[Square Enix] prologue.
just posting this as a reminder I have it. AU--it'll mainly be focused on OCs, but the SE characters will be pretty important.
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Hundreds of years ago, things started going wrong. People were using up everything, nothing was going right, everything was dying. It happened slowly, over centuries, and no one bothered to change. Instead, it got worse and worse. Still, no one did anything. Humans built robots, ignoring the continuous mutations in genetics, the growing fear that water would become scarce. They developed AI to do the work for them. Thus, some cities flourished, and some died. Cities rose and cities fell, people fell into poverty and the suicide rate rose.
Then the human race began to fall apart. They ran out of resources in all areas but the cities. Entire races died-humans were going extinct. Or, they were, until finally they began to realize what was going wrong. By then, robots ran the cities, the only places with anything going for them for miles, safe from the desolate suburbs and wilderness around them. Then, with more than half of the population gone, they started again. But this time, the robots, who had so quietly watched and studied how the humans destroyed themselves, took charge. They commandeered control of society and kept things moderated. They hid themselves, quietly ruling behind a beautiful figurehead.
And yet, nothing was truly moderated. Humans were still greedy, still vain, still animals inside, prone to giving in to their emotions. They had created the robots but could not control them. The robots were not malicious. Their AI did not allow for emotions. Instead, they ruled with rationality and logic. They did what made sense in the larger scheme of things. They did not intervene unless it was needed to keep peace. They regulated only the cities, leaving everything outside wrecked from war and desperate people attempting to survive, no matter the cost.
Outside the cities lies a wasteland. Fallen towns, old cities that didn’t make it through the almost destruction of the human race, where rubble and wreckage is all there is to see for miles, besides the plants that curl their fingers around the oldest parts. Some of these destitute places still function as a place of living. Some cities are missing their windows, glass shattered and splintered, boards planking doorways, walls crumbling, but people still live in the minimal shelter provided. They are the opposite of the thriving metropolises the cities run by the robots have become. But they have the same problem.
Crime runs rampant, people have lost their morality. The cities are dark, one obviously so, and one secretly. Light casts a shadow, both in its general vicinity and around it. Monsters wear the skin of humans, humans wear the skin of monsters, and no one is quite sure what morality is correct anymore. Are you meant to care for others, or only yourself? Do you protect the people around you or abandon them to move easier?
Is murder really so wrong when it’s in self-defense?
These are the questions that everyone answers differently. Humanity teeters on the edge, even with the regulation of the robots, and everything is stuck in gray.
.
Hundreds of years ago, things started going wrong. People were using up everything, nothing was going right, everything was dying. It happened slowly, over centuries, and no one bothered to change. Instead, it got worse and worse. Still, no one did anything. Humans built robots, ignoring the continuous mutations in genetics, the growing fear that water would become scarce. They developed AI to do the work for them. Thus, some cities flourished, and some died. Cities rose and cities fell, people fell into poverty and the suicide rate rose.
Then the human race began to fall apart. They ran out of resources in all areas but the cities. Entire races died-humans were going extinct. Or, they were, until finally they began to realize what was going wrong. By then, robots ran the cities, the only places with anything going for them for miles, safe from the desolate suburbs and wilderness around them. Then, with more than half of the population gone, they started again. But this time, the robots, who had so quietly watched and studied how the humans destroyed themselves, took charge. They commandeered control of society and kept things moderated. They hid themselves, quietly ruling behind a beautiful figurehead.
And yet, nothing was truly moderated. Humans were still greedy, still vain, still animals inside, prone to giving in to their emotions. They had created the robots but could not control them. The robots were not malicious. Their AI did not allow for emotions. Instead, they ruled with rationality and logic. They did what made sense in the larger scheme of things. They did not intervene unless it was needed to keep peace. They regulated only the cities, leaving everything outside wrecked from war and desperate people attempting to survive, no matter the cost.
Outside the cities lies a wasteland. Fallen towns, old cities that didn’t make it through the almost destruction of the human race, where rubble and wreckage is all there is to see for miles, besides the plants that curl their fingers around the oldest parts. Some of these destitute places still function as a place of living. Some cities are missing their windows, glass shattered and splintered, boards planking doorways, walls crumbling, but people still live in the minimal shelter provided. They are the opposite of the thriving metropolises the cities run by the robots have become. But they have the same problem.
Crime runs rampant, people have lost their morality. The cities are dark, one obviously so, and one secretly. Light casts a shadow, both in its general vicinity and around it. Monsters wear the skin of humans, humans wear the skin of monsters, and no one is quite sure what morality is correct anymore. Are you meant to care for others, or only yourself? Do you protect the people around you or abandon them to move easier?
Is murder really so wrong when it’s in self-defense?
These are the questions that everyone answers differently. Humanity teeters on the edge, even with the regulation of the robots, and everything is stuck in gray.