✘ a brand new world

[whip_poor_will]

This is how the world ends ▸

As the old poem goes, the world did not end with a bang but a whimper.

And then it just kept shuffling on, and on, and on...

The time and reality that Ravine comes from is a despairing one. Hundreds of years in the future, a group of researchers had discovered a cure for a deadly infectious disease. Except that, as fate would have it, said cure mutated into a major airborne virus that spread throughout the world, killing the living cells in the human body. 5% of the world’s population perished within the year.

Over the course of six months, the world population was slowly decimated. In spite of this, the global powers banded together to create a humanity conservation program, allowing a small number of the world’s population to be preserved in an ocean reserve. The lottery for secretly selecting families to be taken to the ocean reservations began shortly after, and the project itself was nothing more than a rumor to those not involved or selected.

Eight OASIS reservations were divided to ensure a racial and intellectual balance for when the world ended. Conveniently, OASIS reservations had already been in progress for about 50 years prior. Originally intended for a different purpose (creating underwater cities and deep sea exploration), they had been repurposed for humanity’s survival. They have not yet been dropped into the ocean ridges, where they would become stabilized along the underwater mountain system.

Within a year, 20% of the world’s population has been eradicated by the Plagues. Quarantine Zones had been placed for those selected by the lottery, but they had not been informed that they are part of a conservation project. They were, instead, told that they were riding out the global infection in isolation. However, it was estimated that it would take at least 200 years for the virus to die out. Maybe more.

Soon, over 80% of the world’s population had perished, while the surviving 1% remained in quarantine cities, on standby to enter the stasis reserves. One year later, the conservation program was a success, albeit with some anticipated side effects. With most of the world’s population dead, the remaining 9% worked on either making peace with their final days, or volunteering in the effort to try and preserve humanity via the OASIS reservations in a final act of philanthropy.

Unfortunately there were incidents of some of the researchers killing one of the lottery candidates in order to take their place for themselves or a family member. Due to the urgency of the situation, many turned a blind eye in order to continue their progress, rather than waste time with trials and justice. Extreme no tolerance policies were implemented, including threats of execution against anyone who dared to impede the project further, going so far as to call it a crime against humanity itself.

2221 was the year the world “ended”. Humans were in stasis for nearly a thousand years. Of the 1% who have survived, .0009% of the people actually remember the Forgotten World (which was believed to be that aforementioned “anticipated side effect”).

The year of the Collapse occurred when the 1% woke from their stasis, with the automated system settings back to 0.

217 years have passed since then.

As a result of the Collapse and no one knowing how long the original humans were in stasis, the official year is unknown. Even a few functional robots that remain had issues calculating the dates since the Collapse. This makes the known year 298AC (After Collapse).

Those that do remember the Forgotten World have no idea what started the Plagues, but the Dead Cell Theory insists that it was the result of research for a terminal disease. Questions about what disease the cure was supposed to be intended for are unknown.

Underneath this dying world exists other worlds. Worlds that do belong to the dead and the higher powers beyond human comprehension. These are the Zones, where lost souls reside.

And the reapers, known as Psychopomps...

New World Timeline

Ancient ▸
Emanations have existed for as long as time. These primordial entities have been called many things, including angels and gods, as they are believed to have given life to Earth, but humans are unable to comprehend their messages to know their purpose for certain.

While the entities run on seemingly boundless power, they require lifeblood in order to survive. Why this is isn't known. Ravine believes their true nature is to act as parasites to the worlds they give life to, nurturing a source of power before they suck it dry, then move on to the next.

Their supposed creator, Eyn Sof, had abandoned the world eons ago with their Emissary, Lilith. Since then, the Emanations had given birth to Emissaries of their own. These took the form of "gifted humans" who would be chosen by the Emanations to serve them after they die.

The Emanation of Death, the Dumah, created the Psychopomps and the ritualistic sacraments they were meant to carry out.

570s BCE ▸
A diviner in Babylon, Yehudit, perished in a fit of madness. She was reborn as the Psychopomp, Ravine. Over the next millennia, she would encounter other beings like herself that were chosen by the Dumah.

Her only companion was a Buddhist nun from 1,600 years after her own death, who would later become a reaper like herself and be called Saya.

1098 CE ▸
During the First Cruisades, the Church of Irkalia was founded (although it did not have a name back then, and would not be known as a church for several centuries yet).

