Orsus
The Beginning
The Beginning
In the twilight of the 22nd technological evolution, mankind was finally able to create life from simple chemical materials combined with intricate genetic engineering. This new life was developed, enhanced, and used for humanity's own delight: replacing human workers in the fields that demanded intensive physical labor; serving as personal companions; entertaining; serving -- the possibilities were endless, limited only by human creativity.
These lifeforms were called the Daruma.
Produced on a massive scale in factories, these entities were placed in special shells to cease cellular development and routed to stores all over the world. The Daruma were bought and released, and subsequently used as simple tools by their owners.
In those days, the world still lived in fear of an impending war with aggressive China, the largest and most economically powerful country on the planet. Around that time, the Chinese government was attempting a "friendly merger" (re: military backed takeover) with Brazil over its valuable natural resource, water. What was once plentiful and practically free had long ago become an expensive necessity in a dystopic climate.
Despite the political turmoil, most of humanity still ventured forward to live glorious days, oblivious to the occurring strife.
Extremus Judicium
The Last Judgement
The Last Judgement
A Daruma's life seemed easy -- many lived the life of a pet, the parasites of human society. Slowly, however, they became more and more conscious of their surroundings, seeing the corrupted and broken world around them. Wars. Conflict. Deturpation of values and beliefs. Their wide access to information through Earth's infinite netherhex only served to enlighten them further, while their human masters dozed on in a beautiful dream of peace and prosperity.
The Daruma predicted a disaster of apocalyptic proportions: mankind would destroy itself with the outbreak of the expected, but never truly believed, third world war. No human listened to their tall tales, so they went away, hiding in the underground at shelters built under the oath of silence, and there they remained as humanity tore itself to pieces.
The War soon struck the surface, as predicted. Those who had slept in ignorant slumber finally woke to see their mistakes, but it was much too late. The chaos didn't last long; a ruler with a broken sense of honor was all that was needed to end life on the planet as the humans knew it.
This story could have been contested, theories created in debate over who had really pushed the button -- but there were no more humans left to spread their bickering blight upon the world, and all of this soon ceased to matter.
Altera Genesis
The Second Birth
The Second Birth
The Earth remained impossible to inhabit years after the War, its lands covered with dead bodies of anything that could not survive the atomic holocaust and chemical waste. Not all was lost, however; many different species survived -- bugs and sea animals from the depths of the oceans, species that had long evolved resistence as the world grew more polluted.
Slowly, Earth regenerated, the dead remains deteriorating into basic materials and new life evolving quickly in the window left open by the slew of missing species. Fauna and flora soon covered the world once again, although it was almost entirely unrecognizable from the biomass that had inhabited Earth before.
Seeing the possibility of life, the Daruma finally emerged to take over the newly revitalized lands and to take better care than their predecessors. They quickly created a society merged with the environment -- a perfect symbiosis. Their cities grew, as did their technology, at first based on their immense database of human discoveries, but soon becoming something completely different... something better.
Eventually, their cities could be seen all over the Earth. Where the human cities had appeared a gray, cancerous growth over the earth, the Daruma cities looked much like veins of precious metals, existing peacefully and beautifully with natural life instead of cutting through it.
This is the present era -- a perfect time for a new beginning.
