The Wastes
(forest, plains, extreme hills)
The wastes are what makes up most of the world; bleak, barren zones inhabitated by only few mutated animals and hardy shrubs,
but roamed by hordes of Orbital Industries robots, gangs of Bandits and packs of Lost.
Almost all traces of human civilization are gone, only the abandoned H.I.V.E's and scrap shack villages remain,
silent reminders of the failure of the once great human society.
The H.I.V.E's were constructed by O.I. before the war as subterran networks, linking several cocoon bunkers together into a superstructure.
They can be found nearly everywhere and still contain valuable resources and machinery like batteries or gears, for those who dare to explore them.
The scrap shack settlements were created by those unlucky human scavengers who would eventually become the Lost. Denied access to the H.I.V.E's, they would created makeshift huts on stilts above the ground as protective meassure. However the elevated position couldn't protect them against the radiation which slowly turned the unlucky survivors into barley human beings, driven only by their instincts.
Snow
(tundra,taiga)
The only regions left mostly unaltered in wake of the Event,
the atomic holocaust and the nuclear winter were those uninviting areas that were extremly cold to begin with e.g. high mountains and tundras.
When the nuclear fallout fell down in form of radiating snow flakes it wouldn't penetrate the thick layers of snow,
ice and frozen ground, leaving the groundwater and plant seeds, burried underneath the permafrost, unpoisoned.
After the climate had stabilzed itself somewhat and nature returned to its usual cycle of snowmelt and snowfall,
the fallout had already lost most of its hazard potential and the flora, foremost spruce trees, recovered.
The fauna wasn't so lucky however. Most animals suffered severe mutations or died by radiation, malnourishment or cold.
Only the wolf-dog hybrids managed to adapt in large packs, hunting down the last living creatures in the harsh wilderness.
Desert
The Event and the following environmental catastrophes caused lots of already arid areas to dry out completely.
Orbital Industries used these areas as disposal zones for their clean-up operation after the Event,
storing the sometimes radioactive debris of destroyed cities either deep underground or in barrels throughout the deserts.
The irradiated moon dust that fell from the skies in large quantities was dropped on dumps,
increasing the uninhabitable desert character of those areas even more.
All that remains from this enormous effort are the drilled shafts, sometimes burried in the sand,
sometimes flooded and the piles of green barrels scattered around, humming quietly with residual radiation.
Antenna facility
(jungle)
Before Orbital Industries' moon landing in 8 BE, fission and fussion materials on earth were starting to dwindle.
In an effort to keep their own growing industries supplied with cheap electricity, O.I. set out to find alternative engergies.
They came to the only logical conclusion: Giant lightning absorbing tesla towers!
Humongous Facilities covering whole tracts of land, featuring giant copper coils tipped with lightning rods were erected to attract, harvest, store and process lightnings. Each lightning strike would generate whopping 1,21 GW equaling the total energy output of a small plutonium fission rod, while the frequency of giant thunderstorms near the "Antennas" (as this was their official designation) was abnormally high.
The ozone created by the lightnings would also be collected by small, expanding canisters attached to the rods and processed into N2O which in turn could be used in the creation of medicines and stimulants.
The Antennas featured a to date revolutionary system for their construction.
A group of AITBs (Antenna in the box) would be deployed in an open space. Either through natural sources like light and lightings,
or (as it was more often the case) through artificial electricity input those engineering marvels would collect energy.
When the critical energy level was met, they would spontaneously convert the stored electricity into matter and "grow" within a few seconds. If a group of AITBs was put close together they would bond and generate a much bigger antenna. (The "In the box" system would be used after the Event by the Lost for the quick construction of their shacks, before they became the braindead monstrosities that they are today)
Of course the discovery of huge Helium – 3 deposits on the moon rendered the expensive power plants obsolete, a fact that Mr. History was aware of and therefore "forgot" to mention until he had netted contracts for the construction of thousands of Antennas around the world.
