This is not ours anymore : an introduction to Their World
It took a whole year to see the first serious paper on the matter. With it, ethic committees got their hands on the topic and banned organesque altogether for its means of production. If processing flesh by smashing it at high pressure and mixed with a proteic solution is not inherently unethical, organesque necrotize very quickly if it doesn't come from living organisms. Only the production was outlawed however, not the use. Some countries began to disregard this international law and exported massively their production to law-abiding ones. China, Russia and some African countries did so. Even the US. Not officially though, gotta stay clean at UNO.
Less than three months after the prototype, the very first biorgan saw the light of day. It was an arm, able to lift a car without the man breaking a sweat. Can't say the same for the poor man's legs. It made the front page news at the time, and turned the hype up. Luckily, they weren't foolish enough to allow just anyone to access the real deal. Instead, biorgans were reserved for military use. You know, every country wanted better soldiers, stronger, faster, smarter. Well, smarter officers at least.
Then, it was elites. The crème de la crème, CEOs and billionaires. Mostly cerebral implants for them. A man renowned for his intellect only wants more to not fall behind the competitors. Laughable. Surely it would have made a great movie, if it hadn't come to this. Prices were getting lower and lower by the day, and it wasn't only for the richest people. Only the very rich. Then it all went south.
Gravity wells
Soon after the advent of organesque, specialized factories began to sprout in many places. Dug deep in the grounds, they served as refineries by propulsing animals at multiple time Earth gravity. They were able to produce a fully-fledged biorgan under a day, with complete disregard for safety measures. These places used primarily bovine for their cheap cost and good efficiency, some used gorillas or chimps, rarer but way better. The most efficient was, of course, human-based organesque, although no one would ever admit using it.
Last day on Earth
It was about five months later I believe. In November. The first implants necrotized at an alarming rate, taking their bearers with them after provoking a murderous craze. Sure, scientists were quick to react, and they found a cure soon enough. To them, the rage was only a consequence of the pain caused by the express necrosis. Scientists, am I right?
Needless to say it wasn't over. One by one, transplanted lost their mind and entered into a devastating frenzy. The military, over-augmented, were unstoppable. Their former comrades tried to defend the civilians, but what could they do against super-humans? Society only crumbled when elites themselves were reduced to zombified brains. In just a few days, the whole civilization has been torn down. Now it's just a bit of us. And a whole lot of them.
Them
The necrotized. That's their name, regards to their decaying implants. Honestly, there's not so much. A million there, several in total. It's not your average zombie apocalypse, where a beef guy slaughters them by dozens bare-chested. A single necrotized can take down a full camp of armed survivors in minutes. They're vicious, unfairly fast, and strong, but more importantly they're smart. Not as smart as they were in life, we still have a headstart there. But still, they are clever enough to track down people, lay traps, and activate simple mechanisms.
Not all are the same. Their strength is a reflection of what they were in life. Each one has a specialty, and identifying them can be the thin line between a quick and painful death.
Themes
A story of survival
Just like other zombie stories, but this time it's up a notch. Surviving isn't about finding supplies and beheading the occasional zomb. The necrotized are a real threat, and it will always be better to avoid them than to face or try to distract them. Fighting one on one is suicidal at best unless you're against a deeply necrotized biombie. Supplies come second, and cities are for the most part off-limits.
There is no help
Military complexes are death sentences. The same goes for financial districts and other places of power. They weren't overrun. They were the epicenter of the apocalypse. No one will save you, and you can't save anyone. This is the survival of the fittest, and you can't let the burden slow you down.
No place to stay, no one to talk to
It's impossible to fortify a stronghold and fight off invaders. Heavily armored bunkers were overrun in seconds, even when held by the remnant of the army. Can't have too many people in one place either. Number draws the necrotized. A few months into the apocalypse, the only survivors are small groups, always on the move. Natural selection you could call it. The other strategies didn't work out quite as well.
A race against time
Eventually, they will all necrotize to oblivion. Even if the so-called cure slowed it down, it seems unavoidable. You just have to hold. And eventually, humanity will win. How long? Several months, a year, a decade? Every people able to tell you that is now trying to eat your brain, so you're going to have to figure that out yourself.
The world...
