wicked alchemy

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World information.

CE:	Current Era; usually refers to the post-war era.
City-Segment:	a city several hundred feet above-ground.
Technocracy:	the centralized government connecting all city-segments.
The Mark:	a symbol given to each person to record payments and activity.

Earth's fertile landscape was annihilated with the chemical warfare of World War III. Many of the cities, millions of people, and the dirt itself expired in the unbreathable clouds that were left. A dark mist hangs over what remains of the ground.

Most of the population that survived now live in city-segments, several hundreds of feet above the useless ground. What little growing material they have is synthetic, produced by technological advancements that took place late after the war went cold.

The technocracy scrounged what remained of the earth in the years soon after the war, and built itself as the central government, connecting all city-segments with its ideals. Starvation was eliminated, as were many religions, diseases, and problems which had devastated the pre-war society. At least for the people who wore the mark of the technocracy.

Biological information.

The world's population suffered immensely after the last world war. Nearly half didn't survive, and many who did were severely injured or lost to the effects of such ecological warfare.

Somewhere around 100 CE [exact date unknown], the technocracy, a new group with unknown origins, replenished what was left of the dying earth, and saved what little humans remained by funding large building projects and constructing massive technologically based city-segments. Many of the construction workers died in the process, but their posterity survived to populate the cities.

Today, earth's population is almost as vast as it was in the last years of the pre-war civilization.

Since most of the oxygen-creating plants and trees were destroyed in man's last dramatic onslaught of the earth, the remaining ones are carefully planted in 'parks' and cultivated sections of each city-segment. The destruction of any such plants or even grass blades is severely punished. Paper money has been replaced with 'credits,' based on the mark system established by the Technocracy.

Technocracy

The Technocracy has established the following monetary system to regulate human resources and reserves.

Each person is given a mark [either upon birth, or upon registry within a city-segment - although after a certain age, the process is considerably more painful]. The mark may be used to buy food, punch in and out of occupations and therefore receive payment for such work, purchase any other commodities, and even access public restrooms.

Criminals are stripped of the mark when they enter the prison facilities. Those criminals that have not been caught are erased from the system, and therefore rendered unable to purchase food, go to work, or even access water from public facilities. Citizens with information as to the whereabouts of criminals are encouraged [and often rewarded] to turn in such outlaws, for the criminal's own good. Outside of the system, it is estimated a human can survive for three to seven days. Outside of the city-segments, a human life-span drops dramatically from the chemicals poisoning the ground and even tainting the lower drafts of air.

Water is cleaned of chemicals when it enters through the city-segment pipes, thanks largely to the scientific teams working under Technocracy funding. The purified water, free and accessible from public locations, is the only drinkable water on the planet. The only requirement to drink such water is to be marked.

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Wicked Alchemy is copyrighted @ February 2002 by mutedfaith.com. All information within the web comic and on these pages is the property of mutedfaith.com. Permission must be obtained before the use of any copyrighted material, as per intellectual rights.