Streets of Hope

Origins of Via - is part of the world's Primordial Essences, the only one of the five Elements that can still be tapped in its intrinsic form - Water, Air, Earth and Fire all exist, of course, but you can't harness *Fire* itself, Fire as a principle, for instance. - The only element that's never cha...

- superhumans are the result of arcane nodules developing along a person's DNA helixes. Long story short, mutations are triggered by ancestral via build-up - mutations can affect any area of the body or brain. They can be showy and very difficult to miss, or they can be very subtle, only manifesting...

- Transhumanism: believing Humanity as a whole is poised to escape its biological shackles and become something else - is one of the more expensive beliefs you could espouse to date... Even shyly augmenting things like your immune system or changing your eyes' color permanently is fairly pricey - as...

- wars are now extremely short, extremely violent, but tech has allowed for minimization of casualties to a certain degree - information is now a prominent weapon. US Army has its Cyber-Warfare Corps consisting of weapons-trained and traditionally drilled soldiers with backgrounds in hacking, progra...

- space travel is fairly common. Each major population center has its own spaceport - Paradise is currently the major destination, usually referred to as "Gilese 581 C". "Paradise" is more of a colloquial designation - Karthian + Drifter prospectors are setting ground work for of...

- medical science hasn't developed a cure-all yet. Probably never will. Microbial life adapts too quickly to any solution for them to be permanent - outright eradication has never worked before. There's always someone keeping a stock of supposedly wiped-out epidemic-causing diseases around. Largely ...

- Karthian and Drifter influences are pushing for a multi-sensory Internet, an immersive experience - local efforts to adapt aren't as fantastical as you'd think. No brain-ports to the Web yet or classic "Cyberspace Cowboys"... Regular People - still the same old Web pages we're used to, o...

- government/municipal offices + small businesses tend not to have enough funds to afford cutting-edge material - high-tech or more vital industries have more money to spare. A police precinct still looks the way it did back in 2013, hospitals or research centers are usually cutting-edge Usual Offic...

- Generally speaking, not a lot's changed. Architectural trends are still recognizable, in the 'burbs - "Green" energies are becoming affordable. Flat-top cottages and bungalows are popular again, because of the potential space for solar panels - Few people have an entirely eco-friendly an...

- earliest single moment in history has to be Creation itself. Emergence of Space and Time - triggers physics as we know them and pushes back areas that *don't* obey physics into theoretical spaces no known species is able to tap into. Not even with the most cutting-edge scientific expertise - Quant...