As a game
One of the goals of this world is to provide a setting for a TTRPG. It can be declined in two genres, either slasher or stealth. Or both. Expect to die a lot, without much struggle. Every fight is a boss fight, and players will learn soon enough that it is hide or flight. It is far from ready yet, but if anyone wants to use the setting for a campaign, be my guest! (Little credit doesn't harm though)
As a story
I have a little story I want to write there. A story of struggle, where there is no guaranteed tomorrow and, contrary to most survival stories, supplies come last. People are always on the move, raiding is the only sustainable way to get by. When nowhere on land is safe, would the sea be the promised heaven?
Meet the crew!
An ex-ranger, a family trying to stick together, a bioinformatics student, a convict... The cast of the story is a fine character bank for the game too. Most of the quotes will be either told by or taken from the journal of Mike Terrence, the former ranger.
[Soon there will be an article there]
This is such a fascinating concept! I love all the bio science in there to explain the apocalypse and how the zombi works, as well as the variation you've made on classical zombies, with them being clever, and with the identity of each one being important. When you first mention that biorgan was banned from making them from living organisms, you don't mention why. I don't think it would ever be if it were only animals, so I deduced that it must be because it's humans, but later you have the box talking about chimps and gorilla too. I think you could clarify at this early point why the fact that it's from living organisms (and which organisms) made some countries ban them. With the arm biorgan, was it really just the arm that was implanted? Did that have over consequences on the rest of the body? I'm just thinking that lifting a whole car, you need more than just arm muscles, you'd need your leg muscles to be reinforced to to be able to bear all that weight. Though, the molecules inside the implant must be joining the blood stream and circulating through the body, so I'd expect an implant to have wider consequences all over the body. 5 months after the first implant that necrosis and frenzy appeared? The whole timeline is very quick, and I think you need to explain why the normal timeline of clinical trials etc was not followed and all of that was rushed in, even if it's only a quick mention that it seemed completely unethical to let people die if there was this potential solution at hand, and that the richest people found/would have found a way to get them on the black market or something, so the government allowed them to get them legally so that the government would at least get a small fortune out of it. Although, now I4m wondering if I didn't misunderstood and if it was he apocalypse that was 5 months ago? How long do the necrotized take to fully necrotize and their body to be destroyed? As I understand it, once the necrotization process starts, they lose their mind "because of the pain" according to those untrustworthy scientists, and they become zombies and "undead". But is there a later stage where they truly die? Or do they in fact die during the first stage, but then the body keeps going while the necrotization is progressing, with then a stage where the body fully breaks down? - and I wanted to ask how long that process takes if that's the case, because it seems to be that that apocalypse was not so long ago since necrotized are still along and they would all have disappeared over time. Ah wait, now I see that you explained that later that they will indeed all necrotize :p I'm just leaving that comment here so that you can my thought process while reading XD Do the necrotized have an objective? Like zombies wanted to et brain or people, eve driven by a useless instinct or because they can get some nutrient from them to survive a bit longer? Really a fascinating world! I'm looking forward to reading more of it!
First of all, thank you so much for leaving such a great comment :D The ban on organesque production is due to the fact that it must be immediately produced after the raw material is smashed into mush. This futuristic society is way more advanced than ours in terms of animal suffering, at least on the surface. However, organesque was too good of a product to be given up, so they found a publicly acceptable workaround. A complete history of organesque will appear in its article, I'll expand it there unless it is too confusing. You're right, I hadn't really considered the whole extent of the feat (neither did the designers of the prototype). But indeed, the implants release hormones and cytokines to ensure compatibility among other things. Later models were less flashy but more balanced. Once again, this will have its own article :) I've always been bad with timeline stuff. Maybe it should be longer, but I admit I didn't spend too much time on this one since it's not the focus of the world (perhaps it would be better not to mention it then ^^') I love making people in my worlds getting things wrong, so it's not really the pain that makes necrotized mad :p. Maybe it's not very clear, but the necrosis was very quick to begin with, until the cure was developed and slowed it down. Thus, some are in a very bad shape and don't have long, but those who did get the cure before it triggered almost look like normal people, notwithstanding the murderlust. As a whole, they don't have an objective. Most of them attack whatever living being comes in their reach, save for their kind. They may eat their preys, for those needing sustenance, but their first motivation seems to be nothing but blind rage. Others have a higher intellect, adopting territorial behavior while tolerating only some necrotized. And then, there are the unique ones, with a far greater intelligence that may have an agenda of their own. For the major part, they don't seem very focused on their survival. Hope I answered your questions, thank you again for the interest you show in my work :D