"I suppose we should start with the background of this world. Make yourself comfortable," said Brainy, gingerly taking a seat at one of the tables there and giving Rokk one of his 'I'm about to get wordy' looks.
"It seems to be a standard Class 7-BXG34 Earth variant. No historical records before the existence of the ruling government of Panem are openly available, but there is enough that can be gleaned by a minor trawl through the darker public corners of the internet to gain some information on the state of the world. My best hypothesis would be that the current civilization is what was left after some kind of catastrophic societal shift, perhaps nuclear war. Our current location appears to be on the North American landmass, though the coasts seem to be heavily receded possibly via melting of polar ice caps. There is absolutely no sign of any contact or activity in the outside world, indicating that most of the world population is dead or that there has been a total breakdown in society and social structure outside of Panem."
A pause.
"Humans can be so depressing sometimes."
He went on, "Whatever near-mass extinction event is responsible for this may be something similar to the Cataclysm of the Earth that was in our home universe when it still existed. The current ruling government located here in the Capitol - which is often called 'The Capitol' for sake of brevity -" A concept that Brainy had apparently never once grasped in his life "-allows the residents here to reside in luxury while using the outlying districts for slave labor and the production of goods and agricultural products."
Might as well call it what it was. If they were evil, they wouldn't buy propaganda they'd be the types of people to understand its use.
"After a failed insurgency, the Capitol started a yearly event where the two children from each of the twelve district were forced to battle to the death in a televised spectacle that allowed for only one survivor."
He had to keep his face carefully free of his outrage over it.
"After further threats of rebellion, the Capitol found some manner of pulling potential Tributes from various dimensions to fight in their games, reviving most of them each time, as a display of their power that wouldn't cause the same rebellious sentiments."
The next part almost made him throw up to say. Complimenting these imbecilic child murderers that couldn't even a run a proper evil empire with what they had made him sick.
"It's an elegant system. Tasteless in some respects, as they still use a few children as Tributes. Clearly as a force for evil they don't prescribe to the same level of class we do, but Lyle and I have noticed there's quite a bit of artistry to it. Their propaganda, for instance, is impeccable. There's no fighting them, but we might find a means of escaping the Games by offering our services and cooperating with the Capitol government."
Infodump Sorry not sorry, what do you expect from Brainy?
"It seems to be a standard Class 7-BXG34 Earth variant. No historical records before the existence of the ruling government of Panem are openly available, but there is enough that can be gleaned by a minor trawl through the darker public corners of the internet to gain some information on the state of the world. My best hypothesis would be that the current civilization is what was left after some kind of catastrophic societal shift, perhaps nuclear war. Our current location appears to be on the North American landmass, though the coasts seem to be heavily receded possibly via melting of polar ice caps. There is absolutely no sign of any contact or activity in the outside world, indicating that most of the world population is dead or that there has been a total breakdown in society and social structure outside of Panem."
A pause.
"Humans can be so depressing sometimes."
He went on, "Whatever near-mass extinction event is responsible for this may be something similar to the Cataclysm of the Earth that was in our home universe when it still existed. The current ruling government located here in the Capitol - which is often called 'The Capitol' for sake of brevity -" A concept that Brainy had apparently never once grasped in his life "-allows the residents here to reside in luxury while using the outlying districts for slave labor and the production of goods and agricultural products."
Might as well call it what it was. If they were evil, they wouldn't buy propaganda they'd be the types of people to understand its use.
"After a failed insurgency, the Capitol started a yearly event where the two children from each of the twelve district were forced to battle to the death in a televised spectacle that allowed for only one survivor."
He had to keep his face carefully free of his outrage over it.
"After further threats of rebellion, the Capitol found some manner of pulling potential Tributes from various dimensions to fight in their games, reviving most of them each time, as a display of their power that wouldn't cause the same rebellious sentiments."
The next part almost made him throw up to say. Complimenting these imbecilic child murderers that couldn't even a run a proper evil empire with what they had made him sick.
"It's an elegant system. Tasteless in some respects, as they still use a few children as Tributes. Clearly as a force for evil they don't prescribe to the same level of class we do, but Lyle and I have noticed there's quite a bit of artistry to it. Their propaganda, for instance, is impeccable. There's no fighting them, but we might find a means of escaping the Games by offering our services and cooperating with the Capitol government."