Human Zero
Based on events that could happen...
Earth year 2020.
Population: Approximately 8,900,600,000,000.
During the teens of the twentieth century, scientists advance treatments for deadly viruses. 35% of the human population receive various treatments within three years... treatments that slowly emerge in all forms of recreational abuse for their disassociative properties. Over-population and poverty are beginning to take their toll on the entire planet, a plague all on its own. Mob violence and raids can be witnessed weekly in every major city of the world, all of them fueled by gangs, poverty, and political uprisings. Drug cultures grow more rampant throughout the continents. Military activity is heightened to protect political leaders and corporate CEOs from street-massacres. In many cases, Marshall Law oversees the strict control of civilians. Victims of these dark times have lost hope.
Some called it...a new beginning.
During these incidents, Mankind's leaders initiate projects for space colonization. Hope relies on a strategy sought out to build artificial satellites orbiting the planet. Criticism of these satellites, nicknamed “Angels”, spread throughout the media. But the idea grew in popularity among healthy, prosperous applicants ready to contribute; this hellish reality soon coming to an end. The first to leave were political figures, doctors, and engineers with their families. Within months of completion, millions of others take to the skies where a new future awaits them. Chaos continues on ground, as religious leaders across the globe take bold measures to cripple politics. Within the decade, billions migrate to the colonies, abandoning what is left of the human civilization on Earth. Man has his plans to scatter the galaxy in search for life. The Angels remain, watching over the end of days.
Earth year 2080.
Population: Less than 1,000,000,000,000.
Earth remains populated with those who could not board the vessels. For years the poor and the sick anxiously await death, if not by suicide then by hunger or disease. Newer, deadlier drugs now share common recreational abuse among 65% of Earth population. Streets are covered in flesh of cremated bodies. The pavements are charred by explosions and gunfire. All that remain are skeletons of where buildings once stood erect. Within these fragile walls lie soldiers, workers, journalists, gangsters, even prostitutes, huddled around a trash-can, blessed with warmth; just a sample among the millions of atypical civilians living together on the tundra once called Earth.
No more a human-condition.
There are little traces of nature left to be called natural. Wild animals are savagely hunted, endangered. Meat is only a luxury for gangs. In the cities, a new breed of primal fear is slowly underway. Canines are trained to search and kill. Packs, of three of more, sniff out rodents, lizards, and small birds wherever their territory permits them. The mixed howls of stray and tamed mutts rule the endless nights; a production of blood, adrenaline, and instinct.
Oil has become an urban legend; a resource that once was, did good, and altogether returned to the dry land. Frighteningly, the depreciation of knowledge comes swift. Common literature ceases its usefulness in times of fear; information that we once converted to electronic mediums at the turn of the century, wiped out. On every blank page scattered throughout the world there is an illustration of irony, and man feels it deeply in his conscience. Among religious texts, books of law, dismantled works of art, and forgotten history, the only works left are all titled, 'The End'. And as time rots, only in the dark expanse of human subconscious can Man find comfort, in his own illusions.
So it begins...
“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead... [But] Ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent” -- Sigmund Freud.
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