Slice of Life: People of the New World

The Common Life Inside Neo-Terra Zones

Daily Routine:

Most citizens live by strict curfews. Lights dim at midnight. Patrol drones hum overhead. Everyone carries a Neural ID chip in their wrist—required for buying food, boarding transit, or accessing shelter.

Jobs are often assigned based on skill "ranking"—an algorithm judges you weekly based on your value to the city.

Children and Schools:

Schools teach survival first, history second. Kids learn how to run, hack a terminal, or hide if Genesis Creatures breach the city. History lessons are heavily censored—only the "approved" version of Echo history is taught.

Entertainment:

Everything is digital.

Virtual arenas offer dangerous "sim fights" where players live out fake battles with Echo legends. Underground versions exist too—somewhere between gladiator matches and forbidden memory hacks.

Food:

Real food is rare.

Most people eat nutrigel—a bland, flavorless paste that provides nutrition but no joy. Only the rich eat real fruit, meat, or fish. Black market vendors risk death to sell fresh food from Dead Zone farms.

Faith:

Traditional religions collapsed after the Genesis event.

New cults have risen.

Some worship the Echo Remnants, believing old heroes will rise again.

Others worship the Dark Below—the force that created the Wraithborn.

Faith often blends technology and mysticism now. A priest might carry a relic scanner instead of a bible.

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Life Outside the Cities (The Dead Zones)

Survival:

Every day is a risk. Between mutated creatures, rogue Echo tech, and corrupted terrain, most people outside the cities don't live past forty.

Entire towns hide under the ruins, away from Genesis storms.

Travel:

Only Nomads, Hunters, or Smugglers move between zones. They drive massive Juggernaut Bikes or armored transports, loaded with weapons. Roads are deadly—hijackers, beasts, and broken ground.

Economy:

It's pure barter out there.

Ammo is currency.

Clean water is worth more than a house.

Echo shards are worth killing for.

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The Feeling of the World

A mix of cyberpunk, post-apocalypse, and mystical echoes of the past.

Skyscrapers clash against ancient, haunted ruins.

People laugh, love, hate—but always with one eye on the sky, or the ground beneath their feet.

Hope is rare—but precious.

Every smile is earned.

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Short Scene: Random Day in Neo-Terra

The smell of burning oil hung in the air.

Vendors barked from neon stalls, selling knock-off energy packs, bio-sync tattoos, grilled protein slabs on sticks.

A little girl darted between crowds, dragging a salvaged drone half her size.

Overhead, a patrol drone swept its blue gaze across the street. Everyone paused, letting it scan their ID signatures before continuing.

Billboards flickered:

"STAY ALERT. STAY ALIVE. REPORT MUTATION."

"APPLY FOR CITIZENSHIP RANKING UPGRADE – FIGHT FOR NEO-TERRA."

In the alleys, where cameras rarely reached, black market merchants whispered to passing figures, offering forbidden relics glowing faintly under torn coats.

And far above it all, on the highest tier, where the sky almost seemed clean—

the Elites drank golden wine and laughed at a world they'd already forgotten.