Price of Hope

The world was falling apart. A wracking disease called the Sludge, for what it did to the lungs of the victims, continued an inexorable march through what had once been the Mandar Alliance. The Government had fallen to squabbling. Petty dictators and gangs bit off chunks and the rest of the world had crumbled into dictatorships and various forms of anarchy with little indication of what the end result would be. The only thing keeping what was left of the Alliance intact was the Hope Corporation who held the military contract with the Government. As the government had flexed its muscles through regulation after regulation, the Hope corporation had acreted more business on to itself: Weapons manufacturers (The government didn't want to disarm their own military... or well they did but they couldn't afford to.), R&D, tech, medical. And soon the Hope Corporation was a rather bemused conglomerate of everything and immensely powerful. If you truly needed anything, you went to the Hope Corporation. Including, rumor said, a cure for the Sludge.   Most people didn't believe the rumors. After all, the Hope Corporation would make a mint if they released the cure and they'd started out as a Mercenary company so making a mint was high on their priority list most of the time. Even if folk like those in the slums of Isoforge couldn't afford it, the Sludge had impacted the high ranking and well to do as well, and they could and would pay. Many had paid others. Witch doctors. Snake oil salesmen. And those with the Sludge continued to die.   The new rumors were uglier... that the Hope Corporation in their pursuit of profit had somehow created the Sludge as a strategic bio weapon that had gotten out of control. Since no vector for contagion had ever been identified, most people ignored these rumors too, but as times grow more desperate, the general anger with the universe that is building seeks a target. And the focus of that target is a group called the Renegades who are for dismantling both the government, but mostly the Hope Corporation. The Renegades have blatantly asserted that the Hope Corporation not only is the cause of the Sludge but they have been maliciously and willfully been withholding the cure. So far their following is small but as times grow more desperate...   Meanwhile, the sludge had brought with it something else: People began developing strange gifts and powers. Those who had these powers, or acquired them, were often changed or strange (Earning them the collective name of the 'Touched'). Many of these gifts are sought after, even if their bearers are viewed with some suspicion. Healers, those who manipulate energy, seers of the future. Most of those who develop these gifts or curses keep their mouths shut tight over them. And it has become the epitome of insult in some places to ask about it. So few know the full extent of these abilities or whether they are significant... or whether the world has enough time for anyone to figure it all out.