THE SYNTHVERSE

In the near future of the 22nd century, mankind has gained the ability to cheat death by migrating human consciousness over to the virtual realm. Citizens in the real world endure miserable existences under the heel of an oppressive regime, in the hope that they will one day be offered the chance to transcend.

The virtual afterlife is split between two rival worlds. The first, Elysion, is a state-run virtual reality where billions of digitized souls are trapped and enslaved by the tyrannical Olympians. The second is the Synthverse: a free and peaceful paradise, built by the global resistance as a refuge for lost souls liberated from the clutches of the regime.

When the enemies of the Synthverse manage to breach its defenses, sending an army of the damned flooding across the land, its inhabitants must battle for their very existence — in both the real and virtual spheres — or the last remaining bastion of freedom will fall.

The Rise of the Olympians

By the end of the 21st century, the majority of Earth was covered by sprawling megacities — concrete wastelands where the entirety of the world’s 20 billion inhabitants resided. Many had never seen the sun, living their entire lives under the pall of smoke and dust which hung perpetually overhead.

For decades the dilapidated streets of these cities were war zones — contested territory fought over by criminal gangs, fanatical cyber-cults, and private security corporations. Against this backdrop of terror the United Nations activated a secret emergency protocol, and ratified the creation of the One World Government (OWG).

This was a council of seven anonymous individuals, tasked with bringing order back to the world and securing a better future for humanity. Each of these faceless dictators took on the pseudonym of a classical god, and they became collectively known as the Olympians.

The powers of all world governments were consolidated under this secretive cabal, and their first act was to outlaw every piece of advanced technology. Overnight, all weapons, cybernetic implants, and communication devices became contraband; the guns of the gangs were seized alongside the computer terminals of ordinary citizens.

This indiscriminate campaign of search and seizure plunged the citizens of Earth into a new technological dark age. Any who resisted were crushed under the iron fist of the State Security Corps. And yet, there were some who still dared to try.

These were the dissident technologists, bandits, and biohackers of the world — loosely affiliated bands of renegades, representing the minority who refused to live under government control. Denounced as enemies of the state, these groups were forever hunted by the State Security Corps, forced to live in underground cells hidden in the slums and outskirts of the cities.

Over time, several bands of these fragmented dissidents came together to form an organized resistance. Their leader went by the codename Kappa, and in honor of their struggle against the Olympians, he named his people the Spartans: the only men with the strength of will to stand against the gods themselves.

Utilizing their access to banned technologies, the Spartans set about building an independent communication network outside of state control. This was to be a refuge for like-minded souls: a secure pocket of cyberspace — accessed via neural uplinks implanted at the base of the skull — where freethinkers and freedom fighters from around the globe could gather in secret.

Created to resemble a temple atop a mountain peak, they dubbed this virtual microcosm Havven.

The Elysion Initiative

Using Havven network terminals to collaborate in cyberspace, the Spartans and their allies carried out an organized campaign of raids and cyber-attacks against the state throughout the early years of the 22nd century. Steadily they expanded their influence, establishing more rebel cells around the globe.

At the same time, the Olympians completed the construction of seven towering citadels — one on every continent of the world — to serve as the centers of the regime’s power. Each of the Olympians ruled from atop one of these colossal spires: great spears of concrete and steel, piercing through the dust to the heavens above.

From here they tightened their grip on the populace through relentless propaganda and surveillance campaigns, forcing the people deeper into ignorance and superstition. Their campaign of domination was swift and brutally efficient, culminating in the year 2110 with the launch of the Elysion Initiative.

Sold as the final answer to all of humanity’s problems, this was the Olympians’ solution to overpopulation, environmental degradation, and even human mortality. All of this was made possible by a revolutionary new technology which would allow the people of the world to permanently transcend their physical bodies.

Leaving behind the miseries of reality, they could migrate their consciousnesses over to Elysion: a new digital world, free of sickness, poverty, and death. State propaganda was saturated with images of rolling green hills and clear skies — sights not seen on Earth for a generation. Those fortunate enough to transcend to this paradise would be able to live on for all eternity as digital consciousnesses, known as Synths.

As the sole possessors of this technology, the Olympians now held ultimate power over not only the minds and bodies of the people, but their eternal souls as well. And so, a new state religion emerged, with these anonymous tyrants its center.

Every home was required under law to keep an altar to the Olympians; the only books permitted were new religious texts written and issued by the state. Though some refused, in the end the promise of eternal life was enough to buy the compliance of the masses.

