"There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief. .
The year is 2019, approximately 4 years after a maddening social implosion that ultimately decimated 99% of the world's population. Some keen beans figured up a mathematical equation that figured out how it all went down, but no one really buys it. The remaining one-percenters have been left to scavenge a world destroyed by itself. Some claim chemical warfare mixed with environmental apathy and a touch of biological pandemics swirled together in a lusty soup of destruction that provided optimal conditions for an apocalypse. Maybe they're right.
Instead of independent countries and states, territory lines have been redrawn to reflect the territories claimed by major factions with wacky names and snazzy hair. Global warming turned out to be a very real threat that pushed most of what used to be the state of California into a wasteland of perpetual summer and nearly isolated by a fault-line that rivals the Grand Canyon. Real life dangers include, but are not limited to ungodly stretches of dry heat and sun, sudden and torrential downpours that will strip the paint off a car, sand storms that can rub the flesh from bones, and hungry beasts that appear to be the melted hybrids of coyotes, goats, and mountain lions. Luckily, fall-out shelters were still a big thing when things got real. God bless those doomsday preppers.
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke --
While most of the former state remains uninhabited, a comparably temperate portion of the land has been divided and conquered by five major factions and outlined by a deadly perimeter known as "Yonder". There have been those who --for lack of a sensible alliance-- chose to inhabit Yonder, but have done so at their peril.
From the dust, a single city remained standing in shambles: Shangri-L.A.. The guiding light of this little hellish gathering of One-Percenters is purported to be White Horse Industries. W.H.I. (more commonly referred to as WHY) specializes in all post-apocalyptic needs of the citizens. Providing jobs to the privileged few sell-outs, W.H.I., shrouds itself in secrecy while simultaneously doing whatever it takes to prevent scandal. Divisions of the company are dedicated to providing food, technology, housing, and healthcare to any willing to pledge their soul to this conglomerate entity.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
For the majority who conformed to White Horse Industries, accepting what they had to offer in exchange for protection against the rowdy tribes of the Zonelands (which lie directly on the outskirts of the metropolis), privacy was a thing of the past and security was only what you paid for it. These folks lived in whatever luxurious blissful ignorance such an arrangement afford them.
The Zonelands are where the real fun happens. Zoners are comprised of six factions who refuse to drink from whatever drug-induced waters White Horse diverts to its citizens. Instead, the Zoners are guided by their own set of rules -- which they routinely write and rewrite according to each individual situation. Despite the discord that can occur between them, they all seem to agree on one thing: White Horse Industries is far from the Mecca the One-Percenters need.
The Zoners are the heart and soul of this group of One-Percenters and have forged stronger bonds than they would care to admit. The real question remains -- who will be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?
Choose your zone wisely-- or let it choose you -- and stand up to the evils of White Horse Industries. . .
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late".
**game title and introduction lyrics attributed to Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" (1967)