ArcaneStomper

After centuries of development Earth is a bustling world full of grand cities and carefully maintained parks. Gleaming arcologies rise a mile into the sky and their basements burrow deep into the ground. Carefully managed aquafarms provide food for the teeming billions, and robotic factories provide for all their material needs. All this is powered by solar power beamed from space and massive fusion plants on the ground. Corporations have grown larger and stronger, but they have not supplanted national governments. Those governments in turn still squabble among themselves for power and prestige, but a global war has been avoided for a century. And overall life is good for the majority of the world's citizens. That is until disaster strikes. Over a period of some years the moon begins to slowly shake itself apart. Scientists were at a loss to discover the cause, but the results are easy to discern as an increasing number of lunar fragments begin impacting the Earth. Under intermittent bombardment the underground systems of foundations and utility tunnels were strengthened and improved to house as many survivors as possible. Huge quantities of food and supplies were stored, but without the global aqua farms there was simply not enough for even that fraction of the population that managed to squeeze in. The underground enclaves were wracked by infighting, starvation, and strained life support equipment as the lunar bombardment reached its peak. Years later the surface and is a cratered ruin and the few surviving enclaves maintain a tenuous existence in their deep shelters. The remaining information networks of the old world link them to each other intermittently, but physical travel is nearly impossible. The world is ruined and things look bleak, but one ray of hope remains. Shortly before the lunar catastrophe leading physicists had discovered the math proving the existence of countless parallel dimensions, and experimental quantum portals had been opened to them. Now the survivors have managed to scale up that technology. Their most hardened survivors have been given the best remaining equipment and are ready to be sent out. Their mission is to find an inhabitable world and new home for humanity.

Several decades ago people started reporting seeing things that weren’t there. Or rather scientists started to note that some people who reported seeing things that others couldn’t were starting to agree with each other in surprising detail. Sure there have always been trends such as alien watchers agreeing on broad details, but these were very specific details. Sightings of a particular type of six leaved plant growing in helices under damp bridges. Or seeing new breeds of rabbits with unusual fur patterns. Mundane things from otherwise normal people that only drew attention because of the fact that no one else saw them. The sightings varied by region and time as would expected of animals and planets in different climates around the world, but the most striking and exotic thing was that everyone afflicted reported seeing auroras on otherwise clear nights. And thus in the popular parlance the affliction became known as Aurora Syndrome. There was a bit of a media fuss, but since most of these people were otherwise completely sane they were soon released. And being sane most of them kept quiet about future sightings to blend in. In the short excitement tuned news cycle of modern life, this wasn't much of a story, so Aurora Syndrome faded into the background. It became something children were diagnosed with early in their lives and learned to keep to themselves or only talk about with others that had the syndrome.

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