The world
Earth, 2040
It isn't a ruin. It's a gig economy that never ends, kept stable by a monthly check and a device in every head. Here's what everyone knows.
The interface
Everyone has one. Neural interfaces unlock your potential, AI assistants make you smarter, and the health benefits are real and documented. It's like electricity: you don't think about it.
"You're not connected? Aren't you worried about your health?"
Everything got cheap
From 2038 the future finally became affordable: personal robots, self-driving cars, smart homes and VR rigs for everyone. Record sales, mass adoption.
"They finally figured out how to make it cheap!"
The basic income
$900 a month for everyone. Enough to survive, not enough to live. People call it a safety net, and proof that someone still cares.
"At least nobody starves anymore."
Everything is a subscription
The devices are cheap. The services are forever. Your car, your home, your assistant and your health all renew monthly.
"Why would you ever unplug?"
The orbital class
They left: stations in orbit, bases on the Moon, even a small colony on Mars. They took their data centers with them, and they're still in charge. Most people don't think about it much.
"Building humanity's future in the stars!"
The fine print
Nobody lied. The marketing is all technically true, and everything is in the terms of service. Nobody reads the terms of service.
"My grandmother unplugged and she was dead in three years."
What nobody asks
- Why did everything get cheaper just as the machines got smarter?
- If the interface makes you smarter, why does nobody seem to be?
- What does the orbital class still need from the people it left behind?
The history
How we got here
The few who reached superintelligence first kept it secret and planned their way out. The flood came early, and the war is what happened in between.
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2028
The Quiet Accord
America's leading AI labs reach superintelligence. They see what it will do to work, and they agree, quietly, to keep it hidden and use it to plan a way off the planet.
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2028 to 2031
The exit, built in plain sight
Rockets, habitats and launch sites go up as "humanity's future in the stars". Nobody outside the Accord knows the timetable.
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2032
The flood
China reaches superintelligence too, and floods the world with cheap robots, software and goods no one can match. Unemployment hits 40%. The suburbs of office workers fall first and fastest.
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2032 to 2034
The class war
Life has become unaffordable. It starts in farm country, where farmers can't keep going and their way of life is being destroyed, and the data centers taking their water, their land and their power are the last straw. It spreads to the suburbs, then the city. The rich and the governments hold the superintelligence and the machines. The many have the numbers and nothing to lose.
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2035
The last launches
The rich finish leaving, and they take their data centers with them: stations in orbit, bases on the Moon and a small colony on Mars, where living is deadlier than anywhere else. The same year their labs make a breakthrough in neural interfaces. "Isn't it inspiring?" By the time it was obvious, it was too late.
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2038 to 2040
The device revolution
Everything gets cheap at once, and the whole planet plugs in.
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2040
Now
Stable. Connected. Grateful, mostly.
The game · in development
Project 2040: Class Wars
A campaign strategy RPG about the war of 2032 to 2035, in Chicago and the farm country around it. Play the Many, who have the numbers and nothing left to lose, or the Few, who have the money, the machines and a ride off the planet. Pick who you were before the war, and grow your skills, your crew and your tech as you go.
The Many
Recruit, march, break through
- Laid-off professionals, farmers and neighbors with skills from the jobs they lost.
- Not just farmers: many are tech workers who bought homesteads when they saw the writing on the wall. Educated, well spoken and handy with a drone.
- Build crews of organizers, riggers, medics and hackers at the places you hold: a mall, a church, a school gym.
- Your edge is numbers. You can lose many and keep coming.
- Your fear is running out of people who still believe.
The Few
Hold the castle until the launch
- The owners: old money, the labs and the companies building the way out.
- Walls, turrets, drones, sensors and hired guards, paid for by everything you own.
- Your edge is the superintelligence. It sees the next wave coming.
- Your fear is the money stopping, or the clock running out.
The road to the Loop
The farm revolt
2032 · Hollis County
Farming no longer pays, and a way of life is ending. Then the wells run dry and the power goes to Prairie Line, the data center in the corn. The old farming families and the tech workers turned homesteaders decide they've had enough.
The flood and the fall
2032 to 2033 · the suburbs
The layoffs reach the office parks along the Corridor. Malls and school gyms become bases; the Few pull back behind their gates.
The war
2033 to 2034 · the city
The front moves toward the Loop. Machines are turned, and the Few retreat into the skyscrapers. Tower defense becomes literal.
The launches
2035 · the airfields
The last stand at the launch sites. Get your people out, or stop what you can and keep what's left behind.
Every act is a map of missions, and you choose your own road through it. Every win weakens the enemy's last stand, and what you save, the veterans, the places held and the machines turned, shapes the world of 2040.
More than one way in
Loud
Your whole force, straight through the front gate.
Quiet
A small crew at night. Cut, open, take, leave.
Win them over
Guards, workers and whole towns can change their minds.
Turn the machines
Their drones and robots, fighting for you.
Someone is always watching
Halcyon's superintelligence watches every county. Move loud and it learns your name. Lie low too long and your people drift home. Every road is a race between the two.
Class Wars
Who's who
The powers and places of the war.
- The Quiet Accord
- The secret pact to hide superintelligence and plan the escape.
- Halcyon Systems
- The leading American AI lab. Its superintelligence runs the Few's forecasts.
- Meridian Orbital
- Builds the rockets and the habitats, and owns the launch sites.
- Shenlan Robotics
- The maker of cheap robots whose flood started the collapse.
- The Lakeshore Trust
- Old North Shore money, and the Few's local face.
- Hollis County
- Farm country, whose wells and power went to the data center.
- Prairie Line
- Halcyon's data center among the cornfields, where it all begins.
- Fox Ridge
- A big family suburb, where the Many find their footing.
- Harlan Commons
- A shopping mall turned stronghold.
- Elm Shore
- The gated lakefront suburb the Few call home.
- The Meridian Spire
- The tallest tower in the Loop, and the Few's last fortress. The roof is the way out.
- Kestrel Field
- A private airfield, and one of the last places to catch a ride off Earth.