Moth
12:36am, November 03, 2015
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[Delete] | The year is 2015, but the Earth of Utopia has progressed quite unlike that of Earth-616...
Human mutants entered the public consciousness in the waning years of the 1970’s, and by the end of the next decade the debate had reached a furor. Humans from all walks of life expressed concern about the progression of the species. Were Homo sapiens superior the next step on the evolutionary ladder, or a disease to be eradicated? The debate eventually spiraled into conflict. All around the world people became paranoid, lashing out at their neighbors. Both sides visited atrocities on one another. It was the mutants, however, who bore the brunt of the conflict. As a result, they began to band together.
By the mid-1980’s a number of mutant leaders had come to the fore. In the United States Charles Xavier became an influential advocate for mutant rights and peaceful coexistence. Meanwhile, in Europe, the mutant terrorist known as Magneto pursued a more violent agenda. However, it was the millennia old mutant En Sabah Nur who would most shape the course of history. For all of their combined impact, the three would only meet once in May of 1989.
The assassination of Charles Xavier in 1990 by an unknown assailant triggered riots in a number of major cities across the United States and Europe. Magneto responded grandly, leading an attack on Paris that led to the destruction of the Eiffel Tower and a significant swathe of the city. It was then that the governments of the world unleashed their secret weapon: the Sentinel Program. All across the world Sentinels were unleashed on the mutant populace. Many were incarcerated, and those who resisted were killed outright.
It was in the midst of this chaos that En Sabah Nur chose to strike. Preying on the weakness of the Communist Bloc, he invaded and commandeered the country’s nuclear arsenal. Resolute in his mantra -- “survival of the fittest” -- he unleashed the full payload on the unsuspecting planet on January 18, 1991. The initial blast resulted in the eradication of a full 40% of the planets population, and the ensuing nuclear winter claimed the lives of a further 30%. En Sabah Nur, now known derisively as a “Apocalypse,” utilized the devastation and confusion of the attack to sweep across the wastes of Europe, cross the Atlantic, and invade what remained of the United States with his multinational army of mutants. Once all remnants of the previous government had been eradicated, he settled atop the ruins of New York City. Here, he declared himself Emperor and dubbed his new capital “Utopia.”
In the years since the attack, much of the world has been reduced to a dusty wasteland. Apocalypse has continued to expand his hold on the nations of the world, and is now in control of the majority of the planet’s landmass. Despite the devastation, Utopia and cities like it have sprung up in tactical locations all around the globe. Acting as bastions of civilization against the backdrop of inhospitable badlands, these urban centers are truly wonders to behold. Technologically advanced beyond anything that has come before them, they are uniformly orderly, controlled, and surgically sterile. In all things, they are the antithesis of the dirty, chaotic wastes beyond their walls -- as government sponsored propaganda is apt to point out. The exception to the rule in the cities is the human slums, often located on the outskirts, which are little better than the badlands themselves. Dens of criminality and villainy, they are the center of black market activity in the urban landscape.
A firm class system permeates the whole of civilized society. Expectedly, mutants make up the whole of the upper- and middle-classes, with a ruling aristocracy controlling and micromanaging every facet of urban life. Humans are uniformly considered second class citizens, often working as laborers or service workers to their mutant betters. Those mutants who express their concern too loudly or too often for their human counterparts are labeled as race traitors and subject to imprisonment. Anomaly’s of the class system, metahumans are afforded a special place in society, but rarely rise above the middle-class.
For the most part, city dwellers have a far and a way more pleasant existence than their badland counterparts. Ample food, good security, and modern amenities provide luxury that can scarcely be found in the wastes. However, there are still those who choose to take their chances beyond the walls of the cities where they can live in relative freedom, despite the regional governors appointed by the Emperor.
As is to be expected, Apocalypse is not without enemies. Years of oppression and atrocity have birthed a sizable resistance that operates both within Utopia and beyond its walls. It is comprised of both disenfranchised mutants and humans, as well as a considerable number of metahumans. It is yet to be seen if the resistance will prove effective, or if it will fall beneath the steady tread of Apocalypse as so many other challengers have before. |
