A Dark World…

“Our parents had great dreams… unfortunately, none of them involved my future.”

In 2027 things are great; manicured lawns, clean streets, reduced crime. That is, if you live in the burbs, pay your taxes on time and keep smiling under the thumb of the Corps what rule this place. See, in exchange for the stable white-picket life, our parents traded their freedom. Pft, Cyberpunkers. What were they fighting for anyway? Glory? Fame? Sure as hell wasn’t a little bit of real vegetables or a date on Saturday night. Or maybe it was. I never really got my parents. Dad says he used to be some kind of bigwig netrunner back in the day. His heyday of codes, babes, and … I don’t know, Smash? But what is he now? Some tech teacher down at Florida State teaching the sellouts to code virtuality.

Sad thing is, I can code circles around him. So, he wants me to line on up and go to college, go get brainwashed, and spit out of the Corp-factory straight into a shirt and tie complete with cubicle. But that’s not for me, cho. I see the careful way the DSA keeps its eye on the passers-by in the street. I see the grog they feed us in our government approved E-loads. I’ve even hacked a d-fort once with one of my go-boys and damn, why would an educational store have such high access security programs in their archives?

Something’s fishy, cho and it ain’t that discount kibble you can buy down at the marina.

Welcome to the Incorporated States of America (ISA). A series of disasters left what was known as the United States of America in a crisis, and at that point, the Mega-Corporations like Araska and EBM stepped up to save the people – for a price.

Corporations control the government. They control the police force, the military, the media, and just about everything under the sun. Even the president is nothing more than a walking talking corporate puppet.

Mom and dad sold their rights, their environment, and their souls to the machine for protection and a lot of super high tech shiny gadgetry. They willingly shielded their eyes to the horrors surrounding them and allowed the Mega-Corps to paint a world of virtual reality (virtuality) and carefully constructed lies to make them feel as though they were well taken care of.

So what do we got? Corporate Security Agencies that can do whatever they please. A sky so full of smog it’s perpetually gray. Acid rain that’s dangerous to stand out in. Kibble instead of real home grown food. News that’s full of nothing but lies, and a lot of false promises about security. All contained in a virtuality amusement park full of eye catching media and items to consume.

But this isn’t about the adults who sold out to the machine. This is about the children of those people. The true citizens of the ISA. The ones who were born into this world and have known nothing else. You know, the kids who might be interested in planting trees and regaining the wilderness and all that, or they might just want to make sure they’ve got a date to the prom. Then again… why not both?

This is CyberGeneration. Welcome to the dark future with a teenage twist.