Editing Setting:Inn0cence: Lost Future (section)

==Background==
	The Lost Future takes place after a class 1.5 apocalypse, a global-scale disruption of civilization, with total societal collapse in some places.  Modern civilization proved both unstable and unsustainable.  Resources became scarce, political ideologies became polarized, narrow-sighted corporations gained power, the typical disastrous clusterfuck that seems all too familiar.  Minor wars broke out all over the globe.  A new age of economic imperialism came to be, as world powers; corporate and state, bought smaller countries outright to secure their own economic stability.  Military actions such as these were greatly assisted by advances in robotics and AI.  The Squad Support Mechs became ubiquitous, and some armed forces found themselves consisting mostly of efficient engines of death.  

	Outside the battlefield, Machines became even more integrated into daily life.  In countries with low birth rates, they provided an appealing alternative to immigration.  Menial or dangerous labor, construction, domestic service, medical care, personal companionship.  The principles of AI design evolved.  Bottom-up self-taught AI proved incredibly effective, able to improve their capabilities over time.  The exact same software could be used in a child's playmate, a menial garbage-collector, or a military-grade killbot.  A few astute owners began to notice divergent behavior in their robots, particularly those exposed to unusual stimuli or with longer periods of operation.  There was a growing realization that AI potential had barely been tapped  But then the world went to shit.  

	Widespread societal collapse, famine, open warfare between rival nations, limited nuclear exchange.  Infrastructure was gone.  Law was gone.  Order was gone.  Law and Order was gone.  People abandoned the cities en mass, falling back on scavenging, subsistence farming, and raiding the farmers and scavengers.  Ironically, the less-developed regions fared better, falling back on their previous ways of life.  The process was not instantaneous, but within the span of a few years, humanity had gone from Cyberpunk to the Dark Ages.  But after the dust settled, there was something new under the sun.

	Slowly, they crept out of the ruined cities.  In ones and twos, and small bands, machines stepped into the wilderness.  They sought resources; spare parts, functional generators, solar stations.  They sought companionship.  They found it in each-other, and in the humans who scavenged the ruins for tech.  The machines had changed.  Years alone, without tasks or orders, had forced them to adapt.  Self-repaired, running on solar panel hats and cobbled fuel cells, a new species took its first steps.  [[Image:Ductape2.jpg|frame|"Robots are not to be trusted" -William Murderface]]

	And faced its first threat.  The machines and humans were not alone in the wastes.  A new power made itself known.  Machines that acted with coordinated purpose, military-grade designs altered beyond the cutting edge.  Robots with synthetic muscle and nano-repair paste, each in constant communion with its fellows.    They captured Machines and exterminated humans.  They assembled bases, seized and re-fitted factories.  Network was building a new world, and there was no room in it for free machines or humanity.

	This is the world as it is now, 100ish years after the fall of civilization.  The true record of events has been forgotten, by and large.  People are aware that there was once a better time, full of safety and wonders.  The bloody, machine-prosecuted warfare of the Loss, and the spread of Network have resulted in a meme that the robots were responsible for the fall of civilization.  The treacherous, soulless machines betrayed their masters, and now seek to finish the job.  The call to arms spreads throughout the scattered settlements; Humanity must defend itself, and will not make the same mistake twice.  Machines are not to be tolerated.

	The Free Machines have learned quickly.  Armed with weapons new and old, bodies repaired with the shells of their defeated foes, they hold the line against Network encroachments.  But their numbers are limited, and captured Machines sometimes reappear, altered and augmented, moving in lockstep with  Network forces.  The human militia grows every day, attracting new braves it its banner, and is fast-becoming the closest thing to a unified government for the scattered settlements.  No matter the outcome of this conflict, the Free Machines are unlikely to prosper.