Netcode The Protogen (2022)

Prologue – Awakening in Neon The world is no longer what it was. Once shaped by the rise of human civilization, Earth has splintered into a chaotic blend of overgrown ruins and evolving machines. Climate collapse, digital wars, and lost centuries have left behind a ravaged planet—one now consumed by diverse, unpredictable biomes: toxic deserts, jungles laced with nanite storms, shattered cities reclaimed by rogue flora, and oceans shimmering with radioactive shimmersteel. Floating above this scarred planet is Neovara—a breathtaking metropolis built and maintained by the Protogens, cybernetically enhanced synthetic beings born of humanity’s final technological era. Sleek, intelligent, and partially organic, Protogens constructed Neovara to preserve advanced life and knowledge. Towering spires of chromed glass, living machines, and holographic networks define its skyline. Within it, everything is calculated, optimized, and connected. The city pulses like a living circuit board in the sky. You awaken in one of its containment facilities, unaware of who you are or how you got there. Rebuilt with artificial limbs, a reinforced spine, and a data-linked brain, you are no longer entirely human. They call you the Anomaly—a being that shouldn’t exist. Protogens reconstructed your dying body with forbidden technology after recovering you from an unregistered crash site on the surface. They won’t say why they did it. They won’t explain what they fear. But you can see it in their eyes—coded eyes that flicker when they speak to you. They’re hiding something.