NEO Scavenger, what happened to the World? My theory. (SPOILER WARNING)

[stefan.priv]

Hey people, I am new in the NEO Scavenger forums. I tried to make an account in BlueBottleGames but its somehow not working...Whatever, first of all, sorry for my bad English and here is my theory about what happened to the world, enjoy, coment and suggest:

-Technological advances somewhere around 2019. Nanorobot medical kits, first human colonies in the space, weaponry advances with the new UAVs and V-MADs, especially at Camp Grayling, cryogenic technology, food cloning researched, Detroit in a new Golden Age.

- Worldwide and Space troubles shortly after 2025(aprox.). Guerrillas in several Spaceports and human colonies, rebellions and International shock becouse of the Chinesse Super-soldier program, agricultural crisis, Xinhua rebellion, over-population ends with another housing crisis(loads of people living in the Metro, subway, abandoned houses, offices, etc), diseases and a new economical crisis in Detroit.

-Apocalypse at 2030-2040 aprox. Wolves overpopulation, new species, unstopable crops invade most of the US(and probably the World) leaving the Military(or the rests of it) to no other posibility than using chemical weapons, artillery and meaby nuclear weapons, massive evacuations from most of the World cities and rural areas to rich Mega-Cities like Detroit, collapse of the US Army, leaving the SkyCorps in charge of the Detroit city security. Total failure of the Space colonization. Only a few cities in the World survive the Apocalypse and become the last remants of the Human Civilization on Earth, protected by either private para-military corps or by their national Armies, the possible locations of thes cities would be mainly in Europe, Siberia, Dubai, Eastern and Western Coast of the US(leaving the Central U.S states to the Black Swamp "Empire").

- Post-Apocalypse, now. Public healthcare, security, education,food, electricity and luxury is just in hands of a few meanwhile the surviving Human population must face high rates of slavery, criminality, pandemics, hostile creatures, harsh environment and many more facts. In this place is where Philip Kindred wakes up.

"Technology advanced just too much for us, to deal with it."

I hope you liked it and please, coment, suggest and it would be very nice if Daniel Fedor(or any veteran player) tell me how close or how far I am from the game History.

[Lin]

Fun run down, it's been a while since we had one of these discussions. :D

Well, aside from what's inside Dan's head, alot of the info we get from the actual game is fragmentary, so there's plenty of room for different readings on some of the history of NEOs world. As far as I'm concerned, without nitpicking over details, here's three things I see differently:

1) Was there really one major apocalyptic event? I don't think there's any real evidence for an apocalypse as we see it in movies, in terms of one big event that created a before and after moment. If such a moment were to exist, I would expect we'd be hearing about it or reading about it or something, but we never do. It looks like in Michigan civilization slowly crumbled under the weight of many different events converging, as opposed to one big explosive event changing everything.

2) In the same vein: If there wasn't an actual event that caused an earth-wide apocalypse, do we really know what the world looks like outside of Michigan, moreso outside of America? I mean sure we read about some rebellions and potential wars, a small pox pandemic, some animals dying in weird ways, and the whole genetically modified food problem that probably caused a whole slew of different problems, all horrible things but nothing that isn't happening to our own world right now in bigger or smaller ways, if you think about it. ;) So do these few events we learn about actually result in the whole world turning into more of what Michigan has become? Do they result in a total disruption of the previous way of life of the population, with super cities and extreme militarization? Maybe, probably to an extent, but we don't really know.

Personally, I've often wondered whether Michigan could actually be an island of extreme weirdness in the middle of a complicated, hugely problematic but otherwise much less "post-apocalyptic" rest of the world. Of course there's no evidence for that either, and truth be told it's a relatively unlikely scenario. But since we have no clue, it's still theoretically possible. Seeing how the end of the game suggests that Philip will have "escaped" from something when he manages to get to Indiana, the meta-narrative suggests that this theory may even hold some water.

Either way, we in fact have no idea what the rest of the world looks like, and no real evidence what Phil encounters after he escapes the Swamp and reaches Indiana - one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to NEO 2. :)

3) Where's the supernatural stuff? The whole weird supernatural angle is pretty central to the story of this world, despite the fact (and maybe also exactly because) it is not exactly being delivered by the newspapers. I think you may be underestimating how it may have affected NEO's world, or in the very least, how it affected the population.

Anyway, my 3 cents, and thanks for the excuse to rant about all this again. :) It would be interesting to hear more folks chiming in.

---
P.S. If you're having problems with the Blubottlegames website, you may wonna email[bluebottlegames.com] Dan, I'm sure he'll help you sort any issues.

[stefan.priv]

Well, I driven most of the Apocalypse and Pre-Apocalypse part in the World Economics: If China does fall, the US falls, if the US falls, Europe does the same, then Russia and so on...But its not the only thing I put in my theory wich is based on my own intuition and today`s fact. And by the way: The Apocalypse part, last aprox. 10 years, so not everything happened in a matter of a few days, weeks or months.