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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shalimar" data-source="post: 1205772" data-attributes="member: 9600">Slouching Towards the ApocalypseHumanity has fallen into war, in the year 2004 the third World War started when a small nuclear weapon was detonated in Israel by Palestinian extremists. 10 months later, the war was still grinding on, a UN coalition, was doing its best to bring about peace talks, but unfortunately, all of the old grudges came out, as they so often do, and the war ground on. The major players in the war were the regulars, England, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, and Italy. The War went on, some nations joining in on the fighting, others leaving it, but always, somewhere, people were fighting, people were dying. Over 100 million died within the first year of the fighting, by the second year, over 300 million more had died, and the third year of fighting looked to be shaping up much the same way. That’s when it happened, no one is sure exactly what caused it, some think Aliens, others think it was released as weapon, others don't even bother to speculate, we simply don't know. Reports began coming in of a sickness that was spreading throughout the middle-east. It started with a fever, and progressed flu like for a week, leaving the afflicted weak, dizzy, and hallucinating. Those infected ate enough for a family of 4, a hardship even in peaceful times, it was a disaster during the food shortages caused by the war. Over the Fifth, sixth, and Seventh days, the patient began to vomit blood, and at the very end, the blood poured from the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The Virus became known as Absolution, so named by a missionary who said the suffering it caused absolved everyone of their sins and brought them unto the kingdom of Heaven. No one knew how to stop the virus from spreading, it was more complex then any other virus or disease that had come before, and there were simply no anti-bodies. It became common practice to push the bodies of the dead back into building, and burn down entire cities to keep the disease from spreading. The good news was that the war was over, the bad news was that there were simply not enough people left to fight it. Over 99% of the Earth's population was wiped away by Absolution in the course of 2 months, leaving a bare 14.8 million survivors by the time that a vaccination was found and perfected. Even with the Vaccine available, people refused to come for it, afraid of gathering lest they catch the disease. To this day, there are still pockets of humans in far flung little groups, eking at an existence in their tiny villages, still afraid that the Absolution virus will come for them. In the wake of the vaccination and the loss of all of the old World governments, new leadership was needed. Because those who had come for the vaccine were from all of the over the world, it was no easy task, but a unified world government was formed, although that might be a bit pretentious as this world government had less then a tenth of the population of a large city before the outbreaks. This new unified Government was named the Federated Commonwealth, or Fed-Com for short. Run by an elected Council that ran high to Scientists and Doctors, it was an idealistic government, or so it would seem. There were no taxes in the conventional sense, no out-dated laws, the government was truly a blank slate. The only requirement, was that if you did not work, you would not eat. In short order, an Ultra Modern city was built, Hope, built by the cannibalization of building materials from the surrounding area. Hope was built 10 miles from the ruins of Washington DC. Living off of the stock piled resources of the United States, the Fed-Com did quite well for itself, sparring no expense on scientific research and medical technology, and advances were made at breakneck speed. It was during some of this medical research 5 years later that an anomaly was discovered, to the head of the project, it looked as if another mutation of the Absolution virus was beginning to form in the body of his subject, worried, he tested more and more people, until he came up with enough cases to bring it to the Council. The council, fearing the extinction of the human race, ordered universal testing, and it was determined through testing that 1327 people were afflicted with this new iteration of the virus. While none of those afflicted had shown any symptoms, it was determined that no chance would be taken on allowing the virus to mature in its new strain to again threaten humanity. Each of the patients was place in Cryogenic stasis until such time as a cure for the new strain could be found. It was noted with some interest that all of those inflicted, both male and female, were between the ages of 15-17, and was it possible that it had something to do with the vaccine for absolution being administered during puberty?</blockquote>

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