The World

"The World" is generally how the inhabitants of the CCITI Life Role-playing Game (CLRPG) refer to reality outside of the CCITI. The nature of "reality" is something that is on the forefront of almost every human given the power of the era's technology and its interaction with their lives. Many virtual reality simulators have become so advanced that a person's senses cannot easily discriminate the source of their perceptions. While the most advanced retail appliances have direct brain connections that make the difference indistinguishable. The majority of humanity can only spend a fraction of their time in the CCITI, and when not living their CCITI Life they are in the World maintaining their wetware, or pursuing the means to extend their time in the CCITI.

Climate

The climate degradation that gained widespread attention in the mid-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has continued at an unexpected rate. The temperature of the Earth has risen, causing more chaotic weather patterns and increased damage from severe weather. Droughts and intense storms have ravaged large portions of the arable and habitable land.

Sea levels have risen causing some large coastal cities to have been abandoned, while the others have created large artificial barriers and plumbing to mitigate the water. Unpredictably strong storms in coastal regions make habitation impossible without the aid of superior housing and infrastructure. Underwater housing is viable in some regions, but the cost of maintenance is prohibitive for the masses.

The desertification of inland regions has caused many inhabited places that are far from water to become dust bowls. Cities that formerly resided near, or in, the desert regions of the World have been nearly annihilated. Air quality outside of megacities is harmful enough that strong filters should be used at all times.

Society

Even with the environment becoming more hostile to human life, humanity has continued to grow, with the worldwide population topping ten billion. This has been no easy task, but with the advancements in medical, energy, and food technologies, humans have rallied to the largest population centers for shelter and safety.

As people moved to the megacities for survival, the governments of the past were incapable of handling the stress created by this migration. The world of nations and states as they existed at the turn of the twenty-first century is no more. In its place is a hybrid of corporate executives, megacity politicians, and private security firms work in concert to keep order and drive the continuance of civilization. In practice this means that there is an uneasy homogeneity which has formed between the various megacities to make society function in a relatively consistent way.

The CCITI, and CCITI Life, have made this transition much easier for humans. Abstracting away the details of money and language in favor of advanced software replacements. People from all over the world can exchange goods and services through the CCITI while sharing a common language and experience inside the virtual world. All from the comfort of the virtual reality couch in their living room.

Outside of the CCITI, society continues to work in ways that are similar to the turn of the century with the major exception that the class divisions between rich and poor have become more stark. Nearly all of humanity lives in the megacities with varying qualities of life depending on how close to the arcology centers they live.

The spaces beyond the megacities are generally known as the "wastelands". They are not survivable without specialized equipment for air filtration and protection against extreme weather conditions. A fraction of one percent of the total human population lives in the wastelands and they are mostly split into two groups; well-funded expeditions from the megacities searching for lost treasures, and hardened wastelanders carving out an existence in the ruins. There is little of value in the wastelands with nearly all of the technology of previous eras being useless, but occasionally there are artifacts and resources scarce enough in the megacities that they are worth the trouble of making the journey.

Megacities

In the face of climate disaster the densest cities were the most well prepared to handle the aftereffects. Cities that formerly could house tens of millions of people bloomed to accommodate hundreds of millions. Breakthroughs in building technology, indoor food production, and filtration capabilities empowered the people of the megacities to build ever larger habitations and environmental domes. The core of these places are now seen as the most desirable living conditions in the World, their avenues brightly lit with computerized displays and dancing holograms, and packed with bespoke shops of all manner. The air and water are clean and safe to ingest, food is delicious and plentiful, housing is warm and comfortable, and medical care is beyond imagination, but in the megacity everything comes with a price.

The inner part of most megacities is comprised of a large dome, or series of connected domes, that is usually referred to as the "arcology". The quality of life inside the arcologies is comfortable for most, and luxurious for the elites. The area around an arcology is known as the "safe zone", and it's name is a jab in the eye for most who live there. Although life is survivable in the safe zones, comfort ranges from tolerable in the places closest to the arcology, to post-apocalyptic at the far edges.

These cities that now call themselves home to hundreds of millions have also swelled to cover more surface area than ever before. Most megacities span tens of thousands of square kilometers, with the core arcologies covering hundreds of square kilometers in translucent dome. But as the light of the arcology center fades across the safe zone around them, so too the World seems to become darker until finally the far edges are reached and the city gives way to the wasteland.