Once again he got away with it, by offering to upgrade the Antennas into weather control devices, radar scramblers,
tesla anti-air and anti-ground weapons or all of those options combined…against a fee of course.
After the Event, the upgraded antennas were used to counteract the drastic climate changes, but to no avail. During the war they were used as weapons, with devastating effects, but unable to stop the deployment of nuclear weaponary.
After the period of bloodshed the former power plants began to decay, turning into giant expanses of rubble,
home to a lot of stray cats leading their pitiful lifes underneath the still intact antennas.
Swamp
Lots of areas hit by freak thunderstorms or tsunamis during the Event and the war never recovered. The terrain was eroded by the forces of nature and he deluges of water carrying nuclear fallout were unable to drain off fast enough before the fine mud clogged the ground. Vast expanses of flat, radioactive, stagnant water were the result, void of all life.
Years afterwards when the water masses started to receed pioneer species like fungi and vines had returned to the small islands wihin the brackish morass but still tons of fish would die, victims to radiation trapped in the water.
Mushroom
Only months before the Event,
Orbital Industries started to cover some isolated islands with an experimental plating against nuclear radiation called Funga-plast.
This carefulness was due to the the remarkable and a slightly uncontrollable properties of the new shielding material: It was self-reparing and replicating.
Somewhat similar to fungal mycelium,it would absorb minerals and moisture from the ground and form a thick, ground covering,
crystalline structure resembling metal sheets. While dense enough to be stepped on and able to absorb incoming radiation of various magnitudes, the Funga-plast was no where near as durable as any actual metal.
O.I.'s foresight to limit their initial deployment of Funga-plast payed off, as side effects became known:
Other spore based life forms, mostly mushrooms and fungi, settled within the nutrient rich confines of the Funga-plast, turning the radiation shield into a breeding ground. The massive amount of spores that lingerd in the air clogged the respiratory systems of any living being, and the cooling units of all robots, in the area.
Another side effect was that the Funga-plast would fuse with the fruiting bodies of various fungi, using them as a medium to grow into absurd pseudo-metallic platforms resembling the former mushrooms
For those reasons O.I. deemed the radiation shield project a failure and abandoned the almost lifeless islands.
Unbeknownst to them, a strand of stonebacks would manage to withstand the constant spore exposure, albeit even more mutated and as a living host to mold and mushrooms.
Moon
(Nether)
Once the beautiful and sole satellite of earth, the moon is a literal debris field in the orbit nowadays.
After Orbital Industries' mining operations and underground weapon testing started to hollow it out, the moon soon became nicknamed "The Belly".
During the Event an experimental moon portal sucked a fraction of earths atmosphere into the Belly and set of a chain reaction of explosions. The moon broke apart.
The atmosphere on the moon allows the transmission of sound waves but isn't thick enough to sustain life (expect the Moonshroom).
After the scientists that survived the Event in the Belly were stranded (as O.I. was disbanded and the nuclear war broke out) their sanity and bodies were twisted by their hazardous environment. The lack of maintenance threw mining and security robots into a state of disarray, making the moon one of the most dangerous places to be. Even if you have a space suit on you to prevent suffocation.
The End
From: █████████
To: ████████████
Subject: Disappearance of ███ ██████ and possible connection to Dr ██████████████████
The theory I introduced in my report 10 hours ago seems to be accurate. Our agent "Creeper" has located the source of the mysterious portal signatures and found evidence of a massive illegal H.I.V.E close to ██████ between ██████ and █████████ on the coordinates ████████. According to his findings it's financed by Croc.Co.
Furthermore "Creeper" has witnessed the incoming of three armoured transport trucks with ventilation slots, which hints towards living cargo.
The number plates were ██████, ██████ and ██████ and turned out to be registered for a letterbox company in █████████.
All this seems to proof that to Dr ██████████████████ is experimenting on humans.
The Orbital Industries employee we took in two days ago disclosed that ███ ██████ had initiated a company-internal inquiry against to Dr ██████████████████ because he suspected him off unethical work methods. This led to to Dr ██████████████████'s departure.
