» Thu May 03, 2012 4:31 pm I. Larson
Chapter 1A: The VERY Beginning
After the Great War, communications between Australia (the only developed country left) and its allies ceased. They knew what had happened to the world and had realized that they were now on their own, but before their government could work out how to survive solely on the resources the country produced, the higher class citizens of Australia, and it's politicians were quietly shuffled into the few but large fallout shelters built in the country. The reason for this was that a massive could of radioactive gases were making their way towards the nation, which plunged the unsheltered society into complete and utter chaos. Rioting and looting filled the streets as the citizens of Australia dreaded the arrival of the radioctive gas clouds that would surely spell their doom.
As the cloud drew closer the rioting and looting mobs had gotten scarcer and scarcer since many people had died being trampled by the rioting or by simply being too exhausted to continue, this gave regular citizens ample time to try and find some source of shelter. Some sought refuge in the towns of Coober Pedy and White Hills, both quite close to Alice Springs and shared one substantial advantage, many of the houses in the areas were underground and ran by solar power so if they did survive they would have a means for energy.
When the cloud had finally reached Australia, people on the coasts had realized that is was not just a cloud of radiation, but one that had harnessed the power of electrical storms and had generated a megastorm. The likes of which had only been seen on other planets, the storms generated winds of such raw power that skyscraqers had fallen by their might. The lightning strikes had caused freak fires in the bushland and the strange origin of the storms somehow affected the tides causing tsunamis all around the coasts of Australia, the likes of which that have never been seen before. Gigantic waves that reached heigths of up to the hundreds in feet came crashing down on the coasts of Australia, destroying everything in their path and the resulting waves and flooding even getting far enough into the mainland to create many small lakes. This destruction devastated the population and it seems that the only people that did survive the catastrophic disasters were those that tooks refuge in the towns of Coober Pedy and White hills as well as the people that had snakishly hidden away in shelters.
The reason these towns survived these events was because of how far they were inland (with Coober Pedy, for example, being VERY far inland, just far enough not to be effected by the flooding and the tsunamis) and because of the houses being underground, they weren't effected by the strong winds either.
After the survivors of the town of Coober Pedy had emerged they figured that their community was soon going to become much bigger and was going to have to support many more people. Since everyone had already abandoned their money while evacuating their towns and leaving for CP the town had realized that it didn't matter because they already had a new material to be used as currency, Opal. Coober Pedy was home to the biggest Opal mines in the world and was responsible for %80 of the opals that were sold in stores worldwide. These mines also gave people jobs and gave them a sense of belonging. As the decades went by Coober Pedy had transformed into a thriving town and its surrounding area was no logner desert but was instead lush and green rainforest. No-one really knew how it had happened. Some believed that the radiation that was spewed onto the country during the storm had caused a tree to mutate quite drastically and become what was called a "mother" tree. A mother tree was described as a gigantic tree with roots that spand across miles upon miles of land underground and that these roots had little spores protruding out of them which would eventually grow into the trees and plant life seen in these rainforests which were also growing rapidly because of them being genetically mutated.
Additionally, the town no longer had many of the shortcomings that it did before the storm. One of which was lack of a source of water, which was now no longer a problem since the tsunamis cause flooding which, in term, caused lakes to form in spots that had a bowl shape to it and there were many areas like that near Coober Pedy. So after everything that had happened Coober Pedy had become a safe haven, a trading hub and a source of employment for survivors across Australia. It seemed almost like a good thing that all of that had happened.
In this new society there wasn't exactly a diversity of jobs. You were either a merchant or a labourer and more often than not the two would merge. Merchants include chefs, doctors, bartenders, surplus dealers and prosttutes. These people were classed as merchants simply because they made and sold their goods, how different the goods they sold didn't really matter. A labourer was more or less a miner, courier or scavenger. Out of these three jobs the safest was definitely courier, the only thing that they had to worry about were mutated creatures attacking them on their way to White Hills, the only other settlement that the citizens of Coober Pedy knew of. Now, Scavengers and miners were probably on equal footing in terms of the most dangerous jobs, although they did pay much better than all others. Mining was a risky bussiness because after the decades went on the people that used to operate the heavy machinery for the mines had passed on and people could only acquire opal the old fashioned way, with a pickaxe and a tunnel filled with wooden supports. Cave-ins were a major hazard being a miner in post apocalyptic Coober Pedy. The difficulty of a scavengers job varied wildly on the work they are willing to do. Taking them to, maybe, some small country towns that didn't make it through the storm to salvage parts for vehicle or to the decimated cities of Australia, usually to salvage more advanced pieces of technology or paintings or whatever scavs thought they could sell.
Our story will follow a ordinary scavengers story from being a nobody in Coober Pedy to becoming a legend, someone that raiders literally had nightmares about, and for a good reason. At the end of our story you will see how this scav had managed to acquire a status similar to that of an urban legend.
Stay tuned for Chapter 1B: Destiny
