Humanity built.  Humanity polluted.  Humanity consumed… and it did so for centuries.  It was only after the air became virtually unbreathable… the water virtually undrinkable… and food almost ungrowable… that the peoples of the Earth finally united to do something about it. But change would not be fast enough to save Earth’s teeming billions.  A decision was made to convert underground disaster and weather shelters into cryogenic centers where many could be kept in stasis while technology was deployed to undo the damage of centuries of neglect and abuse. It was hoped that with much of the population in stasis, it would be easier to support the rest of the population until the Earth had substantially recovered enough to support everyone again.

The first few years were the hardest for those that remained on the surface, but within a decade, it was clear that things were stabilizing… and ever so slowly… it became evident that the healing process was underway.   As the years turned into decades, the pace of improvement quickened. The land, air, and seas were becoming clean again and centuries of global warming were well on their way to being reversed.  Poverty, hunger, and most disease was eliminated. For the first time in recorded history, there was no war and virtually no crime.  But as technology was ushering in a new golden age for human civilization, it is thought that it was technology that broke the barriers between universes which disrupted almost every property of known science… even the fundamental laws of physics.  The land heaved, split apart, and heaved again… and again.  Strange and alien life from other universes were brought to Earth and they brought new diseases and pathogens to a world where most had almost no resistance to disease… known or unknown. 

Life on Earth was altered in ways that could never have been predicted or prevented.  The economy spun out of control and crashed.  Public and social order broke down.  Civilization faltered and then died. Humanity was brought to the very edge of extinction.  But aside from the chaos brought about by the Fall… the Earth continued to recover as best as it could.  It has been over three hundred years since the Fall.  Earth’s ecosystem has stabilized and recovered… though it has changed much since before the Fall.  While survivors of old Earth can still be found here and there… most of the world is filled with strange new races and creatures that are transplanted alien lifeforms… or hybrids and symbiotes between those of Old Earth and the alien newcomers. 

While the breaking of the world had destroyed many of the cryogenic centers and their sleeping inhabitants, others survived, and occasionally… circumstances lead to the awakening of a sleeper… only for them to step out into the ruins of a shattered world that is almost beyond recognition as the one that they had grown up in.  The question at that point, is whether to embrace the new reality and make the best of it… or to try and go back and resume their sleep probably into oblivion.  Most choose to explore the new world and the life it has to offer.