The Collapse

Early Warnings and Global Failure

The Collapse began in 2069 with reports that no one wanted to believe. Hospitals and emergency hotlines saw a rise in cases of sudden violence, blackouts, and severe neural pain. Security footage showed people moving with stiff, jerking motions while their faces stayed blank. Early statements called it stress, bad drugs, or isolated outbreaks. Travel continued. Business continued. The new disease had time to spread.

By the time global health agencies named the pathogen, it was already in major cities across every continent. Different governments released different data, and many tried to hide how bad things were. Official broadcasts promised that containment was working. At the same time, raw footage of riots, attacks in hospitals, and military shootings spread through private networks. Public trust fell faster than any formal system could respond.

Standard emergency plans failed. Quarantine zones were too small. Curfews did not stop movement inside crowded buildings. Borders closed, but the virus had crossed them weeks earlier through trade, travel, and military deployments. Power grids and food supply chains were not built to handle mass panic, worker collapse, or armed checkpoints on every road. As critical staff fell sick or fled, systems that linked cities and nations together began to shut down. The systems of the old world failed in many places at the same time.

The Z-Virus and the Birth of Shamblers

The pathogen that drove the Collapse became known as the Shambler Virus, or the Z-Virus. It attacked the brain first. Early-stage patients could still speak and understand instructions, but they reported pressure in their skulls, phantom sounds, and a constant pull toward anger. Many injured or killed loved ones without clear reason. Restraints, sedatives, and standard treatments did not work for long.

When the virus reached its peak in a host, identity broke down. Victims stopped recognizing faces, words, or places. They responded to sound, heat, and movement with sudden attacks that ignored personal safety. Pain did not deter them. Damage that would drop a healthy person only slowed them. After this point they were no longer treated as patients. They were classified as shamblers.

Physical changes followed. Muscles became uneven and overdeveloped in some areas. Fingers, jaws, and joints sometimes warped. Many developed visible growths along the spine, skull, or limbs. These changes had no single pattern, which made research difficult and dangerous. Doctors and scientists either died, vanished into secure sites, or destroyed their own work to keep it from falling into unknown hands. Attempts at containment turned hospitals and refugee centers into major centers of infection.

New Vance City in Crisis

New Vance City entered 2069 as a dense, modern urban hub. It had a strong industrial base, high-rise business centers, and layered public transit. The first confirmed Z-Virus cases in New Vance appeared in emergency rooms near major transit lines. Authorities reacted with familiar steps: isolate patients, trace contacts, and issue calm updates. For a brief time, many residents believed the city would handle this like any other crisis.

That belief did not last. The infection spread through buses, trains, and elevator shafts faster than contact tracers could work. Nurses and doctors fell sick while on shift. Police and private security faced rising unrest as whole neighborhoods went under quarantine. Curfews were announced, then ignored by frightened crowds. Some areas turned violent when rumors spread about secret evacuation routes or vaccine stockpiles for the rich.

As shamblers appeared in larger numbers, the layout of New Vance made the situation worse. Narrow streets filled with stalled vehicles blocked emergency response. Fires burned in unattended buildings and sometimes spread across entire blocks. Whole towers shifted from normal life to infected control in a single day. Communications failed in bursts as relays lost power or staff. Many residents only learned their area was abandoned when help stopped arriving and broadcasts went silent.

The Accord and the Fight to Survive

In the worst weeks of the Collapse, New Vance stood very close to total loss. At that point, a loose group of surviving leaders formed around what was left of city administration, critical industry, and armed security. They did not share the same ideals, but they shared one urgent goal: prevent the city from joining the growing number of dead zones. This group accepted a harsh fact. They could not save every district.

They redrew the map of New Vance from the inside. Districts with heavy infection or failed infrastructure became black zones. Resources and personnel pulled back from those areas and focused on a smaller, more defensible core. This meant that many people beyond the new lines received no rescue and no supplies. It was a choice that still shapes how citizens see power in the city.

From these decisions, the Accord took form. Administrative and planning staff who kept records and communication networks alive became the base of what is now the Citadel Council. Engineers and technicians who could keep solar fields and backup grids working became the early Solar Guardians. Water specialists who secured reservoirs, treatment plants, and pipelines laid the foundations of the Hydro Hegemony. Armed units that held walls, gates, and outer patrol routes became the Perimeter Watch. Each group claimed a role, and each tied its authority to what it had done during the Collapse.

Consequences of the Collapse

By 2070, the first and worst wave of the Collapse had passed. Many regions around the world were already gone. Around New Vance, wide rings of ruins, dead suburbs, and infected sectors formed a dangerous barrier. Inside the new borders, the Accord held on and slowly rebuilt basic order. Outside, shamblers, raiders, cults, and strange groups like the Silent Walkers spread through the empty zones and broken streets.

For people who live in New Vance City now, the Collapse is not distant history. It is a direct cause of everyday rules and fears. Families remember who never came home from hospital shifts, patrol duties, or failed evacuations. Neighborhoods remember which leaders ordered withdrawals and closed gates. Entire communities still argue about whether the Accord did what was necessary or made choices that many people will never forgive.

The Z-Virus remains present. Antigen exists, but it is rare and expensive. Many citizens still see a confirmed bite as a death sentence, no matter what clinics say. Small outbreaks continue in fringe areas, and shamblers still test the walls from time to time. Patrols watch for signs that the infection is changing again.

The Collapse also reshaped how factions relate to each other. The Citadel Council, Solar Guardians, Hydro Hegemony, Perimeter Watch, and other groups all point to those dark months to justify their power. They claim that without their actions, New Vance would have fallen. Ordinary people measure those claims against their own losses. In the end, everyone in the city lives with the same knowledge: the world ended once in 2069, and the causes of that disaster have not fully disappeared. The Collapse is not only a past event. It is the condition that New Vance must push against every single day.

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.