History: The Legacy of the Great Assurance
The Event: The Great Assurance (GA).
Three generations ago, on a warm summer night, the end of the world reached its long-expected conclusion. Two nuclear powers on opposite axes detected imminent attacks on their capitals and, without hesitation, fulfilled an ancient promise forged in uranium, gold, and blood: Mutually Assured Destruction.
This event was named "The Great Assurance," and it cost millions of lives, decimated cultures, devastated ecosystems beyond repair, and destroyed the global chains of collaboration and communication.
It was the result of a silent, political, and ideological war that lasted decades, whose grievances were passed from hand to hand, growing deeper and weightier with each transfer.
In Spanish, the primary language of the Union, this event is known as "La Gran Aseguranza." In English, the second most spoken language within the Union, it is referred to as "The Big MAD" or "The Great Assurance." In both languages, the Great Assurance is abbreviated as GA.
The term Great Assurance refers to the complex and complete event; the moment of detonation is called "Button Day."
The Luminous Year.
The year following Button Day brought the full toll of the Great Assurance to bear.
In the first hour, world leaders and billionaires vanished. Some retreated into bunkers, many of which remain sealed to this day; others withdrew to the ILS (International Lunar Station). Those who fled to the ILS perished within approximately the first three years of their stay; a fact that would not be discovered until nearly fifteen years later.
The first bombs took half an hour to make impact, but the bombardment ceased entirely after twelve hours. The bombs were directed at military bases and urban centers. Historical estimates hold that 60% of the human population was lost on Button Day.
The remaining 40% had to contend with radioactive rainfall and the diseases it caused, the scarcity of supplies, trauma, and isolation.
One month after Button Day, natural disasters began: megacyclones with barely enough warning to react, earthquakes and their subsequent tsunamis, wildfires.
Those who lived through it and still remember say that people waited for someone from their respective governments to appear — soldiers, doctors, anyone. But that envoy never came.
By the end of the Luminous Year, only 20% of the population remained, according to data compiled by the Union.
The name "Luminous Year" comes from survivor accounts describing how "everything glowed to the point of blinding."
RGB and the selection.
RGB Era or Time of Inks: Red, Green and Blue.
The ten years following the Luminous Year are known as "The Green Decade" or "The Blue Ten," depending on the region. The nuclear bombs reduced global temperature by 7 degrees Celsius; in areas that already experienced snowy winters, this climate shift brought even harsher cold and perfectly blue skies.
In other zones — especially those near the sea or the equator — the effect felt like a reversal of global warming, triggering an explosion of plant life. In these same areas, large bodies of water are said to have emitted a greenish shimmer at night. Some records attribute this to radiation. Others claim it was caused by bioluminescent algae that spread through the cyclones that struck shortly after the GA.
A third ink covered the most severely struck regions: the areas that suffered direct nuclear attacks, known as red zones or dead zones.
In official records, this period is referred to as the "Age of Inks" in Spanish and the "RGB Era" in English.
After those first ten years, the inks began to dry. Today, in green zones, the luminous glow of the lakes persists, though faintly, and winters in blue zones are less deadly.
Refutations and the Matte Inks.
Esfigato Esconfitto, a renowned chronicler currently residing in the capital, argues — backed by other survivors of the Age of Inks — that the inks dried, but that the perceived loss of color can be challenged by the data. He has named this phenomenon "Matte Ink."
He contends that the inks lost their shine as they dried, but not their saturation. If you analyze historical temperature records, the blue winters have not grown milder; people have simply grown accustomed to them, and therefore better equipped to endure them.
As for the green zones, temperatures have remained stable, with a slight increase in humidity in some areas. The decline of bioluminescent algae can be attributed to the growth of aquatic animal populations, some of which feed on it. However, on extremely hot days, a sudden population bloom can be observed, and the shimmer on those nights is identical to what was witnessed during the Green Decade.
The only ink that has, according to Esconfitto, genuinely lost its saturation is the red. This is due in smaller part to the Union's efforts to reclaim those territories. But the true engine washing that ink away is life itself, and its determination to outlast any adversity.
Hardware Natural Selection.
This decade was a global reset marked by sweeping environmental and social change. Modern technology — new, lightweight, sleek, and irreparable — did not survive it. Its bodies were delicate, thin, brittle, and any flaw in them was fatal; sourcing parts, even through cannibalizing other devices, proved inefficient at best and, more often, impossible.
This technology — of liquid crystals and planned obsolescence, led by the smartphone — was abandoned. It is known as pre-GA technology or obsolete glass.
Only old technology, considered retro, robust, and repairable, survived the collapse. It was repaired, maintained, and once humanity stood firmly on its feet again, civilization was rebuilt with this technology as its foundation. This surviving, repaired technology — of yellowing plastic and cathode-ray tubes — is known as Post-GA.
The Unión:
When the colors of the Age of Inks dried, communities had taken root, but without connection between them. This posed serious risks, particularly if the disconnection persisted; communication would grow ever more complex, isolated knowledge would be lost, and at some point, returning to a level of connection and unity comparable to the pre-GA world would become impossible. The initial effort to restore that connection was led by a group who called themselves the Speakers.
They followed the highways and roads that had linked the continent before the GA, establishing communications — first between nearby neighbors, then across wider areas, and back again to their companions. They left representatives in each community. Over time, they became mediators, points of reference, those who were consulted for guidance and called upon for help. They established themselves as a union of communities: the Union.
Terrans in the Unión:
By this point, the Union had ceased to be an entity led solely by humans. The Diphyos participated in the Union from its earliest days, so they have no formal date of integration.
The first to formally join were the Loomis, who were few in number and largely isolated. Though, if you ask one of the Union's elders, they would tell you they brought the Loomis in the way you drag your emo cousin into actually participating in the family barbecue.
The Matalis joined afterward. They had no need for the Union to maintain communication, as they had never lost the links between their communities. However, they had lost their supply chains, which threatened to trigger a crisis.
While the Cera have representatives in the Union, they are not formally included — in part because they lack a government.
Reach:
Currently, the Union covers the entire continent with the exceptions of Alaska and the Falkland Islands. It is divided into four fragments: the North, which includes the blue-tinted zones and Mexico; the Equatorial; the South, comprising the southern countries that were also tinted blue; the Central, covering the remaining continental territory between these two; and the Islands.