The year is 2047. The population has continued to rise beyond United Nations estimates. As metropolitan growth and human demand has slowly crippled the Earth and its natural beauty, people are growing more-and-more convinced that humanity will not see the next few generations. They are afraid that their grandchildren will never see the world's beauty and natural wonder.
Kenko Shimoda is a billionare tech mogul who inherited his father's company, Shimodatech, a wildly-successful electronic producer from Japan. His company completed a project, a realistic virtual reality world that implants the user into the landscape: Project Aubade. The user can feel the wind on their skin, the touch of a fellow user, and most importantly, can see before them worlds of constructed beauty. Waterfalls, forests, canyons—anything can be created using the Project Aubade engine.
In a secret presentation to the United Nations, Shimoda revealed his project, marketing it as a way to make real what many feared would be gone forever. He declared it New Eden, a replacement for Earth! One could go about their smoggy, city live in the crowded streets of the real world, and then relax and take a break in grassy plains! The United Nations ate it up, and Shimoda received a standing ovation.
He gave a catch, however. The project was far from reaching its fullest potentials in development and testing, and he asked for funding and freedom to do what he wished with the project without interference. When asked what he meant by this, he stayed firm with his ultimatum: Let him do what he wants without investigation, and the world would gain access to something unseen.
The United Nations' vote was close, but they approved sponsorship of the project, and Kenko Shimoda's plans had been executed. Months later, Shimoda folded his longstanding company, creating a new one made solely to focus on his new project: MoTHER.
Time passed with no word from the Japanese businessman, and suddenly, a mass amount of disappearances were reported around the world. Dozens of children and teenagers would be abducted in a variety of circumstances. Many of these were from conventions, from gaming booths or secret rooms where beta testing would be promised. Other cases were less subtle; some were taken right off the streets, just minutes after parting from friends.
You suddenly wake up in the square of a town, by a fountain. The sky is blue and large, shimmering with a strange glow. A closer look reveals polygons, a strange prismatic makeup of the dome above you. The buildings around you strange and antiquated.
Around you, dozens of people lay.
The laughter of a man, the accent Japanese, is coming from somewhere unknown.
Is it...the sky?
Welcome to Ratman's Cage.
Welcome to Project Aubade.
Tue Mar 14, 2017 11:40 pm