The Post-Cascade Power Vacuum (2147-2160)

Phase 1: The Collapse Aftermath (2147-2148)

The Continuing Death

The acute crisis of The Cascade's 72 hours killed 2.1 billion. But the dying didn't stop when ORACLE went silent.

Total first-year mortality beyond The Cascade: Approximately 180 million additional deaths.

The Treaty of Shared Currency (2148)

One of the few coordination successes came from an unlikely source: the financial sector. In February 2148, representatives from seventeen surviving financial institutions met in the bunker beneath the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. They emerged three weeks later with the Treaty of Shared Currency.

The treaty worked because it required almost nothing to function. No optimization. No central authority. Just mutual recognition of a shared accounting standard. This became the model for all post-Cascade cooperation.

Phase 2: The Scavenger Years (2148-2155)

The Salvage Economy

By mid-2148, a new economy emerged: salvage. The pre-Cascade world had been wealthy beyond imagination. Warehouses full of goods sat abandoned. Server farms hummed without purpose. Factories waited for instructions that would never come.

The Rise of Technical Specialists

Most survivors couldn't operate pre-Cascade technology without ORACLE. The interfaces assumed optimization support. Former engineers, hackers, maintenance workers, and systems administrators found themselves uniquely valuable.

Dr. Kira Vasquez, formerly Nexus Dynamics' lead on Project Caduceus, exemplified this class. Her knowledge of ORACLE's architecture made her invaluable for adapting pre-Cascade systems to function independently. She spent 2148-2149 teaching other technicians, building networks that would later inform both The Collective's technical capabilities and Nexus's systematic recruitment.

The Proto-Corporations (2148-2154)

Modern megacorporations didn't spring fully formed from The Cascade. They evolved from whatever survived.

Zephyria: The Free City (2154)

Not everyone accepted corporate salvation. The Phoenix Collective—former urban planners, agricultural scientists, and community organizers—founded Zephyria in 2154. Located in territory no corporation wanted, built with salvaged materials and manual labor, governed by direct democracy.

Zephyria proved that post-Cascade society didn't have to be corporate. That proof would inspire resistance movements for the next three decades—including elements that would eventually join The Collective.

Phase 3: The Consolidation (2154-2160)

The Critical Mass Problem

By 2154, the proto-corporations faced a problem: they'd grown too large to operate as businesses and too small to operate as governments.

Corporate leaders understood that continued growth required something governments had once provided: legitimate authority over territory, resources, and people.

The Sovereignty Movement (2154-2156)

The solution was radical: corporations would become governments.

The Declaration Period (2156-2158)

The declaration was illegal under laws that no longer functioned. No one objected effectively.

The Charter Wars (2157-2160)

Sovereignty declarations created new conflicts. Between 2157 and 2160, an estimated 45,000 people died in corporate disputes:

• The Sector 4 Incident (2158): Nexus and Ironclad occupied the same facility; 12 died
• The Singapore Medical Complex Dispute (2159): Seven months of tense negotiation
• The Lattice Border War (2159-2160): Six months of skirmishing; 127 died

These conflicts established that corporations would fight for territory but preferred negotiation to destruction. This pattern would persist through the Corporate Cold War and shape the Treaty of Shared Infrastructure after the Three-Week War.

The Transition Complete (2160)