Apocalypse (Averted)
Blood and Harmony :: OOC Information :: House Rules :: Lore
Page 1 of 1
Apocalypse (Averted)
by Admin Thu Nov 10, 2016 9:45 pm
From the journal of Clarise “Relentless Love” Wilkinson-
Elder, Child of Gaia, Galliard
November 5, 2024.
The day that marked the beginning of the end of the world. After years of economic recession, terror attacks and devastating military failures, the people of the United States placed their faith in a charismatic man that promised to return the once powerful country to a place of economic prosperity and global power. Soon after taking office, President Taylor Michaels began to set his plan into action. It was slow at first, most people didn’t notice anything other than what they perceived as an improvement in their lives.
President Michaels borrowed many of his policies from beloved past President Franklin D. Roosevelt, enacting a modern version of “The New Deal” he put people to work shoring up America’s crumbling infrastructure and rebuilding its once mighty, now laughable military. For almost fifty years, America had been falling further and further behind the rest of the world in what is referred to a STEM programs, and because of that, the country had become almost third world. Depending on the scientific and technological advancements of others to allow them to continue even minimal growth. Under President Michaels, that all changed. Children were provided better education and the best and brightest were offered education at elite, federally run schools. Adults were encouraged to take classes to improve themselves, and for a while, everything looked rosy.
December 24, 2027, 0430.
In a completely unexpected move, Russia, fearing the reemergence of the United States as a global power, launched a Pentex missile attack on the American heartland. Millions died.
December 24, 2027, 0745.
Congress is suspended and emergency control of all branches of the government is given to the executive branch.
December 24, 2027, 0950.
President Michaels gives an impassioned address to the nation, he has suspended all future elections in an effort to allow the country and government to focus on holding those behind the attack responsible. Americans rally behind the President. Men, women and children call for justice for the “Christmas Eve Massacre.”
December 25, 2027, (early hours).
America declares war on Russia.
It wasn’t until the declaration of war, and the suspension of the Democratic process that things started becoming less than ideal. The first domino to fall was the complete and total closure of all borders. One of the least publicized projects under President Michaels “Make America Great Again” project was the construction of walls at the country’s northern and southern borders. Any time it was brought up by the media, the reason given was that restricting the entry points would allow better monitoring and control of people and goods crossing between the two countries. After the devastating drug epidemic of 2019, no one batted an eye.
After the borders were sealed is when things really started to go south. All illegal immigrants were rounded up and sent to labor camps where they were forced to build supplies for the ever expanding military. This outraged other countries, but, President Michaels explained, they were in the country illegally, and were therefore criminals.
Months of ‘diplomatic negotiations’ with Russia ensued. All the while, the government began to secretly round up so called “enemies of the state” in a sort of McCarthy-an witch hunt. Entire families disappeared and no one said a word. A new cabinet of presidential advisors was put in place, and their control was almost limitless. Aptitude, IQ, Personality and Genetic testing became mandatory for all citizens. Those individuals identified as having the potential for violence were either conscripted into the military or sent to the work camps for ‘rehabilitation’. People were labeled and sorted and an entirely new class system began to emerge.
June 29, 2028, 1350 local time.
The US launches a missile attack on every major city in Russia. Against the terms set out in the ancient “Geneva Convention,” these missiles had a payload of the deadliest biological weapon known to man. The death toll from the actual missile strikes were over a hundred million, but the true devastation was yet to come.
Bio-weapon: H2-No1
Called "No One" for the apocalyptic survival rate, which is virtually zero. All infected patients die within 1 week.
The virus was a scientifically engineered modification of what was thought to be the crowning achievement of the study of oncology. A modified HIV virus was stripped of its own reproductive information and injected into cancer patients. The modified virus could only enter cancer cells. Once inside, it released proteins into the cell that highlighted it as dangerous to the body. This triggered a natural autoimmune response that caused many patients to literally purge their bodies of cancer over a matter of weeks. The surviving patient population entered permanent remission.
