Fracture

Amidst a backdrop of worldwide ecological and seismological chaos in the mid-2100s; the United States has been split in two by the Great Flood. As a result of the polar ice cap melting; the Mississippi River has destroyed the central portion of the United States; causing an ill-equipped Federal Government to fail and literally cutting the country in half. These two halves are left to fend for themselves in the aftermath.

The East; now known as the Atlantic Alliance; symbolic of their union with Europe; puts its faith in surviving this new world in cybernetics; an established yet evolving technology now more than 150 years old. On the other side of the flooded continent; the Western states; now called the Republic of Pacifica and having allied with Asia; resort to solving their problems at the genetic level; effectively restructuring the DNA of its inhabitants — a method the Atlantic Alliance finds morally reprehensible.

By 2161; it only takes a