World Summary.
World Summary: The world takes place far enough into a post-apocalyptic future that the date doesn’t even really matter, as one is never given. While there are remains of preexisting cities (Boston, for instance, is still around), most of the civilization as you know it is degraded into a pitiable state of existence.
Approximately eighty years prior, a catastrophic phenomenon known as the Plagues took place. This incident not only brought ruin to most of the world’s numbers by sickness and disease, but insanity as well. Most of these people-including the homeless-were thrown into the Basins, to keep them out of what civilized society remained. But this only made matters worse when the disease began to spread, and the country became isolated.
Another effect the Plagues brought about were rapid shifts of the environment. Many cities that once flourished are now buried in ashes and ruin. With that, a new desert was formed, creating the largest desert in North America: The Wudeliguhi Desert. The heat became so intense that skin cancer within hours of exposure was an applicable risk when venturing out into the desert by foot, where it reached as hot as one-hundred-twenty degrees. The desert is literally uninhabitable.
The Wudeliguhi stretches from the edge of Louisiana, to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South and the edge of North Carolina. Along with the Plagues, the desert itself wiped out several small towns and a few cities. Among them were Constance, Rubia, Lachouma, and Progress. Other cities such as Ophelia, on the other hand, remain safe from the Wudeliguhi, but because it still remains on the border of the desert it still is somewhat affected by the Plagues.
Technology of any sort that existed before the Plagues became known as Old Technology. During this time, technology had been highly advanced, ranging between Links to devices that can cause a radio signal to beam down, and make a conversation between you and anyone else private (think of it as a privacy curtain, only more like a bubble). Due to air pollution it became more and more difficult to send signals up into the space satellites. Over time, smog began to muck up radio signals. To make matters worse, some leftover “space junk” passed by in the atmosphere, knocking some of the satellites out of orbit and were lost for good. Since the Plagues and air pollution, nobody had been able to recover the satellites, or send more up there.
The Ophelian Riots became known as a rebellion that stretched out for a good fifty years (thirty years after the Plagues) and mostly led by Jerusalem Kavar (later, Alexander Wolfgang contributed). Along with them and a group of other Ophelians, they brought down the government that created the system via destruction and anarchy. Society itself has been divided into “Pillars”, although for the most part the kind of world Alexander lives in is more of an anarchist one, struggling to maintain any form of government after the Ophelian Riots. Alexander, once of an upstanding Noble family, had become nothing more than an Ophelian dog.
A concept in the trilogy is that the idea of death and dying are carried out between various worlds: The Living World, in which the living resides; now become a realm of pseudo-anarchy and chaos. The Dead Zone, a ghostly layer placed atop of the Living World. It mirrors the world of the dead and how the dead wish to see it, for those who bind themselves to the Living World rather than moving on; some call these ghosts. Point Blank, an empty space, where malicious spirits/emotions are left behind from the dead, creating spirits known as poltergeists that are able to make it to the Dead Zone once created. Other brings known as demons are created from Point Blank. Scheol, also known as the afterlife, once dead souls have moved on. Then there is Edom, which is basically Limbo; a desolate island in a vast void. As human, Alexander neither sees nor has been to any of these layers, but he learned of them and that they reside on top of his own from Ravine.
Approximately eighty years prior, a catastrophic phenomenon known as the Plagues took place. This incident not only brought ruin to most of the world’s numbers by sickness and disease, but insanity as well. Most of these people-including the homeless-were thrown into the Basins, to keep them out of what civilized society remained. But this only made matters worse when the disease began to spread, and the country became isolated.
Another effect the Plagues brought about were rapid shifts of the environment. Many cities that once flourished are now buried in ashes and ruin. With that, a new desert was formed, creating the largest desert in North America: The Wudeliguhi Desert. The heat became so intense that skin cancer within hours of exposure was an applicable risk when venturing out into the desert by foot, where it reached as hot as one-hundred-twenty degrees. The desert is literally uninhabitable.
The Wudeliguhi stretches from the edge of Louisiana, to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South and the edge of North Carolina. Along with the Plagues, the desert itself wiped out several small towns and a few cities. Among them were Constance, Rubia, Lachouma, and Progress. Other cities such as Ophelia, on the other hand, remain safe from the Wudeliguhi, but because it still remains on the border of the desert it still is somewhat affected by the Plagues.
Technology of any sort that existed before the Plagues became known as Old Technology. During this time, technology had been highly advanced, ranging between Links to devices that can cause a radio signal to beam down, and make a conversation between you and anyone else private (think of it as a privacy curtain, only more like a bubble). Due to air pollution it became more and more difficult to send signals up into the space satellites. Over time, smog began to muck up radio signals. To make matters worse, some leftover “space junk” passed by in the atmosphere, knocking some of the satellites out of orbit and were lost for good. Since the Plagues and air pollution, nobody had been able to recover the satellites, or send more up there.
The Ophelian Riots became known as a rebellion that stretched out for a good fifty years (thirty years after the Plagues) and mostly led by Jerusalem Kavar (later, Alexander Wolfgang contributed). Along with them and a group of other Ophelians, they brought down the government that created the system via destruction and anarchy. Society itself has been divided into “Pillars”, although for the most part the kind of world Alexander lives in is more of an anarchist one, struggling to maintain any form of government after the Ophelian Riots. Alexander, once of an upstanding Noble family, had become nothing more than an Ophelian dog.
A concept in the trilogy is that the idea of death and dying are carried out between various worlds: The Living World, in which the living resides; now become a realm of pseudo-anarchy and chaos. The Dead Zone, a ghostly layer placed atop of the Living World. It mirrors the world of the dead and how the dead wish to see it, for those who bind themselves to the Living World rather than moving on; some call these ghosts. Point Blank, an empty space, where malicious spirits/emotions are left behind from the dead, creating spirits known as poltergeists that are able to make it to the Dead Zone once created. Other brings known as demons are created from Point Blank. Scheol, also known as the afterlife, once dead souls have moved on. Then there is Edom, which is basically Limbo; a desolate island in a vast void. As human, Alexander neither sees nor has been to any of these layers, but he learned of them and that they reside on top of his own from Ravine.