Somehow, this virus was modified to mark nerve cells and tissue in the same fashion. More horrifically the modifications enabled the virus to move from airborne host to host, but only during the initial infection before symptoms set in. After three days, it is only transmittable by fluids. Headaches, neuropathic pain, and extremity weakness begin to manifest on day four. On day five, most patients begin to lose their sight and sense of taste. The frontal lobes of the brain begin to decay on day six until all higher functioning and behavior moderation breaks down and for the remaining time – usually one additional day – that it takes the infected to die because they no longer have enough neural fiber to stir a heartbeat. The infected spend the last day running in a nearly blind, almost deaf, chaotic spree of desperate violence drive by pure animal terror. They desperately seek sustenance and release from the wracking pain of their nervous system being devoured by their own immune systems.
The countries of Western Europe and Asia appealed to NATO and the United Nations for action against the two warring countries, calling for military action and economic sanctions to be levied on both sides. World leaders just watched as the millions of infected people began to die, and the United States closed ranks even further.
Birthrates of cities in proximity to the sites of the Christmas Eve Massacre had begun to plummet and new pregnancies were virtually non-existent. Doctor Gregory Quinn, the Surgeon General appointed under President Michaels, issued a statement informing the public that the radioactive fallout from the missile payloads was affecting the fertility in affected cities, as well as those in the surrounding area, leaving more than half of the surviving US female population infertile. This was the origins of the mandatory fertility testing.
The gap between the castes began to widen and the less educated citizens were sent to work in the most menial of jobs or forcibly conscripted into the military. Women that tested as fertile were rounded up and remanded to “Health Retreats” to ensure they were safe from potential threats to their reproductive health.
July 4, 2028.
The first hundred case of the H2-No1 virus were reported in Eastern Europe and Asia, and global panic began to set in. China closed its borders and began development of advanced filtration and detection technologies.
It was on that day that the first group of women from the “Health Retreats” were artificially inseminated using eugenically selected donor sperm. Those that did not volunteer, were forcefully impregnated using the same insemination process. The facilities were little more than prisons used for breeding the next generation of Americans.
September 15, 2028.
Every country save for the United States and China was infected, bringing the rest of the world to its collaborative knees. President Michaels issued an announcement that a cure had been developed and would be distributed to any country willing to become a US territory.
Over the following weeks, country after county bent knee to President Michaels in exchange for the cure to the virus plaguing the planet. In an act of defiance, China launched a volley of missiles carrying payloads intended for the North American continent but they were destroyed mid-flight. Fallout was sent into the atmosphere and spread across the globe, touching off a kind of nuclear winter.
This is the story of how the human world saw the apocalypse, but of course there were corresponding stories in the spirit world.
President Taylor Michaels started in politics as a Senator backed by Pentex. It wasn’t until he began his race for the White House that the Garou nation came to learn he was a fomori, but years of war had worn away at our forces, and we were unable to stop his meteoric rise to power. Many Garou were lost attempting to slow the war between the Weaver and the Wyrm by shoring up the Wyld and in the end, we failed. The Wyld has been all but eradicated, Gaia is bleeding out her life’s blood, and we are preparing to attempt something that will not save us, but if we manage to pull this off, my entire journal, this entire story, will be pointless and we will get another chance.
The wisest of our theurges sought counsel with the eldest and wisest of the few remaining Fera and a rite was created. It is supposed to be a rite to purge the impurities from this world and the umbra, but at the cost of many of our own, though if it works… it will be worth it.
This will be my final entry. Gaia help us if we fail.
Every remaining member of every breed of shifter gathered at the last place of pure Gaian power on Earth. Even members of the long lost Emerald Courts of the East sought out the location of the glade that had remained hidden for millennia. For months the elders of every race met and planned and I met with them to record the details. Months of research, planning, and practice all culminating in this, the rite to save the world.
“Relentless Love-yuf, please gather everyone, it is time.”
After gaining my attention, the old woman, her face wizened with age and her body marred with scars walked slowly towards the center of the glade.
Turning my attention to the gathered shifters I look in each of their faces. The years weigh heavily on each of them, people I knew to be only in their mid-twenties appear to be twice that. I take a deep breath to steady my ever growing nerves before speaking.
