FireFall

Story

Firefall is an event that takes place almost 200 years in the future. It was predicted that an asteroid would pass right next to the Earth and narrowly miss it. Instead, the asteroid hit the gravitational well of the moon and shattered. Many of these fragments hit the Earth, while the bulk of the asteroid entered a low, descending orbit around the Earth, pelting it with more debris that continued to break off from the asteroid. Eventually, the asteroid itself crashed into Earth, plunging humanity into a new dark age called the Nine Years Winter. Many of the larger governments broke up during this time, while other nations came together to form a strong, united alliance. During this dark age, scientists in Japan stumbled upon a new element called Kristite. What they first observed was not true crystallite, but seed crystite. It wasn't until later, when they searched the crash site, that they were able to find this new element, but only a gram or two was actually discovered when they searched the earth. Many of the studies on crystallite showed that it turned the known laws of physics on their head, and crystallite quickly became a way to generate an enormous amount of energy with almost unlimited potential. Soon it became the most important source of energy in the world and a new golden age dawned. Crystallite, however, is a foreign element that came from the asteroid that slammed into the Earth, and although it is a potentially unlimited resource, the world wanted more of it. Mankind was able to plot the asteroid's trajectory and find out that it came from the Alpha Centauri star system. As a result, spaceships were built and sent on the long journey to find the source of the original crystallite. After four years of space travel, the first colonists arrive and find a world with abundant crystallite. The first colony was founded and named Alpha Prime. When the first large shipment of crystallite arrived on Earth, seven more ships were built and began transporting resources between the two star systems. Despite this new energy source, the governments of the worlds feared that if there was a revolt on Alpha Prime, they would bring Earth to its knees, as they were dependent on crystallite. For this reason, they began to develop and perfect a technology called arcfolding, which creates a wormhole that can transport matter great distances in a short time. However, the first tests showed that everything transported by the arcfolding technology froze almost to absolute zero. Eventually, an energy field capable of shielding organic life was created; the first successful test was a mouse sent from Cambridge to San Francisco, with a deviation of only 0.2 millimeters. With this technology, a ship could cover each leg of the journey in just eight days, instead of taking eight years to make a round trip. And so the Arclight was developed. Thanks to the resources and cooperation of the entire world, it took only a few years to complete the ship. A huge ship, about the size of a small city, with two massive crystallite reactors that safely folded the crew and everyone inside into the arc. It was to be a symbol of power over Alpha Prime and serve as a headquarters from which Earth could secure its future. But something went terribly wrong during its maiden flight. For stability reasons, the Arclight attempted to arc from a Lagrange point in its orbit for the first time. As the Arclight began to fold space, it caused what appeared to be a large rip in the fabric of the universe from which the merger, a huge energy storm, began to pour. The fusion itself has now settled over the Earth in swaths, leaving only small areas of the Earth inhabitable. The merger is mutating and changing all life and even the terrain of the planet. Recently, humanity has been under attack by a race called "The Chosen" that has emerged from the Merge. The player takes on the role of a surviving member of the human race and fights to push back the Chosen and free Earth from the Merge.[1] At this point, the Arclight itself is known to have crashed in Fortaleza, Brazil, but the field the Arclight generates from the seed crystite that powers its still-active engines has been able to keep The Melding at bay. Engineers are afraid to cannibalize the Arclight because the field's residue, known as the STIZ bubble, is vital to Fortaleza and would certainly endanger all who live under its protection.