The Old World

The "Old World" is a term that broadly covers any nation or technology that existed in the distance past before "The Fall". While many of the technological concepts, cultures, and infrastructure has been revived, mainly in @New Singapore under the watch of Parker, Goto, and Kochmann Inc. and their associates, the concept of large nation states and the mass of the population involved is still a very foreign concept, especially considering the unbalanced situation of the world.

Concepts

The Fall

The Fall is usually perceived incorrectly as a single event in history which caused the collapse of nation states, worldwide economy, and historical centers of culture. In truth, the fall was a series of hundreds events which led to the shifting of the stable state of a world to an unstable one and over the course of decades. A handful of events that have been identified, have been used to attempt to piece together the various larger classifications of what had happened.

Natural Phenomenon

Also known as natural disasters due to their devastating effects, natural phenomenon have often left many areas of the world less hospitable to humans. While there are always micro communities in them, a few Natural Phenomenon have left them unable to sustain large nation states of the old world. It is notable that some of these Phenomenon have come about from old world Human habits that have shaped how the natural processes used to be, but not directly created by humans.

The massive flooding of parts of South America is part of this phenomenon, due to climate changes, but also exacerbated by massive logging of the Amazon and other large rain forests. In the same region and extending up into North America. the "Great Rift" was formed from massive tectonic activity and has cracked much of the land on the western coasts of North and South America.

Politics and War

While the particulars of politics and war are mostly lost to history as wars of the time were largely apocalyptic in nature, clear remnants of the fallout, both literal and figuratively are scattered about the world.

An example of this classification exists in parts of the @American Exclusionary Zone, while up until recently still had a decent, yet scattered population, has evidence of past wars that are hidden by mass farming and homestead ruins and may have been what brought the @United Cornworkers Society to power in the region.

Human Originated Disasters

While most of the disasters can be seen as originating with human actions, Human Originated Disasters are specifically classified as generally large scale accidents or projects with unintended purposes. In this classification, rather than a result of weapons or disasters that were caused by proxy, HODs are events that directly caused an area to break down from being ruled by nation states.

The @Kyushu Bloom is one such occurrence, where in an attempt to conduct an experiment that would stimulate geological and biological growth in a small field, instead caused a huge disaster which instant cause massive geological formations that destroyed the surrounding environment and covered the area in plant life. While this was originally localized, it turned out to be much more expansive and soon passed throughout the rest of Japan, covering it in trees and earth over the course of a few decades, eventually creating the region known as the "@Island of Trees".

Supernatural

Supernatural events are events that involve a supernatural entity that caused a old world nation states to fall, such as Demons, Ghosts, and Malevolent Spirits. Unlike other events however, most supernatural occurrences can be linked to an over arching event known colloquially as the "Shattering of the Veil" or covered more professionally as "@The Magical Over Saturation Theory". While there were many supernatural events around the world before the event, none of them were large enough to affect a state on a multinational level.

One notable example was the "@Doggerland Incursion", in which the area of Doggerland, which was a large project to reclaim land in order to mitigate the problem with overpopulation in western Europe, was the sight of an incursion of @Demonic beings. The incursion was technically defeated, but the Demons were never wiped out completely and continued to prey on the country side and the money involved caused a breakdown of the surrounding economy. The project was not continued, and the remaining, swampy land, was instead populated with large arcology projects.

Technology

Most old world technology has been recovered and reproduced in some way or another by PGK and was integral for growing @New Singapore into the megalopolis that it is today. Due to certain resources being harder to obtain, however, some technologies are either rare and once obtained, refurbished, or whose methods of manufacturing are lost to time. Therefore, certain intact technologies, especially old Everware Drives are very valuable and many large corporations offer large rewards for them.

In a darker turn, some old world technologies of the most dangerous variety are supposedly lost forever, such as weapons of mass destruction and advanced artificial intelligence. However, there are those who claim such things have been found, but have just been hidden and kept in lockdown in corporate overseas vault sites. Rumors of an old AI infrastructure utilized by the @Corn Aristocracy still active deep in the @American Exclusionary Zone show at least the possibility some of these old world technologies were built to last.

Magic

A majority of the magic used in contemporary times was actually established years before the Shattering of the Veil and many of the spells involved piercing the veil temporarily as a catalyst. With the veil effectively shattered, many spells from the old world are actually far stronger and easier to use in contemporary times than in the old world. With this higher potency also comes a higher risk of blow back to the caster. For those who have been able to cast the new magic, there are two basic camps: Groups that embrace the new dangerous form of magic such as @The Archivists and @The Whitethorns versus those that wish to advance magic to make it more accessible again like many independent @Witches and those part of @The Order of St. Belethea.

The most old world magic that is used in the lives of everyday people were spells that were cast long ago such as a barrier or a magical spring, or rune magic, which has been well adapted to some technology, such as Necrodiver Drill Rigs, having sigils and inscriptions carved into their chassis.

Despite the active usage of old world magic, the old spells are still seen as mostly in decline by many in the magical communities and even quite decadent in the case of the The Whitethorns. Many magical tomes have been lost to time and many of the more ancient magic users refuse to pass down their arts. The Archivists are one of the few groups that try and keep this knowledge intact, with most willing to let it die, or change it for better.