“Gathered children of the one mother, the time has come. I will not make a great speech about how what we do now is to ensure the survival of Gaia, we all know that is our purpose here, so I will simply say this. It has been an honour and a privilege to get to meet each and every one of you, and if this is the last stand that I make, it has been an honour and privilege to die with you at my side.”
One by one each individual files past me and enters the site of the ritual. As they pass, I see a Silver Fang child of no more than ten years old that I recognize. Her name is on the tip of my tongue but its been a long decade, and an even longer year, what I do remember is that she was the last metis born to the Silver Fangs in Russia before President Michaels was elected. I try to give her a reassuring smile as she takes her place in the circle.
We begin the rite, calling on every Celestine we can to aid us in purging the world of its sickness, for hours we chant, pouring every bit of energy we have into the circle, some of us begin to falter, their very life force being given over to the rite.
Suddenly, just as I am certain that the rite won’t succeed, a woman and a man coalesce in the center with a force that hits each of us as though a bomb had detonated. Through the blood streaming down my head, I am able to see the two walk the circle of dead and dying shifters before stopping next to that Silver Fang child.
"If you could make a choice to change it all, would you?" The woman stood over the broken girl, features changing as quickly as thought. "Even if it meant the next world might not be any better than the last?"
The child's eyes were fading fast with her life's blood, pants coming quickly as she tried desperately to claim breath for her punctured lung.
The man with the crooked smile knelt beside her, giving her comfort in her last moments. Jade green eyes fought back madness and the old eyes seemed lucid for the first time in ages. He pressed a silver thread into the child's hand, closing her fingers around it. It cut her palm, the fresh pain bringing her thoughts back to the present. The child followed it with her eyes to the crumpled figures on the ground some distance away. "Go on and pull it. Unravel the web," the man urged. "What's the worst that could happen?"
With the last of her strength, she pulled, ignoring the outraged cries from the dying rite mistress. What WAS the worst that could happen, indeed?
In a blinding light it ended. I felt myself pulled from my body, tossed violently through a vortex of darkness before I found myself here, a spirit bound to the caern heart of a sept that now stands where we performed the rite to fix the world. I am unsure how it happened, but the spirits that answered our call rewound time.
In the ashes of a dying world, a broken child made a wish for a new one.
Welcome to the new age.
Elder, Child of Gaia, Galliard
November 5, 2024.
The day that marked the beginning of the end of the world. After years of economic recession, terror attacks and devastating military failures, the people of the United States placed their faith in a charismatic man that promised to return the once powerful country to a place of economic prosperity and global power. Soon after taking office, President Taylor Michaels began to set his plan into action. It was slow at first, most people didn’t notice anything other than what they perceived as an improvement in their lives.
President Michaels borrowed many of his policies from beloved past President Franklin D. Roosevelt, enacting a modern version of “The New Deal” he put people to work shoring up America’s crumbling infrastructure and rebuilding its once mighty, now laughable military. For almost fifty years, America had been falling further and further behind the rest of the world in what is referred to a STEM programs, and because of that, the country had become almost third world. Depending on the scientific and technological advancements of others to allow them to continue even minimal growth. Under President Michaels, that all changed. Children were provided better education and the best and brightest were offered education at elite, federally run schools. Adults were encouraged to take classes to improve themselves, and for a while, everything looked rosy.
December 24, 2027, 0430.
In a completely unexpected move, Russia, fearing the reemergence of the United States as a global power, launched a Pentex missile attack on the American heartland. Millions died.
December 24, 2027, 0745.
Congress is suspended and emergency control of all branches of the government is given to the executive branch.
December 24, 2027, 0950.
President Michaels gives an impassioned address to the nation, he has suspended all future elections in an effort to allow the country and government to focus on holding those behind the attack responsible. Americans rally behind the President. Men, women and children call for justice for the “Christmas Eve Massacre.”
December 25, 2027, (early hours).
America declares war on Russia.
It wasn’t until the declaration of war, and the suspension of the Democratic process that things started becoming less than ideal. The first domino to fall was the complete and total closure of all borders. One of the least publicized projects under President Michaels “Make America Great Again” project was the construction of walls at the country’s northern and southern borders. Any time it was brought up by the media, the reason given was that restricting the entry points would allow better monitoring and control of people and goods crossing between the two countries. After the devastating drug epidemic of 2019, no one batted an eye.