1600s CE ▸
Ravine became entangled in the ritualistic sacrifices of souls without remorse. Up to a point, she simply avoided developing lasting attachments towards the living.

It wasn't until she befriended a colonial girl, Elizabeth Moss, that things changed. Ravine began to develop a sort of motherly attachment towards the child, revisiting her as she grew up. When she passed away at the young age of twenty-two, Ravine learned that her soul had been chosen as a sacrifice for the Dumah.

Not wanting to participate in these horrid rituals any longer, Ravine attempted to save Elizabeth so that her soul could find peace. Instead, her soul was ripped away by another Psychopomp named Pauk, who used her bone weapon to incapacitate Ravine and take Elizabeth to the Dumah. Her soul would then be tortured, defiled, and ultimately devoured by the entity.

While still vowing to carry out her tasks as a reaper, Ravine swore to never parttake in the Sacraments again.

1684 CE ▸
As punishment for Elizabeth, the Dumah released Yehudit's brother, whose soul they had kept in suspension since his early death. His corpse manifested in a field outside a small Connecticut town called Windbridge.

He would later go by the name Vincent, and continue his immortal life never knowing his true past or who his sister was, as Ravine refused to let the Dumah use her brother to torture her.

1980 CE ▸
A serial killer from Atrani, Italy died in a car accident of his own fault. Because of his chaotic nature and bloodlust, he was chosen to be an Emissary by the Emanation of Ruin, the Asbeel. He was reborn as an immortal Wight, and served as an antagonistic force for the Psychopomps.

1995 CE ▸
After centuries of failed attempts to impede on the Dumah's rituals, Saya informed Ravine that a new soul was chosen to be devoured by the entity. What more, that sacrifice had befriended her brother, so Ravine made an extra effort in thwarting the Dumah.

This time, she did succeed, but only because the Asbeel's Wight, Grayson Ambrosi, had offered his help under the pretense that he had planned to murder the woman and take her soul instead. While this did weaken the Dumah greatly, Ravine knew that her brother would never forgive her for allowing his friend to be killed, and decided to cut herself out of his immortal life entirely.

2000-2200 CE ▸
Over the next 200 years, the Dumah would fail to rejuvenate their strength via a sacrifice. As the Dumah weakened, the Asbeel grew in strength, and they began to carry out what they were created to do: Wreak absolute ruin.

With the aid of their Wight, Grayson and the Asbeel succeeded in slowly sowing chaos and ruin to humanity. The influx of deaths wore out the existing Psychopomps who were tasked to reap each one, causing them to become corrupted souls as well. As Psychopomps were turning into the demonic shedim, any remaining had to contend both with the human souls as well as their own.

It all came to a head when the Asbeel created the Dead Cell disease, which was intended to be the final and total ruin of the human race.

2213 CE ▸
A cure for the Dead Cell disease was discovered. Grayson and the Asbeel were actually shocked at first to find that it worked... until the treatment turned into a major airborne virus that spread throughout the world.

The "cure" ended up killing all living cells in the human body that the Dead Cell disease could not. 5% of the world’s population died within the year.

2214 CE ▸
Within six months, the world population was slowly wiped out. Governments all around the world had banded together to repurpose an ocean reservation project into a humanity conservation program. Thanks to the organization known as OASIS (the Oceanic Agency for Subaquatic Inhabitation and Stasis), they offered a solution to the imminent extinction of humanity. The lottery for secretly selecting families to be taken to the five ocean reserves began.

There are eight Ocean Reservations divided to ensure a racial and intellectual balance when the world ends. These are the proximate numbers of the populations preserved by the OASIS technology:

● Arctic (ArcOR): 10,000 ● Austral (AusOR): 10,000 ● Indian (IOR-1): 9,750 ● Indian (IOR-2): 9,300

● Atlantic (AltOR-1): 10,500 ● Atlantic (AltOR-2): 10,000 ● Pacific (POR-1): 15,000 ● Pacific (POR-2): 15,000

● ArcOR: Canada, Greenland, Russia, Norway, Arctica
● AusOR: Australia and Oceanica
● IOR: Asia
● AltOR: Africa (+ Middle East), Europe
● POR: North and South America, Asia

OASIS had been developing the Ocean Reservations for about 50 years, hence the large numbers they were able to save. Originally intended for a different purpose (creating underwater cities and deep-sea exploration), they have since been repurposed for humanity’s survival. They had not yet been dropped into the ocean ridges, where they will be stable among the underwater mountain system. It was unknown whether or not the reserves would survive the ocean submersion, but people were willing to make that gamble in their time of desperation.

