The World of Tomorrow

The world of Karbon is one of amazing technology and science. However, the enrichment this brings is all in stark contrast to the strain placed on human relationships. All of the setting backs this theme, as you will see when you read further. There is no attempt here to define all the little details of life in the world of 2212. Instead the focus in on the gross changes and from there you are meant to create your own details. It is up to the players to bring the world of 2212 to life with the small details, and you use these vague descriptions as your springboard. Each of the follow sections is excerpting from Blueprints, the setting and Agent creation rulebook for Karbon. If you find something problematic as you play, discuss it with the group at large and come to a consensus. Not all of these world facts will jive with all players, and reshaping them to fit your game is encouraged. That said, these are canon to the Karbon universe and are considered valid unless superseded by your game.

Data and Cash

The World of Tomorrow is driven by data. Its not that it isn't like that today, its just that in the future things have moved far beyond what we experience. There are two things every citizen has in the future, their Sig and their Card. The Sig is their identity, its an encoded piece of data backed by their DNA data itself. You can think of it as /the/ ID card of tomorrow. However it has far more information on it, from medical history to social status. The Card on the other hand hold cred, which is short for credits. The Card holds cash money, it's just another encoded piece of data not unlike the Sig. While many stations and worlds use their own currency, all accept credits too. Credits are the universal currency of Karbon. The Card is a difficult to hack, secure track of currency, not unlike a prepaid credit card in our modern day and age. In the same way Cards are linked to Sigs, so no one can just take you Card and use it unless you remote authorize.

Data and Rules

The world of tomorrow is dominated by rules, most of these entrenched into the digital realm. These rules are meant to protect the data, even when it means less freedom for the user. Every person that functions inside the society has an Omni, a powerful personal computer which acts as everything from their doctor to their vidfone. However the creators of this digital realm have placed serious limits on its use, embracing the idea of Trusted Computing. This means the hardware itself will only run trusted applications, and in order to do something outside of that, you need to either get trusted certifications for your application or hack the omni itself. The rooted omni is a hardware modified device with a new CPU that fakes proper certifications, allowing all software to run. While its illegal to have a rooted omni, its common as its hard to detect without a direct link to it and a scan.

The Wire connects everyone together, a wireless shared network of incredible design. Everything is on the Wire, and I mean everything.

The Bank and Credits

Advanced Automation

Space, the Final Frontier

Ten Years War

The Ten Years War, not to be confused with the War of '68, began with a small skirmish in the Sol System on Dec. 13th, 2125. It is important as it is the first war in this timeline that was the direct result of data manipulation. For years the global corps had claimed that the technology to reclaim ruined Earth was not economically feasible. The brave and impressive attack of a reknowned hacker White Phoenix led to the discovery of a storehouse of designs that did just that. Using this hidden recovery tech, the Earth could have been restored in less than a century. However, the company with the tech was absorbed by a larger corp and they suppressed the data to aid the sales of starship manufacturers, the big money of the future.

Once this information was out and among the populace, small rebels began to rise to power. Eventually these groups combined and with some of the most well-known scientists formed the Sol Alliance. This organization demanded that the global corps begin construction on the tech to recover ruined Earth. However, the expense of moving a large amount of people and raw materials to Sol system wasn't in their best interested. That system was depleted of the resources they needed to power their ships, and they needed to keep moving forward and explore the frontier for harvests of heavy metals and isotopes.

Ultimately the Sol Alliance was able to commandeer the starships of a global corp to force the issue by subterfuge and hacking. They had also released the Karbons onto the world as part of their terror methods, thinking the people of society are complicit and therefore accomplices to the global corps plans. This began a war lasting almost exactly ten years, with most of the battle taking place in star systems on a naval scale. However the war of terror waged by the Sol Alliance spread across the known systems. Eventually the global corps destroyed the last of the Sol Alliance's starships in a large battle in open space. That drove the rest of their leaders into hiding and ended the war.

Regardless of the exact history and details, the important matter of the ten years war is that hacking became a valued weapon of war. It changed the entire world and the way people lived their everyday lives. Banks changed overnight, each with their own personal army and strict rules. People in fear of such hacking embraced the change and let the companies place protection software that restricted use on all their omnis. The ten years war directly shaped the world of tomorrow in which Karbon takes place.