Editing Degenesis (section)

==Threats==
===Sepsis===
As mentioned above, Sepsis is the name given to the Primer-based fungal spores that infest Europe. The reason they called it Sepsis was because the spore fields drained the land so utterly that initial witnesses believed the earth itself was turning putrid. The fields themselves are hazardous because they are essentially beds of Cordyceps fungi operating under the Primer's hive mind. Anybody who accumulates too many spores will turn into Leperos: drones with minds lost to the Primer and bodies bursting with Sepsis.

That being said, Sepsis not only represents danger, but also opportunity for some people. Once mature, the fields produce buds of concentrated spore matter called Burn. Depending on its field of origin, Burn can be used either as a combat stimulant or party drug, with the more bizarre varieties even offering people brief glimpses into the future. Unfortunately, using Burn is a good way to flood the body with Sepsis, and those who use it risk becoming Leperos. The Apocalyptics, recognizing the profit potential of Burn and being crazy enough bastards to risk venturing into a spore field, maintain networks dedicated to harvesting and selling Burn.

Many of the major powers in Europe regard Sepsis as a significant threat, whether it be due to religious hatred or acknowledgement that Sepsis is a virulent pathogen. Consequently, states like the Protectorate do not fuck around when it comes to spore infestation, and if a person is deemed too infected to be treated with antimycotic drugs, the authorities will resort to flamethrowers. While it may seem harsh, the cults are especially keen on not having Homo Degenesis emerge in their territories, as once they have the time to invest in their powers and spore fields, members of Homo Degenesis can annihilate or enthrall entire armies and regions.

====Homo Degenesis====
Homo Degenesis, also known as Psychonauts or Aberrants, are created when pregnant women are infected with Sepsis. When the children are born, people can immediately tell that something is off, as the babies not only fail to bond with their mothers, but they also exhibit unusual resistance to harsh environmental conditions. As for what variety of Homo Degenesis is born, depends on the region, but they are all alike in the fact that the spore fields strengthen their powers, and that even at their most peaceful, they are dangerous beings to deal with.

===Psychovore===
As the Sepsis is to animals and fungi, the Psychovore jungle is to plants. Spreading from the Dhoruba in Central Africa (a "glancing" blow from an asteroid), the Psychovore jungle is constantly changing and expanding. It is believed to be the source of the common language shared by Africans, and is exploited by the Anubians for some of their mysterious healing techniques. However, most common folks are not eager to stay near the Psychovore vegetation, as the plants are horrifyingly toxic. The deeper an intruder goes into the Psychovore jungles, the more aggressive and virulent the plants become.

By 2595, the Psychovore belt has overtaken Central African, the former Sahel, the Nile Valley, Cyprus, the Levant, and much of former Turkey. It meets the Spore Wall near what's left of Istanbul and creates the Dissonance, as the two alien colonial lifeforms disrupt each other. The Spitalians & Anubians are beginning to cooperate in researching this phenomena in the hopes of driving back both menaces.

===The Recombination Group===
The Recombination Group was a pharmaceutical corporation that was at the cutting edge of medicine before the Eshaton. Their greatest development is a form of medicinal nanotechnology capable of making any human effectively immortal, provided that their body is regularly supplied with them. These nanites combat infection, disease, old age, just about everything. Their second greatest development which they are far more secretive about is memetic technology, which grants the ability to shape minds through information. The Recombination Group is essentially the chessmaster, fractured as it may have been, behind most of what's gone wrong in the setting; they're responsible for the creation of several of the cults, the secondary existential threats (after the Primer-spawned Sepsis and Psychovore), and quite possibly the apocalypse itself. 

The Recombination Group has a hierarchy that becomes rather clear after the Eshaton.

At the top, there is Gerome Getrell and his inner circle. When the Eshaton came, they were meant to ascend to the space station known as the Minerva where they would wait out the apocalypse until they were reawakened by the Sleeper caste, who would invite them back down to a world that they had turned into a paradise that worshiped the Recombination Group.
After the inner circle, you have the Sleepers themselves. High-ranking executives and influential members of the Recombination Group, they number in the hundreds if not thousands and were given the task of taming the world after the Eshaton, into turning it into the Recombination's Group idea of a paradise through a combination of memetic technology and extremely advanced weaponry.
Beneath them, there were the corporate wageslaves, middle-class devotees that the Recombination Group used as test subjects for its memes. They are still far from the bottom of the rung but they are not the ones who will conquer the world. Their role in all of this was to take care of the Sleepers until the moment that they awaken, and to serve them as a loyal army. Their descendants would gradually degenerate thanks to generations spent underground, living off of a slurry of algae and nutrients and breeding in increasingly incestuous conditions. They became the Palers.

====Sleepers====
The Recombination Group might have always been a conspiracy that sought some sort of world domination or global manipulation, or it might have only transitioned to that at a later stage. But when the asteroids were spotted in 2070, they diverted all of the resources to something known as 'Project Tannhäuser.' While they were meant to be developing a serum that would cure a disease raging through Africa known as HIV-E, they were secretly preparing for the incoming apocalypse. They took tens of thousands of infected men and women that had allowed themselves to be preserved using cryogenics and smashed their frozen bodies into pieces, so they could use the facilities to store their own employees, from which they would wait out the apocalypse. Never mind the fact that the Paladin satellites were going to destroy the incoming asteroids, they devoted every last penny to Project Tannhäuser, their plan to dominate the post-apocalyptic world. And sure enough, the Paladin satellites never activated, due to a virus somehow related to the value of 2^16. All evidence points to this being something that RG planned for. The Eshaton happened, and the Recombination Group is probably responsible for it.

Thing is, the same virus that infected the Paladin satellites also ended up infecting the cryogenic vaults of the Recombination Group. These 'dispensers' were meant to spit out companies of RG's finest, übermensch with nanites swarming with their blood, programmed and armed with memes that would allow them to shape post-apocalyptic society, wielding the finest technology that mankind had to offer before the Eshaton came. They are known as Sleepers. However, these vaults never really worked when they meant to. Sleepers were produced at random, with many of them missing the memories and memes that they were meant to possess. Not only that, but the Sleepers aren't the only people in the post-Eshaton world with nanite blood.

====Marauders====
The Marauders, ancient beings that survived the Eshaton, also possess this nanotechnology. It is what has sustained them for so long, but they ran out of their supplies long ago. Each one has a story of their own but what unites them is their reliance of this technology. Every year, every wound and every illness thins out the nanites in their blood and brings them closer to death. So they go from dispenser to dispenser, hunting down Sleepers wherever they can find them, draining them of their blood and drinking the nanites from it. Ambrosia, they call it, the food of gods that renders them immortal. Outside of this hunt for Ambrosia, each Marauder has its own agenda. Some are hostile monsters that despise contact with other humans, while others are relatively benign and even aid the cults of the post-Eshaton world on occasion.

The 2^16 virus and the machinations of the Marauders are the only things that have kept the Sleepers and their Recombination Group from conquering the Earth, turning the rest of humanity into a meme-ridden slave caste and ruling over them as god-kings.

====AMSUMOs====
Police/Military Robots from the Bygone era, heavily armed and armored. Some lie dormant and corroding, others maintain patrols and curfews hundreds of years old. Heavily armored and often heavily armed as well, these are major threats to the PCs, although the potential rewards to a Scrapper or Chronicler are hard to pass up. 

Often found in NW Africa.