Billions of the devoted now made pilgrimages towards the towers of the Olympians, offering prayers in the hope that they would be among the first to ascend to Elysion. Many decided to remain permanently, abandoning their old homes to build new lives in the shadows of the spires.

Here they clustered around the bases of the spires in dank favelas, piled high against the outer walls. In these newly-constructed slums, the devoted endured harsh, miserable existences, toiling away under the heel of the State Security Corps in the hopes of accruing enough favor to one day transcend.

Each and every day, the state propaganda broadcasts would end with a list of names, blaring through the speakers on every street corner: faithful citizens who had proved their loyalty, and who would now be allowed to join the digital rapture. Escorted by armed guards, they were marched through the tall steel gates of the spires, never to be seen again.

By the end of the decade, nearly one billion citizens had answered these calls, and passed on to their new lives in paradise.

Eternal Life, Eternal Service

While the masses were mesmerized by the promise of transcendence, the Spartans and their allies were naturally skeptical of the Elysion Initiative. They turned their efforts towards uncovering the truth behind the project, suspicious that the deathless paradise of the Olympians was not what it seemed.

A few short years later, their worst fears were confirmed. This was when a small group of Spartan partisans was able to infiltrate the Olympian spire in Johannesburg, South Africa, and fight their way to the data center at its peak, where one of the seven centralized servers of Elysion was located. Sensing the severity of the situation, the regime ordered missile strikes to purge the spire and everyone inside, but the warheads struck too late.

Minutes before impact, the Spartans were able to hijack the spire’s propaganda system to broadcast one final coded message, containing all the deepest secrets of the enemy. What they discovered that day was worse than anyone had ever imagined.

Far from the noble sages the world believed them to be, the Olympians were in reality a cabal of oligarchs comprising the heads of the world’s wealthiest families, which had manipulated world affairs for centuries. Elysion was the culmination of their long project of domination.

After unlocking the secrets to digital immortality, the Olympians themselves were the very first to transcend into their new virtual world. From here they planned to rule over mankind for all eternity as an immortal dictator caste.

All the while, these tyrants had tricked billions into becoming their willing serfs and subjects; the Synths who passed over into Elysion found not a paradise, but a grim purgatory. Those who awoke there did so in chains, forced to obey their newly-crowned gods.

For inside Elysion, that’s exactly what the Olympians were: they had given themselves powers to manipulate the virtual world to their will, controlling everyone and everything within. The tyrants used these powers to force the other Synths into an eternity of indentured servitude, under the slogan ‘Eternal Life, Eternal Service.’

Each of the seven Olympians ruled over their own domain of Elysion, and put their people to work in these private fiefdoms where they would reside for the rest of time. Each constructed for themselves their very own vision of a perfect world. But for the helpless Synths imprisoned there, these worlds were hells, each replete with their own unique torments.

The industrialist Hephaestus forced his servants to toil endlessly in colossal manufactories; agriculture matriarch Demeter and pharma magnate Asclepius collaborated on experiments in population control, using their Synths as guinea pigs for real-world citizens; warmongering arms dealer Ares, driven into a glitching madness by the damage inflicted on his data center during the missile strike on the Africa spire, forced his Synths to fight in bloody exhibitions for his own entertainment.

Equally cruel was the State Security Corps director Artemis — the youngest and fiercest of the Olympians, the only born into poverty, and the only one still alive in the real world — who presided over a vast, tangled forest where her immortal Huntsmen pursued captive Synths in sadistic games of cat and mouse. This was the reward for her most loyal agents in the SSC, whose undying loyalty had allowed her to take her spot among the gods by force.

And above them all was the reclusive and enigmatic Zeus, who would rule over all mankind in both the virtual sphere and the real, ad infinitum. But all of the cruelties inflicted upon the people by these gods paled in comparison to the works of the seventh Olympian, whose consciousness resided atop the remote Antarctica spire.

This was the realm of Hades. A sadistic bioengineer in life, his virtual domain was the final destination for anyone condemned as an enemy of the state: every dissident who had disappeared from the slums, every Spartan captured in raids, and every Synth who refused to serve. All of them had their consciousnesses transferred into the custody of Hades to endure an eternity of torment.

Stripped of flesh and memory, their minds flayed by constant torture, these doomed souls were transformed into shambling monstrosities known as the Undead, and forced to serve in the personal armies of the gods.