After the borders were sealed is when things really started to go south. All illegal immigrants were rounded up and sent to labor camps where they were forced to build supplies for the ever expanding military. This outraged other countries, but, President Michaels explained, they were in the country illegally, and were therefore criminals.
Months of ‘diplomatic negotiations’ with Russia ensued. All the while, the government began to secretly round up so called “enemies of the state” in a sort of McCarthy-an witch hunt. Entire families disappeared and no one said a word. A new cabinet of presidential advisors was put in place, and their control was almost limitless. Aptitude, IQ, Personality and Genetic testing became mandatory for all citizens. Those individuals identified as having the potential for violence were either conscripted into the military or sent to the work camps for ‘rehabilitation’. People were labeled and sorted and an entirely new class system began to emerge.
June 29, 2028, 1350 local time.
The US launches a missile attack on every major city in Russia. Against the terms set out in the ancient “Geneva Convention,” these missiles had a payload of the deadliest biological weapon known to man. The death toll from the actual missile strikes were over a hundred million, but the true devastation was yet to come.
Bio-weapon: H2-No1
Called "No One" for the apocalyptic survival rate, which is virtually zero. All infected patients die within 1 week.
The virus was a scientifically engineered modification of what was thought to be the crowning achievement of the study of oncology. A modified HIV virus was stripped of its own reproductive information and injected into cancer patients. The modified virus could only enter cancer cells. Once inside, it released proteins into the cell that highlighted it as dangerous to the body. This triggered a natural autoimmune response that caused many patients to literally purge their bodies of cancer over a matter of weeks. The surviving patient population entered permanent remission.
Somehow, this virus was modified to mark nerve cells and tissue in the same fashion. More horrifically the modifications enabled the virus to move from airborne host to host, but only during the initial infection before symptoms set in. After three days, it is only transmittable by fluids. Headaches, neuropathic pain, and extremity weakness begin to manifest on day four. On day five, most patients begin to lose their sight and sense of taste. The frontal lobes of the brain begin to decay on day six until all higher functioning and behavior moderation breaks down and for the remaining time – usually one additional day – that it takes the infected to die because they no longer have enough neural fiber to stir a heartbeat. The infected spend the last day running in a nearly blind, almost deaf, chaotic spree of desperate violence drive by pure animal terror. They desperately seek sustenance and release from the wracking pain of their nervous system being devoured by their own immune systems.
The countries of Western Europe and Asia appealed to NATO and the United Nations for action against the two warring countries, calling for military action and economic sanctions to be levied on both sides. World leaders just watched as the millions of infected people began to die, and the United States closed ranks even further.
Birthrates of cities in proximity to the sites of the Christmas Eve Massacre had begun to plummet and new pregnancies were virtually non-existent. Doctor Gregory Quinn, the Surgeon General appointed under President Michaels, issued a statement informing the public that the radioactive fallout from the missile payloads was affecting the fertility in affected cities, as well as those in the surrounding area, leaving more than half of the surviving US female population infertile. This was the origins of the mandatory fertility testing.
The gap between the castes began to widen and the less educated citizens were sent to work in the most menial of jobs or forcibly conscripted into the military. Women that tested as fertile were rounded up and remanded to “Health Retreats” to ensure they were safe from potential threats to their reproductive health.
July 4, 2028.
The first hundred case of the H2-No1 virus were reported in Eastern Europe and Asia, and global panic began to set in. China closed its borders and began development of advanced filtration and detection technologies.
It was on that day that the first group of women from the “Health Retreats” were artificially inseminated using eugenically selected donor sperm. Those that did not volunteer, were forcefully impregnated using the same insemination process. The facilities were little more than prisons used for breeding the next generation of Americans.
September 15, 2028.
Every country save for the United States and China was infected, bringing the rest of the world to its collaborative knees. President Michaels issued an announcement that a cure had been developed and would be distributed to any country willing to become a US territory.
Over the following weeks, country after county bent knee to President Michaels in exchange for the cure to the virus plaguing the planet. In an act of defiance, China launched a volley of missiles carrying payloads intended for the North American continent but they were destroyed mid-flight. Fallout was sent into the atmosphere and spread across the globe, touching off a kind of nuclear winter.
