Purgatory Prologue - Two Cities

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

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Humans don’t react well to change. Yet, they have a habit of changing themselves and the world anyway.

Once they saw possibility to grow, all their focus was centred on figuring how to make it reality. There was an innate drive to build, conquer and expand. The basic elements of technology were established long before their predicted time marks. Societies reached fundamental working governments, enough to keep the public satisfied. This impulse over time scoured their brains to their maximum potential. Humans built and built, until they burnt themselves out, unable to keep up with the rapid changes. World leaders struggled to cope with the sudden halt in growth. Suddenly, they found themselves unable to promise continued glorious advancement for their people. The population of the world began to collapse, golden minds leaving behind unfinished components of advanced technology that theoretically would push the limits past what the current state of society’s mind could understand.

For a short few years, they came to a standstill. They called themselves ‘content’ with their current, imperfect state. Law, tech, culture, the public became accustomed to the perpetual state of it. It was relatively peaceful, if not disturbed by the occasional war, heralded by unstable weapons. A few people described the era as ‘stagnant’

A saving grace arrived in the form of the birth of the diamond brained children. Either nature or a higher power had grown weary of the apathetic attitude. They blessed the brains of a few new-borns world-wide with abilities beyond the normal capacity. As they grew up, they displayed advanced mental abilities in a variety of forms. A human calculator, acute perception of measurement, an accurate clock brain, the ability to create vivid mental blueprints. Between them their potential unlocked the secrets required to complete the unfinished work of the genius generation before them. Higher authorities took notice and recruited them. As more emerged they were documented and registered as a Diamond. At the time, Diamonds were required to work for the government in the field of social, cultural and technological advancement. It became difficult to control the more that were born.

The regular people, uncertain about the recent changes, rioted. They claimed the Diamonds prowess in certain fields were taking away precious high value jobs from them. They felt worthless and divided, letting it spread amongst themselves. Some people wanted their peace back. Others had given up on the government and craved anarchy.

The world lost control.

A swiftly as humans have always solved everything, the world leaders resolved to hold an immediate meeting to quell the masses before they succumbed to a complete collapse. Various ideas were thrown out, but it was eventually two points were agreed upon:

One, nobody could agree on what form of social control worked best anymore.

Two, the Diamonds, though useful, were the key trigger of the divide.

Something needed to be done to solve both problems, that didn’t eliminate their precious mental resource but also kept them away from the jealous crowds.  

An idea was eventually put forth to attempt to solve, or at least experiment with solving this solution.

They called it the Two Cities Experiment.

​Two cities were planned and built in a sectioned off space in England. Initially dubbed as the Blue City and the Red City, Blue was built to the level of perfection devised from an incredible amount of research. It was set up with the ideal government and was given a selected, fair and non-judgemental ruler, Mischa Volkov. A Russian diamond with the mental ability to accurately understand an individual’s problems. Red however was built with only the architecture in mind. Once it was built, no government was put in place. The idea was to allow those who lived here to lead themselves off pure anarchy. Once built, those across the world who had been registered as Diamonds were invited, along with family and extremely close friends in some cases, to live in either one of these cities by their choice. This practice continued as Diamonds appeared in the world. The globe appointed researchers that could administer tests for those who applied to live in the cities, to detect signs of advanced mental abilities.

As more people flocked to the cities, their cultures developed. Red, although technically leaderless succumbed to the power of a large Italian crime family, knows as the Vittore. Their wealth and strength intimidated locals, thus earning them an honorary title of leadership. The locals themselves remained wild though even under their thumbs. The lack of boundaries allowed people to break out of their shells. The development in body augmentations led to a rising trend of extreme self-expression. Changes in eye colour, hair colour, tattoos, limbs, cybernetic parts, bio-engineered animal parts and skin. It was an endless experiment in art. Residents began adopting completely new identities. They armed themselves with unusual, high-tech weapons, for defence and for blood-sport. It was anarchy at its purest form.

Nirvana followed a similar trend but to less of the extreme. Many residents also got themselves augmented changes to eye and hair colours, tattoos and some less unusual cybernetic or bio-engineered augmentations. Simple, innocent upgrades such as butterfly wings, something to improve one’s posture. A huge focus was put on freedom of education. Citizens had the choice of attending high end educational and employment facilities or learning on the job, hands on in a comfortable environment. Comfort was always a key factor.

The two cities were renamed over time to better suit their newfound status: Blue became Nirvana and Red became Gehenna.

A literal heaven and hell on earth.