Future History
Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:26 pm
Mortal History
Much as modern settlements rest over the pot shards and fire pits of ancient civilizations, society itself is built over the wreckage of its own past. The world of Shattered Masquerade has come a long way since 2020, and the Kindred of this Chronicle have been unalive for all of it. What follows is a brief summary of the future history the Kindred of the Free State have born witness to, in the hopes it will help players immerse themselves and their characters in the future nights they will stalk.
2020's - The Blackout Riots and the Great Decline
The roots of the world of 2070 were planted in late April of 2020, when a partial meltdown took place at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, New York. The partial meltdown did not cause any direct injuries, but resulted in widepsread and rolling blackouts in New York City. In the midst of interruptions to vital services and the fear surrounding the potential fallout at Indian Point, New York City broke out into civil disorder and violence. The New York Police Department reacted swiftly and brutally, a response which provoked outrage in cities around the country as footage of the carnage began to surface. Protests and occupations in cities across North America and then the world tipped into violence, sparking similar riots across the U.S, Canada, and parts of Europe that persisted through 2020, 2021, and 2022. The violence and disorder caused did billions in direct damage and shook confidence in government from the public at large and economic actors. An already sluggish economy fell into recession, posting losses in jobs, stocks, and GDP's through the first half of the 2020's. While global markets began showing some signs of recovery in the late 2020's, the gilded age that defined the wake of the Great Recession had ended and given way to a Great Decline.
2030's - Corporate Consolidation and The Blood Hunts
As lean times from the Great Decline continued, major corporations took advantage of weaker and more pliable government to pursue consolidation on a growing scale. Justifying their actions under the auspices of job creation, Corporate mergers once considered monopolistic and anti-competitive were approved with the tactic consent of politicians either bought and paid for or desperate for anything to revive a flagging economy. While the violent social unrest of the 2020's had cooled to a simmer, other factors drove the persistence of street and mob violence. Among other factors, growing "evidence" that fueled a belief in "Vampires" - all vociferously denied by governmental and institutional authorities - sparked a wave of mob violence against anyone suspected of being one of these supernatural creatures. These attacks - dubbed "Blood Hunts" in the media - often targetted insular and marginalized communities such as immigrants, LGBT communities, religious minorities, and occasionally even wealthy individuals and business leaders. The attacks were often spontaneous and disorganized, making them difficult for police and investigative agencies to predict and stop and further undermining confidence in the ability of governments - and especially the national government - to protect its citizens.
2040's - Privatization and Automation
Taking advantage of the mistrust in public institutions fueled by years of economic and social decline, pro-business legislators and executives began broadening the scope of government services that could be and were privatized. Extreme privatization began at the local level, with police forces lampooned for their inability to prevent the riots of the 2020's or the street violence of the 2030's replaced by paramilitary private security forces under the nominal authority of the police department. With the success of these programs in cutting down on street violence and disorder, privatization extended to education, healthcare, welfare, and the justice and prison systems as a whole. By the late 2040's, most aspects of local and state government and a growing amount of the federal government had essentially be turned over to the handful of major corporations that now controlled the vast majority of wealth. This windfall of profits allowed these budding megacorporations to invest heavily in automation and artificial intelligence, dramatically lowering costs while pushing record numbers of people into perpetual unemployment. With well-armed private police forces wielding expanded powers on the streets and a privatized justice system to mete out harsh punishments, a brief resurgence in civil disobedience and protest was quickly put down. Despite growing unrest, the budding new order seemed stable as then decade came to a close.
2050's - Rising Tides and Rising Walls
The greatest challenge to this new order had been quietly creeping up on it for years. While mostly ignored amidst the social and economic chaos of the 21st century, coastal communities, farmers, and other people most vulnerable to a shifting climate had been facing increasing difficulty with each passing year. The scale of the emerging threat became a public emergency in August of 2051, when Hurricane Cassidy struck New Orleans with fallout rivaling that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The levees that protected the city failed once again, flooding nearly all of it outside of the French Quarter, While Hurricane Cassidy was a crisis unto itself, the failure of the water to recede in much of the city called attention to diminishing coastlines around the country. In response, massive federal and local contracts were given out to protect the nation's coastal cities from these waters through the construction of unprecedented dike and levee systems. Massive building projects also took place in the cities themselves. With land above sea level now at a premium, entire neighborhoods were vacated to make room for the neon-and-obsidian high-rises that would come to dominate American skylines in the 2050's/ Small coastal cities and towns, however, received little if any protection. The reality that smaller coastal communities had been left to sink drove their occupants out in massive numbers, swarming cities like New Orleans, Miami, and New York that were both in need of massive amounts of labor and would be protected where their communities were not. These laborers had nowhere else to go once construction was completed, settling into their cities as a new underclass living in the flood-prone shadows of the engineering feats they had built.
2060's - The New Normal
The 2060's were, for the first time in a short lifetime, a period of calm and stability. While little was done to address massive, structural problems facing the growing number of poor and destitute, most Americans were able to make some sort of living without fear of violence in their daily life. And those who weren't were silenced, left forgotten and unheard in the growing slums and favellas of America's great and growing metropolises. Even Vampires, still denied by the government even as a the public at large accepted them as fact, had by now become a normal part of society for rich and poor alike. But few, living or damned, expect that stability to last.
