Deep Freeze
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The Nugget
In the early part of the 21 century CE a digital archivist (or hoarder, but things turned out well so we use nice words) starts collecting terabytes of data; music, video, text books, plans, almanacs, sims, mem-stores, etc. Four copies are stored in a small, lead lined, rubberized, vaults[notes 1] accessible by a small sub-basement in properties owned around the city.
A nuclear terrorist attack traced back to North Korea sparks a brief world war after China interdicts the initial US response.[notes 2] This sparks a brief world war which is essentially ended when China and the US destroy the world's telecommunication and data infrastructure. There are surprisingly few casualties in the armed conflict and all major powers conclude a peace agreement within 6 months of the initial attack, but the damage done and riots raging across the globe become self-fueling. The continued breakdown of communication and transportation leads to worldwide famines and yet more rioting and chaos. By the time dust settles 10 years later, a billion people are dead and civilization is locked into a downward spiral.
At the time of the event, our archivist had stored lots of data (TODO: let's do an estimate... something in the petabytes...). He spawns a dynasty of "data barons" in a cyber-feudal post-apocalyptic world.
Key point in this: everything happens 20-40 years in the future. So much more is stored electronically, so much knowledge. Many important text books and papers are never printed. Even more problematic, advanced processes break down and what little does survive has been commandeered to run key infrastructure. Private computing is more or less abolished as everything is seized by the state in order to run water treatment plants, power plants, etc. Even bigger problem: the ability to make new stuff is gone. Society starts to work on getting it back, but in the decades immediately following the collapse, the hardware that does survive cannot be replaced. While governments around the world hold vast majority of tech, with some legal tech in the hands of massive corporations, private citizens and even large, powerful companies are cut out. Access to tech becomes a weapon in corpratist hands and the resulting decimation of competing firms in all large market domains results in an overt corpracracy in mosts every nation around the world. Pirate organizations form that offer private individuals and corporations access to technology. The "hardware pirates".
Integrating the mish-mash of hardware and data is of course quite difficult and gives rise to the third leg of our cyber-society: the developers.
The data barons are generally legit and deal with the government, but make much (most?) of their profits in providing access to pre-collapse sims and mem-stores to private individuals and extra-governmental corporations. This necessitates dealings with the hardware pirates. This creates some friction with the government, but the situation is essentially tolerated as the barons do a good job of controlling access to their data. This gives the barons a classic bunker mentality as their power rests on the ability to keep data under their control.
The developers act as mercenaries, essential to all the groups, but not really in direct play as a group themselves. Whether a developer works for the government, the pirates, or whomever, they get paid and the developer is generally willing to join up with whoever comes out on top.
Notes
- ↑ Atmosphere exchanged with an inert gas before locking. "Deep Freeze" is the archivist term to refer to all this.
- ↑ Later, it would be generally accepted that the Chinese forces were acting on standing orders and Beijing was more than ready to cooperate with the US. In fact, the Chinese had been preparing their forces to occupy N. Korea themselves. The problem was China was determined to annex N. Korea whereas the US was determined to capture and interrogate as many government officials as possible to both set an example and so as to be able to track any other devices and follow the threads back to the terrorist organizations tied to the country. Even with the initial confusion and hostilities, these differences were likely reconcilable by themselves, but once China's desire to occupy was made clear, other regional powers began to react. Taiwan, India, South Korea, Japan and a few lesser powers quickly formed a military pack that began to pull the US interest away from compromise with China. There was even talk that the US might demand concessions from China as, after all, the Chinese had been supporting the N. Koreans for decades. Though China had been building up militarily ever since the early aughts, and the US had been somewhat reducing forces the US still had far more firepower and China had little hope of projecting sufficient power to have any hope of winning a one-on-one battle. However, the masses of Chinese infantry and relative impotence of regional powers (outside Taiwan) meant China could occupy much of the Eurasian continent, even to the point of occupying Russia and European nations. Seeing the need to develop unconventional means to support battle plan--which it should be said would have been unthinkable to implement 4 months before--the Chinese had developed a network of powerful EM bombs placed in apartments and properties around the world. Detonating these devices caused the immediate collapse of all civilian communications. Economies around the world instantly freeze and mass rioting ensues in 80% of the major urban areas around the world as panic sets in. Hardened US military channels survive, but communication with the allies is severely constricted. The US responds in kind. The initial EM pulse, general rioting, fires, and the state-sponsored hacking that preceded and followed the initial hard attack result in massive data losses and chronically crippled systems. Later analysis would find that the initial loss wasn't as devastating as the common story understood and that the real damage was done in the months following the initial shutdown.
