Mallberta
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| Flag of Mallberta | |
| Motto: Be Vigilant | |
| No Map Available Yet | |
| Region | Gholgoth |
|---|---|
| Capital | Phobos |
| Official Language(s) | Organic, English |
| Leader | the Awakener |
| Population | equivalent of over 4 Billion |
| Currency | Kalorie |
| NS Sunset XML | |
The remains of the last Mallbertan hive lie throughout Phobos, a moon of Mars, covering its surface and burrowing throught its crust. While there has been no Mallbertan activity for some years, in the past few days there have been convincing signs of reactivity. Mallberta, once a feared (and unnaturally reproductive) nation may be stirring once more.
Contents
Early history
Pre-founding
The history of Mallberta begins at the close of the twentieth century, in a Chinese Military Academy. A young man of 15 from rural Nothern China, Sun Yang, was enrolled into this prestige program. Immediately he showed great tactical insight and ability, quickly outmatching his professors. However, the strict control and tangeld bureaucracy of the Chinese military command meant promotion was impossible at his age, so he languished for an additional 3 years. During this time, he used blackmail, extortion and information theft to undermine his superious. By twenty, while only holding the rank of Lieutenant, he was the defacto leader of the People's Army.
The twenty first century was a time of bloodshed and chaos. In 2007, the ongoing Kashmir conflict led to the exchange of Nuclear fire between India and Pakistan. This plunged the rest of the world into war- nuclear weapons proliferated rapidly both horizontally and vertically. The first shot in the sub-continent dragged South-East Asia into conventional warfare, as the CCP extended its grip. In 2009, Jurusalem was hit with a nuclear attack from a still-unkown assailant. Isreal responded by blasting the Middle-East to dust, ensuring its own demise. The vast tides of refugees flooding Europe soon exhausted its resources, particularly food. In 2011, Paris, London and Berlin lay in ruins, and the other great capitals were soon to follow.
The US survived relatively untouched, sealing its borders. However, when Moscow fell to a National Communist party, destruction was almost assured. While neither side used nuclear weapons, both used biological agents to wipe out food sources, leading to riots, starvation, and eventually anarchy. By 2013, no national government still stood.
As early as 2006, Sun Yang predicted this coming anarchy. Leading a cadre of his most stalwart troops, he entered the Mongolian steppes, carving out a subterranean living space which stood a high probability of surviving a world-wide catastrophe. The "People's Cradle" was completed mere weeks before the Indian/Pakistan nuclear war. While the rest of the world crumbled away, Yang founded the first Mallbertan Soviet as the seed of a regrown humanity.
Post-founding history: biocomputing
The world into which Mallberta was born was harsh, blackened and radioactive. Extraction of resources was difficult, as was manufacturing. However, Commandante Yang and his governing body deemed the continuing developement of technology a critical step to ensuring future survivability. Biocomputing was seen as a partial answer to this problem. By cultivating electro-sensitive yeasts, it was possible to develop a self-regulating computing system that effectively grew on water, heat and basic nutrients alone. This system was somewhat slower than conventional computing methods, but far cheaper, more adaptable and better suited to their current enviroment.
Commandante Yang's social controls could only be described as draconian. The colony was highly regimented and all aspects of life were regulated from above. The life of the average member was confined to following orders in all matters. Insubordination of any kind was forbidded and swiftly punished. While Yang's compatriots had been selected for their acceptance of this ascetic life, there was of course some dissidence.
It for this reason that the biocomputing program was expanded into human interface. It was discovered that the biocomputing yeast, by channeling low levels of electricity at the right frequency, could have a profound pacifying or enraging effect on a subject. Moreover, using a modified retrovirus, Mallbertan scientists were able to use the yeast, which was prevalent throughout most of the facility in the form of various computers, to produce various phermones which aided in the modification and control of subject behaviour.
Further developements led to a surgical procedure which enabled selected subjects to interface directly with the biocomputing mass, known at this point as MALLNET-1. By implanting a fist-size chunk of the biocomputing yeast in the base of the neck, direct interface and control was possible. The saturation of the yeast throughout the air of the facility meant a subject who'd undergone the procedure was in constant contact with MALLNET. He or she was also able to influence the actions and emotions of those around them through pheremones and bioelectric impluses, as described above. Some 40 years after the founding, all citizens had some level of modification: all were highly adept at receiving information and commands, few were able to issue such commands. In this fashion the hierarchical nature of the installation was maintained.
Rise of MALLNET
Fourty three years after the founding, a lone woman, badly burned and alone, arrived at the entrance to the People's Cradle begging for entrance. She was the first, last, and only person to unintentionally enter a Mallbertan collective. Commandante Yang was striken by her beauty, and was touched by her helplessness. Only in his antiquity did he discover pity, and it was to be his downfall. Using various techniques, the Mallbertans were able to regrow much of her scarred form, mainly through fungal growths. She was implanted with an extremely large quatity of yeast, allowing her high levels of social control. She became Yangs lover, his wife, and his muse. But before a year was out, she grew rapidly ill. During her exposure during her long trek, from Moscow to Mongolia, she had contracted a slow acting,but deadly bioagent.
In desperation, Yang extracted her now-silent brain. In a period of months, he perfected his last great technique- when exposed to the Mallbertan biomass, nervous tissue could be read, altered, and copied. His love would live again, if only in mind.
He plunged her brain into the core of the MALLNET system, a deep pit of yeast and fungal matter. As he did, his mind nearly snapped, as she seized control of the MALLNET system, and the very colony itself. With an irresistable command, she forced Yang to throw himself into a lesser sub-system. In this way, she was the first to be subsumed by MALLNET, and he the second. Rechristened as Diochenysus, she, through MALLNET, ruled Mallberta for most of its history. Yang, his mind, memories and genius perseved in the fungus, has never again been experienced as an id outside of MALLNET-1.
