The Mother's Garden

There are four main cultures within the bounds of the Garden.   First is the Shining City, the fortress built by the Purists and their descendants. It is a futuristic dystopia where freedom, creativity, and expression are illusions. The people here have access to technology we find advanced, and this makes their lives long and fairly easy. But the tradeoff is that those in power rule with an iron fist and silence even the smallest voices of dissent. Human life is cheap.   The second major group are the Nine Tribes, which span almost the entire rest of the world. These are the descendants of those who trusted the stability of their bodies to science. In the modern world, they have separated into Nations which share mutation characteristics, religion, and have agreed upon a ruling structure to provide for and protect the people they rule. While the differences between the Tribes are immense, from a top-down perspective they exist in balance as a unified whole.   And then there is the Erebian Syndicate- a pirate nation, for lack of a better term. Power, influence, and rulership here are decided mob-style. What passes for laws are the codes each boss demands of his subordinates. Turnover is constant, money is plentiful, vices of all varieties run like water. Though almost all of the Nations (and the ruling class in the Shining City), finds them abhorrent and would love to see them disappear, it would take a global effort to break them up, which may take another thousand years of unification to achieve.   Finally, there is the issue of the Chymeara. These people have mutation characteristics of more than one Tribe. In the present day most Chymeara are the result of an inter-National love affair. They have are outcasts from civilization proper and, when they find each other, bond together in unique colonies of their own. One in particular has risen and is working to consolidate all Chymeara under his rulership, and to seek vengeance upon all other Nations for their mistreatment.