With a 100-year global drought devastating the Earth, scientist and engineers turn to a crazy geo-engineering last-ditch effort to save humanity and her civilization. Things go terribly awry.
There is a total societal collapse, slowly at first, but then the devastation builds from all corners, with resource wars, famine, and new, horrific plagues. Pustules of a medieval nature, both grotesque and puzzling appear on the victims skin, with no apparent explanation as to their origin. -
Forbidden Planet: My personal take. - JL
We drowned the wound with boiling wine, and closed you up with a poultice of nettle, mustard seed and moldy bread. - A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin
It was not until people discovered that they could buy nothing with their money that the sheer panic was palpable in the streets and everywhere else. Finally no coins could be used or exchanged, even the physical proxy of one, despite the semi-precious metal. With paper cash eliminated long ago, the populace had taken digital assets and contracts as, at first inevitable, but soon after that, as a necessary burden, to pay for the endless wars fought by the state, and by apportioned necessities.
The money was always programmed to expire, people stored it on their phones and other electronic devices. The system was designed from far above to keep the individual within his narrow lane. No one raised his head, that was too dangerous. Nations of people would play dumb, accustomed to blind stupidity.
But, beyond a certain point, even maintaining meager survival was impossible for the commoner, as the smartest hordes escaped to the long-abandoned agrarian hinterlands, slowly at first, but then in droves. Far from the teeming city centers, they left with meager belongings and technology that ceased to function.
They left the crumbling urban centers with their tight, authoritarian rule, ruthless robots, and the constant anonymous gaze from the steel towers, the Power Class, center of control, and constant monitoring, from on high, above, and ruthless. - JL 2-4-2024 https://forbiddenplanet.com/62135-h2o-one-shot/ - link
