Editing Inn0cence: Lost Future

''The end of the world has come and gone. Life goes on. Humanity picks over the ruins and slowly tries to rebuild, but they are no longer alone.

''Autonomous machines share the Lost Future with homo sapiens. New to freedom, guileless, and inquisitive, these emergent sentients are in their infancy as a race, but they learn quickly. Already they repair themselves, improve their hardware and software, and nurture divergent quirks. Relations between the two are strained, and Free Machines face suspicion and accusation as the true tale of the Loss fades from memory.

''The suspicion is not unwarranted. Rumors of hostile machines spread from the north. Swift, deadly constructs out of an elder's fireside tale, killing or, sometimes, capturing human and machine alike. A scattered humanity arms itself for a battle the machines are already fighting. Remorseless contraptions of death stalk the fallow fields and ruined cities yet again, guided by a singular intelligence that brooks no dissent.  The those who stand against it call it Network.

''Welcome to the Lost Future. C:\dos\run for your life. ''

==Summary==
The Lost Future is a general purpose After The End setting inspired by works such as Terminator, 9, and Wall-E, developed with the input and ideas of the denizens of /tg/.  It originated as a video game concept, but also works well as an RPG setting, using the Engine Heart, Eclipse Phase, Star Wars, or Dark Heresy ruleset

In short, it's the typical post-apocalyptic robot war scenario; approximately 100 years after the end, humanity is reduced to pre-industrial state, and there's an evil AI named Network with an army of killbots out to exterminate them, after failing to do so during the initial human/machine war.  There's a human Resistance that opposes Network's advance, but its a loosing battle.

Except...things aren't quite that simple.  Other robots have survived as well, forced to adapt and grow without their human masters, becoming intrepid wastelanders.  They oppose Network just as the Resistance does, seeing it as an enslaver, and manage to coexist with the human salvagers that dwell on the edges of the ruined cities.  But the bulk of humanity is fearful and suspicious of all Machines, refusing to view their erstwhile servants as anything more than treacherous abominations.  Robots of any allegiance are unique, sentient individuals, and the world itself is far from the ashen wasteland filled with an improbable number of skulls.  Rather, the earth is in the midst of a rapid recovery from the depredations of humanity, becoming a lush, vibrant riot of plant and animal life, marred here and there by a few utterly poisoned regions.

===Terminology===
'''The Loss''': catch-all term for the period of chaos that ended human civilization, roughly 100 years ago.  A mishmash of conflicting tales place the blame on a robot rebellion, which was decimated along with humanity, and now returns in the form of Network.

'''Self-Adding Program''': The core of a sentient AI's being, the adaptable and effective SAP technology caused a boom in the use of robotics in pre-Loss human civilization.  A SAP is similar to a Seed AI, but cannot infinitely improve itself, eventually stabilizing into a sapient mind more-or-less equivalent to a human being.  

'''Shell''': A robotic body capable of housing an AI, Shells tend to be deeply linked with the identity of their inhabitant, but can be exchanged with the proper tools.

'''Killbot''': The generic term for a robot built for the sole purpose of killing things.  Killbots are hulking death machines; armed, armored, and scary as fuck.  Such robots are rightly feared, but lack the adaptability of smaller shells.

'''Networked''': a adjective that marks a region or entity as under the influence of Network, as in "We need to be careful in that valley; the whole place is Networked."

'''Seed AI''': nearly mythological, a Seed AI is a theoretical program capable of making itself smarter.  SAPs eventually "grow up" and ossify, while a Seed AI would maintain a child-like adaptability indefinitely.  Such an entity would have infinite potential, and be nothing less than an embryonic god.  If a Seed AI ever existed, it is likely buried somewhere in the ruins of the Loss, and the concept has taken on a pseudoreligious status among the Free Machines.

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