In 2055, the last governmental holdout was folded into the fledgling, ascendant United Earth Hegemony. It was an exciting new experiment, a socialist government led not by the old, fallible politicians, but by a new, greater, wiser species of humanity, Homo Hieronyma. The first members of this new Hominina species were painstakingly engineered by European and American genetic scientists at the very beginning, before the United Earth Hegemony had even been officially signed into existence. These now-legendary statespeople, the four Founders, were "born" in 2031, a year to the day before the formal founding of the United Earth Hegemony on July 16, 2032. They reached maturity quickly, and were taught everything they needed even faster. The decades following '55 were genuinely some of the best in human history. The four Founders, the first Hegemonists, soon were joined by a score and some change of Bureaucrats, who managed the smaller matters. These individuals, in a totality almost completely beyond argument, were wise, just, and empathetic leaders to Homo Saipens. But it took too long for occult scientists to redesign the old techniques, and that generation, save barely half a dozen very elderly hold-outs, had to be replaced by a second generation. These have not been so strong of character as their elders.
Some saw what the past members of their people accomplished, and it went to their heads. They became of the conviction that they are above the masses of mere humans not just in power but in everything. These few bad fruits soured the entire oligarchy as those convictions spread. Soon, only those left of the first generation were left. One Hegemonist and three Bureaucrats.
This new generation instituted a new order of things; they said to the common citizens 'If we really are better than you in every way, which we of course are, wouldn't it make more sense if you were only working for our benefit?' For the most part, the common people agreed.
That, in short, is the story of how Man's Golden Age ended, and just as suddenly as it had started.
But soon, in what little rebellion free-minded humans could find, the first Inter-Solar Banking Group was convened. They worked to establish new, underground markets, learning from the mistakes of both the Hegemony and it's capitalist predecessors. These immortal Bankers resolved that themselves and whatever successors they might have, would always endeavor to ensure fair play in the markets; there would be no monopolizing, no big conglomerates. It would be a market of many individuals, all encouraged to work for and with one another, not against.
It isn't perfect, but it's at the very least equal.
The setting of Totally Not is heavily cyberpunk, with augmented people and synthetically grown adults making up about 30% of the world population. Propaganda is everywhere within cities and, due to the sheer amount of bright neon signs that decorate the streets and buildings, night is no longer a thing. That isn't to say that there is no night, but it is always illuminated outside by something. The only way to see a starry sky is to take a ship over the ocean, or into space.
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Number One
Number Two
Number Three
Number Four
Harlan Dark
Constance Dark
Tore Emmanuel "Ockham" Vaernes
Peter-Henry Ivalu
The United Earth Hegemony
Frontierspace
The Banking Company
Marshall, Carter, and Dark
What was left of MC&D's corporate structure was absorbed into the Banking Company in 2073.
O Michanikós/The Mekhanics
The Jackal's campaigns against Bumaro's church during the Faith Wars all but destroyed those denominations of the faith. Now the Jackal's church, O Michanikós, is all what's left. They believe in total replacement of their flesh by magically transmuting their bodies into that of an automaton; these new forms rarely resemble anything human. They operate the largest information, trade, and transport network on the Frontier, and will gladly come to blows if they're forced to protect it.
The Inter-System Occult Defense Alliance
When the Hegemonists dissolved the UN and dropped the veil in the mid-21st century, the Global Occult Coalition and the Secure Containment Procedures Foundation found themselves on the precipice of obsoletion. So, they signed an agreement, mixed their organizations into one, and took to the skies. Currently, the forces of the Inter-System Occult Alliance reside mostly in emplacements at the farther reaches of our solar system; on Jupiter's moons, in rogue asteroids, on far-flung space stations. There, they monitor the galaxy in order to identify and prepare for any major extra-terrestrial threats, be they alien or supernatural.
The setting of Totally Not is set in a cyberpunk world. There are cars, trains, boats starships and the like, as well as a whole sling of advanced technology. It's a pretty dark world for anyone that isn't at or near the top. Even at the top, there is often trouble in paradise.
Vaporization/Vapo - A term used to describe the act of erasing someone from history. This includes removing memories of the person from living people who have been associated with them, removing any text or photographs referencing them, and their names expurgated. This process is unbelievably expensive and difficult to achieve. Not even the Hegemony and their goons have access to it without significant effort, despite what persistent tall tales would tell you.
Swimming with the bodies - There's a reason no one crosses the Hegemony openly or directly. Among their numerous methods of erasing people, the Old Lake is one of the more terrifying ones. This particular phrase evolved from "Swimming with the fishes", and is directly related to how people succumb to the effects of the Old Lake.
Hawkers - Salesfolks who travel in order to buy and sell goods.
Peddlers - Shopkeepers. Salesfolks who operate out of a fixed location.
Brokers - Brokers are a loosely-defined class of professionals who work with jacklegs and wildcatters to find peddlers or hawkers to sell to. Brokers are fences of illegal goods, essentially.
Jackals - Skilled individuals who ply said skills for money. A jackal could be anything from a miner, to a mechanic, to a middleman, to a mediator.
Jackleg - A jackal who uses magic or supernatural powers of any kind in their work.
Wildcatters - Prospectors who explore areas of sea and space without established lodes of any valuable minerals. They have a reputation for being a rough and rowdy crowd, a side effect of the extreme danger lurking at every corner in the course of their job. The name is derived from a 20-21st century term for independent oil prospectors.
Wildcats - A wildcat is the sea, space, (or occasionally both) vessel of a wildcatter. They're highly customized vessels, generally outfitted with at least basic drilling equipment (for sampling), the best sensor equipment available to the wildcatter(s), and (infamously well-equipped) arrays of off-board gun emplacements. Often an on-board arsenal, too. Shit's dangerous out there, yo.
Companies - In Totally Not, the word "company" has a very different meaning than it typically does to us. Marketeers, wildcatters, jacklegs and the like don't say it to mean a business, they don't have businesses the way we do. A company is a sort of alliance, either formal or informal, of individuals working on the market. Only rarely will you see a company composed of more than a half dozen individuals.
Cornwall - Sometime in 2275, a group of Neo-Sarkics banded together and sacrificed their bodies to create a massive Kiraak in the United States City, Savannah, Georgia. They came to the realization that the war against the machine was not one they were going to win, and opted to create a safe place for carnomancers in the future. The structure is nigh impregnable, and the only way to safely get inside is to have knowledge of a specific carnomancy taught to trusted Sarkics.
The Faith Wars - The Fifthist cults are pretty prominent across the globe, and have taken credit for the technocratic bureaucracy. The Church of Maxwellism believes that the will of MEKHANE is the reason why the planet has leaned more into technology over the last several hundred years. There are skirmishes between practitioners of both faiths with some escalating to catastrophic levels.
The Frontier Wars - A series of brutal, bloody wars in the early 22nd century, which established the independence of Frontierspace from the Hegemony.
The Old Lake - One of the few places on the Earthside mainland that still has a significant amount of foliage. No one is quite sure why, as the Oligarchy prevents the general public from getting too close.