Kandria
Hey,
as promised last week, here's another short update on Kandria! This time I wanted to talk a bit about the world building and backstory, so here goes!
In the somewhat distant future, humanity had expanded to gigantic, bustling cities above ground, and to far stretching caverns and intricate tunnel systems underground. The tunnels were used for delivery, storage, and manufacturing, while the surface was used for farming, housing, and entertainment. Thanks to the advancements made in automation, society had developed into something close to a utopia, with most of the manual labour being performed by robots.
While the advancements in artificial intelligence had been significant, true AI on the level of humans had remained elusive for a long time until an accidental discovery lead to the creation of the first man-made brain. Despite discovering a process to create such a brain, the inner workings of it remained a mystery. Changing the manufacturing process proved extremely brittle, making experimentation with and research of the artificial brain difficult. While the understanding of artificial brains did not progress quickly, the interface with artificial limbs and senses advanced rapidly and it did not take long before the first fully humanoid android was constructed.
Through the rapid replay of senses and experiences, an android could "grow up" into an adult in very little time. While the construction of the brains remained mostly the same, scientists experimented with changing the memory replay to influence the personality of the androids. This showed some success, allowing them to construct androids with a specific affinity. At this point however, the experiments on androids were leaked to the public, and a heated debate arose around the ethical treatment of such artificial beings.
Despite the public outrage, research continued and soon after a few androids were deployed in public. They took on various, simple jobs, to test their interaction and integration in public spaces. Due to their absolutely convincing looks and behaviour, most people did not notice their presence at all. It did not take long for this experiment to be leaked into the public either however. General response to this was surprisingly positive, but still cautious. A growing vocal minority however did not take well to this and responded with fear, uncertainty, and doubt, demanding the experiments be stopped immediately and all existing androids destroyed.
Undeterred by the growing outrage over these public experiments, research continued and androids were now being deployed in various work areas in various cities across the globe. While they were not yet permitted to take on jobs of great importance, their low resource requirements, physical durability, general well behaviour, and ability to work for longer hours made a very appealing case for many positions. And so, androids took on jobs in the police, personal security, education, elderly care, and field research. While the outrage over this rapid proliferation of androids grew, it never did get to put a stop to the research and production of androids.
This is simply because the world happened to end long before the debate reached its peak.
Despite the many theories that exist on how or why the calamity happened, nobody knows for sure. The aftermath however is undeniable. As far as we know, every city on the globe has been reduced to nothing more than dust and rubble. Every farm has been destroyed, and most of the underground facilities and caverns have collapsed. Satellites and other stations orbiting the planet came crashing back down. Humanity was all but completely erased, along with the rest of the surface world.
For days following calamity, the atmosphere was filled with dust and smoke. This blocked out most of the sunlight, throwing the planet into a global winter. The few that remember this horrible time speak of salt falling out of the air like rain, the remains of civilisation scattered to an endless number of tiny crystals. After the dust had settled, the planet changed rapidly. Flat lands turned into salty deserts, with searing temperatures during the day. Mountainous areas turned into frozen tundra. The only refuge from these harsh conditions could be found underground, in the remaining caverns and tunnels of the old world.
While the atmosphere and temperatures were much more tolerable deep underground, scavenging for food and water proved very difficult as the scattered supply depots were raided and emptied. And so, a few decades after the calamity, some groups of survivors attempted to reclaim the surface. Most of these groups were scattered too far apart to make contact with each other, and thus remained mostly in isolation. The one we'll be following set up camp in some of the dilapidated buildings of a former city, treated what little fertile ground remained and used it for farming. With a lot of hard work they were able to set up a working water pump that could siphon clean water from deep underground to support the growing farm.
Food remained scarce, and many a harvest was botched or ruined by the harsh weather conditions on the surface, but they managed to pull through for long enough to find more survivors to join them. Soon the group grew large enough to split the responsibilities into two: farmers on the surface, and scavengers underground. The scavengers' job was to search the deep underground maze of tunnels for remaining intact machinery and material, and to find new survivors to join the group.
One day, two of the scavengers, Catherine and Alex, stumble upon a very special find: buried under rubble, at the bottom of a deep, collapsed cavern lies the still body of an android. Its body lifeless, set into emergency maintenance mode. Catherine, ever the eager engineer, quickly sets to work trying to reactivate the android.
This is where the story begins.
I hope you enjoyed this retelling of Kandria's backstory! I'll refrain from talking about the story of the game for now, wouldn't want to spoil it before it's even done! I could write some more about the backstory though, so is there a part that you found particularly interesting?
Let me know what you think, and stay tuned for the monthly update next week!