Night of the Comet
A rough idea of a PA setting I'm coming up with. I don't really know why I dug so deep into the previous politics, since it's all moot at this point. The tech was to give me a better idea of what could be expected to pop up or be lying around.
SETTING. The year is 2064.
Technology
Game-changing advances:
-effective humanoid & non-humanoid autonomous robots
-cybernetics that effectively replace limbs and mesh very well with both technology & the nervous system
-metamaterials: radar & light absorption, smart materials (moderate shape-changing & self-healing, smart munitions)
-effective gene therapies, tissue regeneration, intermediate organ replacement (still haven't managed to get all the way there)
-ubiquitous cloud computing and intuitive interactive devices
Notable absences:
-no next-gen energy generation (much improved batteries & capacitators, but no generation)
-no real AI (clever programs and comprehensive behaviors, but no true intelligence/awareness); improved sensors but nothing “Star Trek”
-no advanced space capabilities (minor functioning orbital station & established moon base; still no humans to Mars)
-no ubiquitous energy weapons (some for anti-missile/satellite & point-defense; vehicle-mounted railguns)
The Big Events
Rogue comet suddenly shows up passing inside the orbit of Mars
.............No one’s sure how it dodged detection, but best guesses put it on a bizarre path between Saturn and Jupiter during a planetary conjunction
.............Projections place its path dangerously close to Earth’s
.............Spectrographic analysis detects exotic and previously unknown elements and radiation
.............Nuclear weapons are deployed in an attempt to “nudge” the comet into a different orbit
..........................Due to the “short” time and distance of the comet from the Earth, there was only shot to get this right
..........................A mad scientist managed to convince an influential Senator to pressure the US military to secretly include an experimental nuke design
..........................This nuke interacted with the exotic elements in the comet to somehow “energize” the comet into something wholly unknown, but the overall barrage did manage to nudge the comet just enough…
.............The comet impacted the moon and simply blew it up, raining about a quarter of now radioactive moon onto the earth
..........................Impacting debris caused massive damage and casualties, but the weird “ion” storms that began at the same time managed to wipe out most of the world’s electronic infrastructure
.............In a bizarre and haunting turn of events, the Moon Base actually survives, but soon goes dark, after sending increasingly nonsensical and then darkly insane messages
.............The radiation would devastate world food supplies and most smaller animals and fish, but larger animals and insects were largely unaffected
.............The Moon Base became an alien invading force that still had high-tech manufacturing capability and would trade them to Earth settlements in return for human slaves (no one’s sure why)
Moon Raiders were left unable to tolerate Earth gravity after so much time in microgravity and the exotic comet radiation
.............Alien crystal growths were found to be able to worked and could channel and store (a little) the energy from an ion storm or in places of intense radiation
.............War is now done either medieval-style (anytime), Star Wars-style (during ion storms or by mutant raiders in high radiation environments) or high-tech style (when there’s surviving electronics to be used or the enclave is in cahoots with the Moon Raiders; never when there’s a chance of radiation)
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY
.............US and China had a minor dust-up thanks to a bat-shit crazy conservative government (control of Congress & the Presidency)
..........................Despite Chinese hacking ability, US technology & experience delivered some devastating defeats to China, who retreated and quickly turned to economic warfare that almost ruined the US and incited the “2nd American Revolution”
..........................Things are pretty normalized now with the US having gotten its finances together and is no longer spending China’s money, but things can still get schizophrenic with crazy nationalistic stunts coming in between “hands across the water” cooperation
.............Europe got smart after a right-wing resurgence nearly tore the entire region (plus half of Africa) apart, it’s now the most equal, prosperous and advanced region on the planet
.............Russia continues to do its own thing. It’s got the base resources and smarts, despite its massive corruption and oligarchy, to stay a world power. It mostly plays a balancing game to keep China from simply swallowing it whole.
.............South America is pretty solid and prosperous.
