It’s the year 1948 on Planet Earth… Just, not as we knew it. 50 years ago, a meteor containing a hence-undiscovered element careened into our Solar System, and plummeted through Earth’s atmosphere, splashing down in all of its hellfire into the Atlantic ocean. For a day or two, all seemed normal. A near miss for humanity, a stroke of luck. However, inside the rock, something was happening-- a chemical reaction, between water and the new element, these days referred to as Apocryphum. 

 

It was one week after the impact that the fog was first sighted, encroaching slowly onto the shores of Florida. A toxic, low-lying fog, thick and deadly within minutes. Countries scrambled to quell the burgeoning panic, and to devise an answer to this environmental apocalypse. Within a month, the first bio-domes were erected over major cities. Within two, anywhere in the world that was not well above sea level was rendered uninhabitable. 

 

The bio-domes were an effective solution, rapidly developed by a multi-national committee of the world’s top minds. Most major cities across the world have been domed, including all of the world's capitals, as well as other large population centers. But when you cannot move between places over land, supply chain can become a challenge. So, the people of earth devised another solution: any goods, any people, anything that needs to move, does so through the sky. Planes, gliders, and helicopters are the new boats, cars and trains. One particularly eccentric entrepreneur even developed a shockingly ambitious project: three floating cities, home to the only the wealthiest members of society and those who serve them. One of these cities, New Babylon, hovers almost directly above the Catskill mountains.

 

The effects of worldwide disaster have slightly impacted the history of the world. Humanity never saw two world wars. Instead, in the early 1900s, the Global Entente was formed-- A parliamentary meeting of leaders from across the world, working out their problems with words instead of war. Many places that we know now as colonies retained their independence; it can be hard to assimilate a small country when leaving the bounds of your own is tempting fate. The United States did not see Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or Harry Truman. Currently, Georgia Mae Winslow is serving her third term, and approval ratings are at an all-time high.
 

As motorized vehicles became the norm, and larger power substations grew inoperable or insufficient, humanity leaned on diesel fuel to run entire cities. Massive, belching generators, cars spewing black smoke. Even wealthier households are powered by their own, private machines. While battery technology exists, it is in its infancy, and most wireless electricity must be plugged in to recharge daily. Thanks to the bio-domes, and to a newfound general disregard for the uninhabitable parts of the planet, pollution is vented out into the world; leaving cities, despite their filthy power source, relatively clean and idyllic.

In a world so thrust into environmental chaos, most of humanity has shifted focus. No longer do countries quarrel over petty differences. Organized war is a thing of the past. Massive, domed farms sponsored by the government cultivate food for rations, however meager they may be, to keep the poorest alive. Of course as the people of Earth find their footing, things are bound to return to the expected status quo, but perhaps the unified mindset will last just a little bit longer.