and old cables and telephone lines have been fixed up to establish local networks. Electricity and running water have been made tenuously available. Employment opportunities in construction have been made available so that young people may earn money for food. Young people unable to find legitimate employment either sell their bodies in the “cafes” and in the fighting rings for the entertainment of the arcology residents, or they look for careers in violent crime. The arcology officials grasp for semblance of civil order, and fumble. Some young people, discontent with the conditions of the Annex and the Old City, trickle out into the country side outside of the Old City. They begin a new life on the Frontier beyond the reach of the arcology officals and outside the baleful gaze of the internet.

THE ARCOLOGY The aesthetic of the Arcology is based on the pristine-white, round-cornered smartphone aesthetic of contemporary sensibilities. Entering the arcology is like dying and meeting Steve Jobs in heaven. Wifi is ubiquitous, and closely monitored. Every wall is a touch-screen and a security camera. All manual tasks are automated. Patrolling security drones come equipped with tasers, pepper spray, microwave emitters, tear gas, shot guns, and sniper rifles.

THE ANNEX Watch Snowpiercer for an idea just how crowded the Annex is, but combine that with the visuals of Office Space and watch 90's cyberpunk movies like The Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic to get a feel for the aesthetic. This place was built using the same technologies that built the Arcology, except this place isn't quite up to code. The robots used in the Annex are older and uglier than the sleek drones used within the Arcology proper, and all the electronic systems used are cobbled together from spare parts and obsolete devices from storage. Inhabitants of the Annex are fitted with data jacks and put to work as components of a biological distributed computing network processing information in parallel with the the Arcology's servers. They live their lives in tiny cubicles. They sleep in rolling chairs and eat cups of nutrient paste at their desks. The distributed computing system they are attached to requires them to stay minimally awake and alert to function. A nominal education creates the required synaptic connections for optimal network performance, and a constant stream of busy-work keeps those synapses firing. THE OLD CITY The Old City's aesthetic should be a mashup of 80's cyberpunk movies like The Running Man, Brazil, Escape from New York, Videodrome, and Robocop. Cake the 80's pastiche on thick. The tech level is schizophrenic; high-tech stuff comes from the Arcology every once in a while, but everything else has to be either salvaged or manufactured from refurbished factories. There are guys walking around with chromed-out cyber-limbs and people are still using fax machines. Inhabitants of the Old City do what they can to stretch their meager citizen's income out as much as they can, but survival usually requires some other source of income. The entertainment industry is the biggest source of employment in the Old City. Young people pay their rent and put food on the table by performing for audiences in the Arcology. Acting, sports, music, dancing, compensated dating, gladiatorial combat, pornography, snuff, and comedy are all common professions among young people in the Old City.

THE FRONTIER It's like Logan's Run out here; nobody is older than 30, and anything high-tech still looks like it was made in the 1970's. This is both the geographic edge of Arcology territory and the dull-edge of the cyber-punk genre. The wild-west is on the horizon from here. At this point you could start introducing leather-clad barbarians in war-wagons like something out of The Road Warrior. Be sure to work in some Fist of the North Star References. However, I would recommend looking up old Manchurian-Westerns like 짚엥선 (Jipyeongseon/Horizon) or 대지여 말 해도 (Daeji-Yeo Malhaedo/Tell me, Earth!) There's an interesting sort of cultural cross-pollenation and a bit of schizo-tech in those old movies. There's also this great loop where Japanese films like The Seven Samurai and Yojimbo get adapted as American Westerns like The Magnificent Seven and A Fist Full of Dollars while American Westerns like Shane get adapted as Manchurian Westerns like 무숙자 (Musukja/The Homeless Wanderer). Plus, Westerners rarely ever watch Korean movies (aside from Snowpiercer and Old Boy) much less movies from that era; it's an unexplored territory for us, so to speak. FURTHERMORE In addition to the films above, be sure to marathon some anime in preparation for this game. Watch the classics: Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Bubblegum Crisis, Appleseed, Tank Police, Silent Moebius, Macross Plus, Fist of the North Star, and Genocyber if you have the constitution for it. Check out some live-action Japanese cyberpunk too: Tetsuo: the Iron Man, Death Powder, 964 Pinnochio, Rubber's Lover, Meatball Machine, and Tokyo Gore Police. That should put you in the right mindset for this game. Reread everything on the old Shadowrun reading list if you haven't already: , Snow Crash, Altered Carbon, etc.

MUSIC I listened to a lot of new retro wave music while writing this, including: Perturbator, Mega Drive, Lazerhawk, Trevor Something, Com Truise, and Dance With the Dead I'm also a huge fan of drone music, and I like to add a lot of that to my gaming playlists. Check out Earth, Sun O))), and Boris.

CONTEXT I taught English in South Korea for five years, and started roughing many of these ideas out while unemployed and living out of a 10'x10' gosiwan room near Hongdae Univervsity. I came back to the USA about six months ago. It took me two months to find a job, and almost three months to settle into my own . I spent a good portion of those three months staying with friends, couchsurfing, and living out of a hostel. What you've read here was written mostly during that time. I'm currently looking for jobs in China, and I hope to complete this game while living over there. I think it would be cool to host the finished .pdf on an Onion site, making this game free to Tor users. This document contains the bulk of the setting information I've written. I had a system, but I've decided to scrap a lot of it and start over.