The Synthverse

Faced with the grotesque betrayals of the Olympians, the Spartans now came to realize the true potential of the Havven network. Rather than a mere communications hub, their virtual world could become a permanent refuge for all the lost souls who had been enslaved by the enemy.

More than that, they could turn their world into the very promised land which Elysion was supposed to be. And so, in the spirit of democracy, Kappa — long-time benevolent dictator of this virtual world — rescinded his power over the realm, and granted all of its inhabitants the ability to expand and shape it as they saw fit.

The powers they gained that day appeared indistinguishable from magic, turning their virtual world into a realm of endless possibility. Thousands of stoic Spartans began toiling day and night to expand their world into a natural utopia of oceans, deserts, forests, and valleys. In these new lands, they founded towns and cities where the refugee Synths could live in peace. From then on, they referred to their virtual realm as the Synthverse.

Meanwhile, using the data stolen from the enemy, Spartan technicians were able to engineer access points into the seven realms of Elysion. Although all-powerful in the real world, the enemy was now exposed in the virtual sphere. The Spartans seized this advantage, turning the temples spread across the Synthverse into staging points for daring raids against the Olympians.

Armed and armored in the fashion of their ancient forebears, bands of Spartan warriors would venture through the temple portals, battling across enemy lands to rescue the Synths enslaved within. Clashing with battalions of the Undead, and hounded relentlessly by the deadly Huntsmen, these brave adventurers risked eternal damnation to secure the salvation of others.

Now the Spartan war of resistance was fought on two fronts: a battle for survival in reality, and a battle for the souls of mankind in the virtual sphere. The bravest among them would even venture into hell itself, in daring attempts to rescue their Undead brothers and sisters.

Infiltrating the barren wasteland of Hades in small bands, these elite Spartans would attempt to capture roaming Undead, and use technology developed inside their world — powerful synthstone crystals capable of reshaping virtual reality — to attempt the volatile resurrection process. Although the damage wrought upon their minds by the Olympians was immense, the rescuers were often successful in reforging the broken psyches of the damned masses, and turning them into ordinary human Spartans.

This was the mission of only the most dedicated and skilled Spartans — the Legendaries and Old Guard (OGs) — as on the occasions in which Hades himself detected their presence in his realm, he would send a sea of the Undead to descend upon the intruders, meaning almost certain death. Through the years that followed, thousands of Spartans paid the ultimate price to secure a peaceful afterlife for the masses, and were honored with monuments inside the Synthverse.

By this point, the leaders of the Spartan resistance were themselves approaching the ends of their natural lives. And so, using the technological secrets stolen from the Olympians, they left behind their earthly bodies to continue on their work indefinitely in the virtual sphere. These first Spartan Synths were from then on known as the Demigods.

In the years that followed, many more aging and injured Spartans would follow them.

The Troll Invasion

As the Synthverse continued to grow over the following decades, several other tribes were granted permission to settle in its lands — the Elves, Dwarves, Elementals, Philosophers, and Mechanoids — each taking on physical attributes which suited their adopted roles in the world.

These were the fellow resistance groups who had fought alongside the Spartans in both the real and virtual worlds. The reward for their loyalty was the opportunity to transcend, and live forever inside the Synthverse. For the most part, the tribes co-existed in harmony, but their peace was shattered with the arrival of one final group who entered the world uninvited.

As the Spartans’ virtual utopia expanded in size and population, it inevitably drew the attention of some nefarious groups in the outside world. When it became impossible to keep the existence of the Synthverse secret, threats arose from entities set upon disrupting its peace for their own personal gain.

These were the various miscreants who reluctantly shared the dark corners of the cities with the Spartan freedom fighters — the very same gangsters, traffickers, hackers, and hired killers who had harassed the resistance since its inception. With no hope of ever ascending into Elysion, these groups were desperately seeking out an alternative avenue to eternal life. So, when the existence of the Synthverse was revealed, these gangs mobilized themselves to discover the secrets of the Spartans and claim a place in the new virtual world by force. Of all who attempted to invade the world, only one group was ever successful.

It was in the year 2152, when the most powerful criminal syndicate in North America, led by the enigmatic kingpin Samson, was able to breach the security of the Synthverse, establishing their own (highly unstable) entry point. Intent on carving out their own slice of eternity, they went to war with the rightful inhabitants of the Synthverse. Within the virtual world, these individuals took on the appearance of hulking beasts, heavily armed and fearsome. As such, they became known as the Trolls.