This is the story of how the human world saw the apocalypse, but of course there were corresponding stories in the spirit world.
President Taylor Michaels started in politics as a Senator backed by Pentex. It wasn’t until he began his race for the White House that the Garou nation came to learn he was a fomori, but years of war had worn away at our forces, and we were unable to stop his meteoric rise to power. Many Garou were lost attempting to slow the war between the Weaver and the Wyrm by shoring up the Wyld and in the end, we failed. The Wyld has been all but eradicated, Gaia is bleeding out her life’s blood, and we are preparing to attempt something that will not save us, but if we manage to pull this off, my entire journal, this entire story, will be pointless and we will get another chance.
The wisest of our theurges sought counsel with the eldest and wisest of the few remaining Fera and a rite was created. It is supposed to be a rite to purge the impurities from this world and the umbra, but at the cost of many of our own, though if it works… it will be worth it.
This will be my final entry. Gaia help us if we fail.
Every remaining member of every breed of shifter gathered at the last place of pure Gaian power on Earth. Even members of the long lost Emerald Courts of the East sought out the location of the glade that had remained hidden for millennia. For months the elders of every race met and planned and I met with them to record the details. Months of research, planning, and practice all culminating in this, the rite to save the world.
“Relentless Love-yuf, please gather everyone, it is time.”
After gaining my attention, the old woman, her face wizened with age and her body marred with scars walked slowly towards the center of the glade.
Turning my attention to the gathered shifters I look in each of their faces. The years weigh heavily on each of them, people I knew to be only in their mid-twenties appear to be twice that. I take a deep breath to steady my ever growing nerves before speaking.
“Gathered children of the one mother, the time has come. I will not make a great speech about how what we do now is to ensure the survival of Gaia, we all know that is our purpose here, so I will simply say this. It has been an honour and a privilege to get to meet each and every one of you, and if this is the last stand that I make, it has been an honour and privilege to die with you at my side.”
One by one each individual files past me and enters the site of the ritual. As they pass, I see a Silver Fang child of no more than ten years old that I recognize. Her name is on the tip of my tongue but its been a long decade, and an even longer year, what I do remember is that she was the last metis born to the Silver Fangs in Russia before President Michaels was elected. I try to give her a reassuring smile as she takes her place in the circle.
We begin the rite, calling on every Celestine we can to aid us in purging the world of its sickness, for hours we chant, pouring every bit of energy we have into the circle, some of us begin to falter, their very life force being given over to the rite.
Suddenly, just as I am certain that the rite won’t succeed, a woman and a man coalesce in the center with a force that hits each of us as though a bomb had detonated. Through the blood streaming down my head, I am able to see the two walk the circle of dead and dying shifters before stopping next to that Silver Fang child.
"If you could make a choice to change it all, would you?" The woman stood over the broken girl, features changing as quickly as thought. "Even if it meant the next world might not be any better than the last?"
The child's eyes were fading fast with her life's blood, pants coming quickly as she tried desperately to claim breath for her punctured lung.
The man with the crooked smile knelt beside her, giving her comfort in her last moments. Jade green eyes fought back madness and the old eyes seemed lucid for the first time in ages. He pressed a silver thread into the child's hand, closing her fingers around it. It cut her palm, the fresh pain bringing her thoughts back to the present. The child followed it with her eyes to the crumpled figures on the ground some distance away. "Go on and pull it. Unravel the web," the man urged. "What's the worst that could happen?"
With the last of her strength, she pulled, ignoring the outraged cries from the dying rite mistress. What WAS the worst that could happen, indeed?
In a blinding light it ended. I felt myself pulled from my body, tossed violently through a vortex of darkness before I found myself here, a spirit bound to the caern heart of a sept that now stands where we performed the rite to fix the world. I am unsure how it happened, but the spirits that answered our call rewound time.
In the ashes of a dying world, a broken child made a wish for a new one.
Welcome to the new age.
Admin- Admin
-
Blood and Harmony :: OOC Information :: House Rules :: Lore
Page 1 of 1
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum|
|
|