First Draft

I said that I would post the basic description of the world I am building when it was more polished. Here it is. Its not perfect and only gives a basic overview of the background of the world, but I think it at least gives the flavor I am looking to convey.

400 years ago Earth was invaded by aliens, they were both inscrutable and capricious. These alien conquerors did all the thing that alien conquers always do. They enslaved a large portion of the human population. They forced these slaves to destroy the great cities of the past and build cities of soaring crystal that no one lived in. They changed, modified, destroyed and rebuilt almost everything and everyone. They were cruel seemingly for cruelty’s sake alone.

Then, one day 100 years ago the aliens and most of their technology disappeared. They did not return to their great warships, they did not travel across the planet and meet to depart, they were simply not there one day.

This departure left all the humans that had been workers or slaves abandoned with nothing. People began to die without the support networks that the aliens had put in place. Cyborg slaves succumb to rejection syndrome, farmers that grew exclusively alien crops died from starvation with full storehouses.

The aliens had experimented on their slaves modifying their DNA to create abominations. Many of these twisted creatures died without their masters to care for them. Many others moved out of their cells and hid themselves in holes or wherever they could find. A few, monstrous beings raged across the land, feeling nothing but hunger and rage, killing to satisfy both. Still others had become hateful of the un-mutated and skulked around the edges of burgeoning societies to take the straggler or the stray child.

As the aliens enslaved mankind they likewise enslaved animals. Teaching them to talk and reason just make them more effective in the gladiatorial games the aliens never tired of. Some developed psionic powers that made them even more interesting to the aliens. Most of these animals have now returned to the wild though some live with humans. It is now impossible to tell if that dog can talk or a crow can use a gun or if that squirrel can read you mind.

They awakened machines giving them emotions and a desire to be real lifeforms, only for the amusement of watching the failure. Now robots roam the world looking for purpose. Advanced AI live on the remaining computer systems ruling over small data nodes that no longer connect to anything. Living appliances with no movement capabilities hope to be found and allowed to fulfill their function.

The aliens had used their advanced technology to keep one group of humans from communicating with another by changing the language spoken by different communities of slaves. This created little nations of humans that were goaded into wars that were not of their desire, but could not be avoided.

Clouds of nanite robots were unleashed. They destroyed and rebuilt buildings, towns, people, animals, even geological features, at random. These nanites lingered in pockets across the earth and some people learned to use them. Now wizards of nanotechnology cast fire and death at will. Some have the power of healing and some have even been rumored to bring people back from the dead.