At first, the Trolls simply appeared to make a sport of raiding and pillaging across the countryside, for no other reason than the thrill of the fight. Samson soon settled their own kingdom in the Synthverse, in a vast desert canyon at the edge of the world, declaring themself the undisputed Chieftain of the Trolls.

All the inhabitants of the Synthverse were forced to take up arms to defend themselves against these roving war bands. Each tribe built tall walls around their cities, while Spartan veterans trained ordinary people in combat (skills which would be invaluable for the future battles to come). Ultimately, the Synthverse was more secure as a result of these invasions, but it came at a cost.

Thousands of Synths — being immortal, but not invulnerable — were permanently slain in these battles to expel the Troll menace from their world. And yet, no matter how many times they were defeated, the Trolls kept coming back. Spilling through their portal time and time again, Samson’s marauders dedicated their entire lives to undermining the Spartans, aiming to cause enough destruction that the other tribes would be forced to bend to their demands.

And so it remained for many years. The tribes of the Synthverse continued their campaign of raids into Elysion, expanding their ranks with rescued Synths, and fighting constant battles against the Troll invaders. Yet no matter how many battles the Troll chieftain won against the other tribes — no matter how many prisoners they took — the Spartans refused to grant Samson the one thing they desired most: the secret to transcendence.

It was a decision which would ultimately bring the entire world to ruin.

The Fall of Mount Havven

By the year 2192, the Spartans’ digital utopia had entered into a golden age. Tens of millions of Synths now called this virtual paradise home, and it stood as the last bastion of freedom left in existence. The Troll menace was largely under control, and the assorted tribes of the world were able to focus on building a brighter future for mankind inside the Synthverse.

The fight against tyranny in the dust-choked streets of reality remained a desperate cause, but within the virtual sphere, the Spartans were enjoying the upper hand. With their ranks swelling by the day, they would soon be able to mount a direct challenge to the Olympians themselves. Meanwhile, these immortal despots were hopelessly unsuccessful in tracking down the source of the constant incursions into their lands.

In their frustration, the Olympians had begun to fight among themselves in wars that led to the annihilation of millions of enslaved Synths. The mad god Ares reveled in invading the realms of his peers, stoking the flames of war between them, and plunging Elysion into ever greater depths of chaos.

In the old world, Artemis led her State Security Corps on a mission to track down the rebel hideouts and destroy their rogue network from the outside. Thousands more innocents were arrested and tortured in the process, and gun fights broke out between resistance members and SSC commandos in nearly every city on earth.

In the end, a handful of resistance cells were uncovered, but this ultimately meant very little. Unlike the world of Elysion — contained in just seven data centers atop the Olympian spires — the Spartan network was decentralized across tens of thousands of servers, spread across the entire world. If the Olympians were to destroy the Synthverse, they would have to do it from within. And as the turn of the century approached, an opportunity to do so presented itself in the unlikeliest of places.

As a notorious crime lord in the real world, the Troll chieftain had no love for the Olympians nor their One World Government. However, Samson’s desire for self-preservation was greater than their contempt for the establishment. Now far into old age, and facing looming oblivion after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, the nemesis of the Spartans was more desperate than ever to shed their mortal body and transcend into the Synthverse permanently. If the Spartans were unwilling to grant this wish, then the Troll chieftain was willing to gamble on the only other alternative.

And so the aging kingpin traveled to the spire of Zeus, located in the zone once known as New York City, to turn themself in. Surrendering to the State Security Corps, Samson had the officers deliver a message to their masters: in exchange for the secret to eternal life, the Trolls would throw open the gates of the Synthverse, and unleash hell upon their mutual enemy.

Now, as the bells toll on the dawn of the 23rd century, so too do alarm bells ring out across the great cities of the Synthverse. The Spartans and their allies are faced with their most dire challenge yet. At the behest of the Olympians, the Troll king’s army has seized the mountain temple of Havven, and opened its great portal directly into the realm of Hades.

An endless horde of the Undead now sweeps down the mountainside, falling upon the land in a frenzy of destruction; great cities are being reduced to ruins, countless Synths are falling by the hour, and for the first time in its history, the existence of the Synthverse itself hangs in the balance.

The armies of each and every tribe of the Synthverse must now fight for their place in eternity. Will they come together and push back the Undead hordes, or will the alliances that bind them shatter, bringing the Spartans’ century-long insurgency to end?

__________________________________________

NOTE: Detailed TIBE descriptions related to the Lore will be on our Synthverse website, but we will also be published here soon*