The entire affair was preceded by a dispute between ███ ██████ and to Dr ██████████████████ because of a denied experimental cyborg procedure to revive the latter's wife.
The employee went on and reported that during his work under to Dr ██████████████████ he has had access to experiment files that described a being similar to the unidentified assailants that destroyed the Orbital Industries office building in ████████, by mysteriously appearing inside and removing its foundation.
The interrogation of to Dr ██████████████████'s cleaning woman was largely inconclusive, except for the fact that to Dr ██████████████████ became reclusive after the death of his wife and developed a strange fixation on penguins.
I know our resources are stretched thin with the ongoing hostilities after that terrible Event, but I request backup in storming that illegal H.I.V.E. We can't win a possible war with enemies lurking within our own borders, especially if they are setting up portals.
Signed
████████
Ooooone
The madness of the world forces me to write these lines. Everything is gone and no one is here to share my plight. HIS eyes burn in my mind, I haven't found sleep for days. Is someone coming? One of those monsters?! No they only live down in that Notch-forsaken H.I.V.E! The lonleyness makes me hear things, I always hear the scuttling of those abominable roaches who almost ate my face!
They are coming for me! Both of them. An all I have is a tattered H.I.V.E shirt and my trousers. They won't get them!
Too
I ate a lizzard. Notch help me! What have I done?! I'm feeling sick, green bubbles everywhere. I hear HIM whispering in my dreams. At least HE's gone silent while I'm awake. Time to puke!
March 16th 13 AE
I had a lot of time to think and get my thoughts straight while I spent the last 3 days curled up in some kind of elevated shack, sick with food poisoning. I can't believe I really wrote the last 2 entries, but it's not suprising that I went mad after all I've been through. I still find myself giggling to myself and I have an uneasy sleep, I prefer to stay awake.
I forgot my name but according to a message left to me, I was an agent called "Creeper".
I don't recall much of my last mission but I know that it nearly drove me insane.
I faced pure madness.
I ran around a place out of this world, on dead bodies strapped in machines, tall horrific experiments mercilessly staring at me, vanishing into thin air only to reappear behind me.
And HE was there.
HIS name is unpronouncable, HIS white eyes staring into my very soul and HIS laughter haunting my dreams.
I'm sorry, I let it get to me again. The "HE" I wrote about is a terrifying mixture of man, beast and machine that I don't even want to think about. It chased me around that nightmare for aeons.
Aeon, what a strange word.
I'm getting side tracked again.
I don't know how, but I woke up next to what I know was the entrance back to this realm of madness. Giant roaches had eaten almost all of my clothes and were about to take a bit out of me!
I ran away, through the confusing installation which I remember to be an illegal H.I.V.E. I replaced my ragged clothes with what clothes I could find. Finally I found the exit, and next to it a table with a note for me. Some superior whom I don't remember explained to me that a war was happening and that they couldn't search for me anymore. There was a clock which broke down shortly thereafter which told me the year.
I invented my own time system based on "The Event" when those crazed bunglers at O.I. blew up the moon. The moon … HE was responsible for that, I now know that. HE told me…
I have to concentrate
Like I wrote: I have a new time system and it's the 16th of March 13 years after the Event. I don't know how so much time could have passed after I entered that portal or whatever that demonic device was. I've ran from the H.I.V.E into the bleak wastes. There definetly had been a nuclear war.
My P.I.M (Personal Inventory Manager), which is the last part of my equipment, informs me that my state of health is pretty good considering the circumstances. No radiation, no traces of remaining poison, no major wounds and after I ate that giant rat (or pig, what know I what it looked like before it mutated) I also feel sated and strong.
Apart from that my situation is looking grim. I don't remeber where I am or who I am. Perhaps I can regain my identity by returning to that H.I.V.E… Haha just kidding, I'm not that crazy. Or am I?
Whatever, I need to find food, tools and shelter first, before I develop any suicidal plans.
And I need to find more paper, I'm runni-