20% of the world’s population were eradicated by the Plagues.

2219 CE ▸
Within the next 5 years, 80% of the world’s population perished. The 1% remained in quarantine cities, on standby to enter the OASIS reservations.

2220 CE ▸
The conservation program was a success, but may have had some unanticipated side effects. People in the quarantine zones were informed that they would be in stasis for a short period, not telling any of them that they were scheduled to wake centuries later when the world as they know it is long since gone. With the sheer number of lives they were saving, it took years for people to properly be sent into the reserves.

90% of the world’s population died.

The remaining 9% focused on either making peace with their final days or volunteered in programs to try and preserve humanity in the Ocean Stasis Reserves.

Of the 7.3 billion people in the world, only 1% of that population survived approximately 889 years ago. That makes 73,000,000 people saved from dying of the disease.

2221 CE ▸
The year the world has officially “ended”.

The Psychomachy ▸
When humanity went into stasis in the year 2220, the Asbeel had sought to take advantage of the new wild world and ravage it with wights and shedim. Within decades, they had corrupted the souls of countless dead humans in order to do so, including those that were meant to be claimed by the Dumah to become Psychopomps. The Asbeel turned many of those would-be reapers into wights instead, offering them dominion in the "new world".

Over the next few centuries, the Asbeel waged war with the other Emanations and their Emissaries. What few Emanations remained were dwindled down to just six, most which have made more of an effort to hide than to confront the Asbeel any further.

The Dumah had also since gone dormant, only conscious enough to allow the souls of the dead to pass through them.

The Psychomachy would last for nearly a thousand years, all while humanity slept.

Collapse ▸
As a result of the chaos beyond the ocean reserves, the sleepers were in stasis for several hundreds of years longer than intended.

Of the 1% who have survived, .0009% (657) people actually remember the Forgotten World, because the Emanation of Time, Eth, had taken their memories so they could have the strength to survive the Asbeel's ruin.

The year of the Collapse occurred in the year 3001 CE, when the 1% woke from their stasis, setting everything back to 0.

An Incident ▸
In the year 2500, due to the Collapse, there was an error in one of the private preserves created by a group of wealthy businesspeople and their families, friends, and colleagues. They had hired independent contractors to work on preserving more than just the 1% of the population. Since the lottery was based on aptitude rather than wealth and social status, these people tried to create an ocean reserve for their own.

Rather than creating a stasis system, they simply made an underwater city. However, time passed and they would run out of supplies, as would any others attempting to survive via underground bunkers and such. Most would either die of starvation, resort to cannibalism, or attempt to leave and be killed by the virus. Some independent contractors were able to create stasis systems, which preserved the individuals inside. However, many of them experienced blips which caused the reserves to open too soon, messing up the dates. People exited the independent reserves and were killed by the disease.

Needless to say, they were lambs to the Asbeel's slaughter.

After Collapse ▸
Centuries more have passed since then, making the current year of Culling the Crows 3217. However, due to the Collapse and no one knowing how long it’s been since they entered stasis, the official year is unknown. Even the robots had issues calculating the dates since the Collapse. Think of it as an actual y2k that happened sometime after the fall of humanity.

This makes the known year 217 AC (After Collapse).

Current world population: 56,000,000 (due to predators, civil wars, disease, and exposure).

Those that do remember the Forgotten World have no idea what started the Plagues, but the Dead Cell Theory insists that it was the result of research for a terminal disease. Questions about what disease the cure was supposed to be intended for are unknown.

Vehicles run on alt-fuel, which was synthesized at some point during stasis. It comes from a type of clay that can be condensed and recreated for energy purposes.

Doors Open ▸
In lieu of the Sacraments, the Asbeel turned the souls that would have given strength to the Dumah and made them into Doors. Rather than offering "food" to the Emanations, they would now serve as a kind of mercy to the remaining Psychopomps.

Reap the soul, and a Door leading out of this dying world opens to them. Where it leads, no one knows, but the reapers who had suffered during the Psychomachy decide they don't care.

As the world dies, more reapers are finding Doors, abandoning their purpose and leaving.

Knowing that her actions have ultimately caused this to happen, Ravine decides to stay until the end, if only to watch the end of the Emanations.

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