In a dystopian world divided between the Hive and a diminished Amirkha, the Great War is fought with biological warfare and genetic engineering.

Amidst this chaos, NHUBs, engineered beings blending synthetic and biological elements, are controlled through relentless conditioning, becoming ultimate tools of power and deception. Below are other terms you will find in this new series.

A Lexicon for a Dying World

Power Blocs: The world is divided into the Hive (a near-future dystopian Asia) and a much-diminished 42 states of Amirkha.

The Great War is a struggle to the death between the Hive and Amirkha for global domination, mostly through biological warfare and genetic engineering, though conventional warfare and even nuclear weapons are also involved.

Due to The Reckoning (see below), Amirkha has reverted to a caste system similar to the Romans with Patricians at the top, then Equestrians, upper middle class (Bujvast), lower middle class (BujPetit), and then the great masses or Proles.

The Amirkhan Government: It is overtly fascist with no voting, but shares are issued according to caste. A Praetorian Guard chooses and then assassinates presidents until the senate abolishes the other branches of government to work camps and rules as a syndicate.

Technology: It has bifurcated with the Patricians benefiting from trans-humanist breakthroughs including space travel, genetic engineering on such an advanced level it can turn animals and even plants into non-human beings who pass as humans, cloning for industrial warfare and organ replacement, drug creation within their own bodies, and even time travel.

The Equestrians are a tier below but gaining fast and develop the technology and have access to more standard versions of all the above with only clones and time travel out of their reach.

BujVast have technology at the level of an early 20th-century American and BujPetit early 18th century. They are set against each other for the crumbs from the table of the higher castes. The proles live at a medieval level of technology and understanding of the world, with some warlords rising to the level of BujPetit.

Even the English language has devolved, with American pronounced Amirkha, an amalgamation of Amir (a medieval Middle Eastern ruler) and Khan (a medieval Mongol leader).

Urth has replaced Earth as the name of the planet, and the moon was colonized and industrialized (it’s green from still churning blue-green algae farms) and knocked off its course in the process.

Due to the Solar Flares, all digital technology (invented in about ten years from now, summer 1987) has been eradicated, and biological engineering (made possible by the mutations caused by the Flares) has taken its place with North Korea as the premier thought leader in the field.

The Reckoning: A series of calamities that befall the United States, starting with a Cultural Revolution where libraries are burned to the ground, colors are banned from the primary color wheel, and middle school children brutally “reeducate” their parents.

This is followed by three simultaneous Civil Wars (race, class, and gender), and the collapse of digital technology, records, and communications. Even before the flares, there appears to have been a nuclear war between different factions on American soil, leaving huge areas, including the Midwest, radioactive wastelands.

Zeks: Genetically engineered Non-Human Beings initially created by North Korea based on the mutations from the Solar Flares.

Hive zeks are sprint bred from animal species, and Amirkhan zeks are created by injecting a human (often an inmate) with massive amounts of plant and animal genes.

Khets: Clones often used by patricians to achieve near immortality through organ harvesting and by the Hive to eliminate and replace high-level Amirkhan leaders with their khets, who will then sabotage the Amirkhan war effort when directed to by their Hive masters.

The term khet seems to derive from the ancient Egyptian concept of humans having eight levels of the soul, with the khet purely the physical body.

Po_Soul: The one positive discovery during the Reckoning; proof that all humans (and possibly non-humans) have a soul that lasts a single lifetime and guides the ethical actions of the person.

The Kali Yuga: The final age when demons rule the earth, and Eldritchs rise to devour humans' bodies and souls, the continents washed with a great eradicating flood, and the end of all life on Urth.

The Oasis: A possibly mythical place of hope, salvation, and renewal that will survive the Kali Yuga and give all beings an opportunity to live in peace and harmony with each other and the planet.

The Eldritch: A race of beings of immense physical, psychological, and psychic power that have been trapped in underground aquifers and blocked from escape by mountains since the last ice age. They are emerging from their slumber and communicating through intermediaries, including zeks, khets, and other manufactured and ancient beings alienated by humanity’s exploitation of the earth.

Fallen Angels and the Nephilim: They may have been imprisoned in DizzyLand to oversee the creation of new Rodent characters (i.e., zeks) from park guests, as well as fallen angels, animals, plants, hybrids, and the damned.

Vladimir Dizzy, DizzyLand, and Rodent Characters: Vladimir Dizzy saw the apocalypse in the sky while a boy in Missouri and knew he had to create zeks to help humans survive the struggle. He started with cartoons of zeks, then movies, and finally parks.