2070

2070

The year after the Collapse wasn’t a recovery—it was a knife fight for the right to keep breathing. In the ashes of 2069, with the old world burned down to memories and bones, the survivors of Vance County had a choice: scatter into the wastes or dig in and make a stand. Enough of them chose the latter, and what rose from that stubborn resolve became @New Vance City.

It began with the Perimeter Fires—a desperate ring of burning cars, scrap barricades, and scavenged fuel meant to hold the shamblers at bay. For weeks, survivors manned those walls day and night, swapping out rifles for crowbars when the ammo ran dry. The fight bought time for the city’s greatest stroke of luck: infrastructure. Vance had been a tech hub before the Collapse, and much of its hardened power grid, water lines, and subterranean transit tunnels still functioned. In a world of blackouts and poisoned wells, that was worth more than gold.

Old rivalries died quick when hunger and infection were the only other options. Engineers, ex-soldiers, smugglers, and even the remnants of corporate security forces formed the First Accord—an uneasy pact to pool resources, secure the core districts, and keep the shamblers out. The Accord divided duties: @The Citadel bureaucrats stabilized rationing and surveillance, @The Solar Guardians seized and restored power production, @The Hydro Hegemony rebuilt the filtration systems, and @The Perimeter Watch kept the walls standing.

In under twelve months, the chaos hardened into something resembling civilization—if a brutal, faction-ruled one. Neon-lit safe zones sprouted from the ruin, guarded markets reopened under armed eyes, and the city’s arteries began pumping again. The Collapse had shattered the old world in days, but the sheer will to survive rebuilt New Vance in a year. Not because people believed in a better tomorrow—but because they refused to die today.