Much as modern settlements rest over the pot shards and fire pits of ancient civilizations, society itself is built over the wreckage of its own past. The world of Shattered Masquerade has come a long way since 2020, and the Kindred of this Chronicle have been unalive for all of it. What follows is a brief summary of the future history the Kindred of the Free State have born witness to, in the hopes it will help players immerse themselves and their characters in the future nights they will stalk.
2020's - The Blackout Riots and the Great Decline
The roots of the world of 2070 were planted in late April of 2020, when a partial meltdown took place at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, New York. The partial meltdown did not cause any direct injuries, but resulted in widepsread and rolling blackouts in New York City. In the midst of interruptions to vital services and the fear surrounding the potential fallout at Indian Point, New York City broke out into civil disorder and violence. The New York Police Department reacted swiftly and brutally, a response which provoked outrage in cities around the country as footage of the carnage began to surface. Protests and occupations in cities across North America and then the world tipped into violence, sparking similar riots across the U.S, Canada, and parts of Europe that persisted through 2020, 2021, and 2022. The violence and disorder caused did billions in direct damage and shook confidence in government from the public at large and economic actors. An already sluggish economy fell into recession, posting losses in jobs, stocks, and GDP's through the first half of the 2020's. While global markets began showing some signs of recovery in the late 2020's, the gilded age that defined the wake of the Great Recession had ended and given way to a Great Decline.
2030's - Corporate Consolidation and The Blood Hunts
As lean times from the Great Decline continued, major corporations took advantage of weaker and more pliable government to pursue consolidation on a growing scale. Justifying their actions under the auspices of job creation, Corporate mergers once considered monopolistic and anti-competitive were approved with the tactic consent of politicians either bought and paid for or desperate for anything to revive a flagging economy. While the violent social unrest of the 2020's had cooled to a simmer, other factors drove the persistence of street and mob violence. Among other factors, growing "evidence" that fueled a belief in "Vampires" - all vociferously denied by governmental and institutional authorities - sparked a wave of mob violence against anyone suspected of being one of these supernatural creatures. These attacks - dubbed "Blood Hunts" in the media - often targetted insular and marginalized communities such as immigrants, LGBT communities, religious minorities, and occasionally even wealthy individuals and business leaders. The attacks were often spontaneous and disorganized, making them difficult for police and investigative agencies to predict and stop and further undermining confidence in the ability of governments - and especially the national government - to protect its citizens.
2040's - Privatization and Automation
Taking advantage of the mistrust in public institutions fueled by years of economic and social decline, pro-business legislators and executives began broadening the scope of government services that could be and were privatized. Extreme privatization began at the local level, with police forces lampooned for their inability to prevent the riots of the 2020's or the street violence of the 2030's replaced by paramilitary private security forces under the nominal authority of the police department. With the success of these programs in cutting down on street violence and disorder, privatization extended to education, healthcare, welfare, and the justice and prison systems as a whole. By the late 2040's, most aspects of local and state government and a growing amount of the federal government had essentially be turned over to the handful of major corporations that now controlled the vast majority of wealth. This windfall of profits allowed these budding megacorporations to invest heavily in automation and artificial intelligence, dramatically lowering costs while pushing record numbers of people into perpetual unemployment. With well-armed private police forces wielding expanded powers on the streets and a privatized justice system to mete out harsh punishments, a brief resurgence in civil disobedience and protest was quickly put down. Despite growing unrest, the budding new order seemed stable as then decade came to a close.
2050's - Rising Tides and Rising Walls
The greatest challenge to this new order had been quietly creeping up on it for years. While mostly ignored amidst the social and economic chaos of the 21st century, coastal communities, farmers, and other people most vulnerable to a shifting climate had been facing increasing difficulty with each passing year. The scale of the emerging threat became a public emergency in August of 2051, when Hurricane Cassidy struck New Orleans with fallout rivaling that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The levees that protected the city failed once again, flooding nearly all of it outside of the French Quarter, While Hurricane Cassidy was a crisis unto itself, the failure of the water to recede in much of the city called attention to diminishing coastlines around the country. In response, massive federal and local contracts were given out to protect the nation's coastal cities from these waters through the construction of unprecedented dike and levee systems. Massive building projects also took place in the cities themselves. With land above sea level now at a premium, entire neighborhoods were vacated to make room for the neon-and-obsidian high-rises that would come to dominate American skylines in the 2050's/ Small coastal cities and towns, however, received little if any protection. The reality that smaller coastal communities had been left to sink drove their occupants out in massive numbers, swarming cities like New Orleans, Miami, and New York that were both in need of massive amounts of labor and would be protected where their communities were not. These laborers had nowhere else to go once construction was completed, settling into their cities as a new underclass living in the flood-prone shadows of the engineering feats they had built.
2060's - The New Normal
The 2060's were, for the first time in a short lifetime, a period of calm and stability. While little was done to address massive, structural problems facing the growing number of poor and destitute, most Americans were able to make some sort of living without fear of violence in their daily life. And those who weren't were silenced, left forgotten and unheard in the growing slums and favellas of America's great and growing metropolises. Even Vampires, still denied by the government even as a the public at large accepted them as fact, had by now become a normal part of society for rich and poor alike. But few, living or damned, expect that stability to last.