2005: The Lost Crusade. Prophecies about the Apocalypse were coming so fast during this year that dream-spirits were in holding patterns around Garou heads, waiting their turn. A Child of Gaia (who, as far as anyone knows, was acting in good faith) named Attis Visions-in-the-Night began roaming the countryside preaching about the importance of the Umbra, and specifically the Near Umbral realm called the Battleground 'where the last battle of all will be fought'. Many were compelled by his preaching about the importance of being there, ready for the last battle. On the Winter Solstice, 2005, an army of Garou larger than any ever gathered assembled with their finest fetishes, and one by one went through the Anchorhead to join the assembled Warriors of Gaia who'd been keeping watch on the field over the ages.
Once there, they discovered the Anchorhead had been warped by Wyrmy magic, and was one-way. They ALSO discovered that, in a cyclical universe, the 'last battle' is sort of a nebulous term. As far as anyone knows, they're still there. There are legends about when and how "The Warriors of the Old Garou" will come back to fight for Gaia in "the time of desperate need," but there are hundreds of legends - no two alike.
6/6/2006: The Sun is imprisoned by an alliance of Tremere, Shadow Lords, Nephandi, and Technomancers of the New World Order and the Syndicate (using Void Engineer technology), under the auspices of the Setites and Set himself. Hordes of vampires rampage across the world, causing breakdowns in infrastructure and government. Thousands of Garou fling themselves into what they think is the Last Battle.
6/13/2006: Set formally conquers the world and sets up his most trusted advisors and allies as monarchs of their own domains, answerable only to him. Very few locations remain without vampire control. Among these locations are: Papua New Guinea and other various small islands and island chains in Melanesia and Polynesia; Antarctica; scattered outposts in Tibet, Mongolia, Siberia, and Alaska; and parts of the Southwest US/Mexico desert, including Mexico's "Zone of Silence," where technology, for some reason, simply doesn't work.
7/4/2006, 10AM EST: It becomes obvious to everyone in the Technocracy that a world ruled by Set goes against their core principles. The WeaverWar begins.
7/4/2006, 2:30PM EST: The WeaverWar ends. The Technos who *weren't* corrupted by Nephandi or mind-ridden by vampires discover their bases have been infiltrated, their machines deactivated, and their codes broken. A few flee; others surrender; others go down fighting, and in the process cause massive damage to the world's technological infrastructure (the Internet is made to survive a direct nuclear
strike, but Technomancers?).
On an Umbral level, the Machine tries to come to life prematurely, and dies hurling Itself at Tremere's Palace in Vienna (the first clue to the location of the Sun's prison).
It is discovered that the "Alliance for a Future," headed by a quartet of "normal" humans, have succeeded in deactivating every nuclear device intended as a weapon, and more than half of those intended for power and medical purposes. This worldwide organization, which started in 2001, consists of tens of thousands of humans and almost every "supernatural" type as well, including a proportionately large number of Nuwisha.
During the vampire "purge" of the organization, fewer than thirty suspected members are captured and executed.
Fall Equinox, 2006: The treachery of the Shadow Lords is finally laid bare, and the Shadow Purge begins among the Garou who remain after the deaths of the previous three months. Anyone and everyone who claims Shadow Lord ancestry is killed or driven out, including Kin. The wise and loyal take themselves into exile and eventually change their namesand apparent tribes as best they can.
In the wake of the purge, most of the Talons, Wendigo, Uktena, and other ferals and lupus, take their leave of the Garou and retreat into the depths of the wilderness to defend the last fastnesses of Gaia. They, at the last, sneer upon the remaining Garou as fools who would "gnaw upon each other, rather than the Wyrm." In later years, this group is referred to as "the Pure Ones"or the "Ferals", and are not often seen.
2007: Humans not necessary for farming and other rural support tasks are herded into cities where their vampire lords can keep a tighter rein on them. The overcrowding and poverty triggers off epidemics that kill millions around the world before the vampires relax their grip.
Harmony Haven, in Tennessee, is opened to the Resistance and becomes the center of organization for the next several years.
2008: Having nowhere else to go, some urban supernaturals and their Kin flee to the sewer and tunnel systems underneath the oldest cities. Tenuous alliances between Walker and Gnawer, Gnawer and Ratkin, Ratkin and Nosferatu are tested almost to the breaking point, but manage to hold.
2009: The Last Mokole dies.
2011: The Black Spiral Dancers, their ranks swollen to unmanageable proportions by rampant reproduction and "recruiting," split into several new tribes. The Howling Picts represent the core of BSDs, those who can trace their ancestry (through whatever means) back to the White Howlers. The Urge Lords take on form from the bones of the traitorous Shadow Lords. The Seekers and the Bane Riders form as well, mostly along lines of inclination and ability.
2015-2017: The VAIDS Plague ("vampire AIDS") spreads from human 'cattle' populations to younger vampires to their Elders with startling rapidity. Draconian quarantine measures are enacted; in the aftermath, AIDS and many other diseases quietly disappear. Any human suspected of carrying VAIDS is summarily killed and cremated, and that law remains in force until the end of the Long Night.
2019: The urban Garou officially take on the "tribe" name Silicon Blaze and discard their separate identities as "Walkers" or "Gnawers" or any other tribe as a show of the unity necessary to fight the leeches.
2030-2032: Technoia Purge. The more conservative vampires move against younger ones suspected of "conspiring with rebels" in exchange for 20th century luxury-tech items. Computers, refrigerators, and CD sound systems are hauled out as evidence of betrayal.
2048: The Dry-Out. Ferali, Banes, or simple human error cause the complex water system supplying many southwestern US cities with water to completely break down. Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and dozens of smaller cities become ghost towns.
2061: Deirdre Flute's-Song-Slays of the Fianna and Gareth Falcon's-Eye of the Silver Fangs rally surviving Fianna, Fangs, Get, and others who have noble ancestry and high Pure Breed, and follow Silicon Blaze's example by forming the tribe of Gaia's Sentinels as a means of consolidating the leadership of the Garou and salvaging the straggled survivors of the original tribes.
2065: Those remaining Garou who were not deemed qualified to become part of Gaia's Sentinels, and yet had no urban or technological alliance, organize under the Children of Gaia to take back the name of the Spiral Dance from the minions of the Wyrm. Medea WitchBearer (formerly of the Black Furies) and Jane Walks-the-Edge (formerly of the Children of Gaia) succeed in uniting almost all of the remaining Garou as the Spiral Dancers, under the nominal leadership of an elderly Garou known only as Granny Screech Owl. At the first tribal meeting of the Spiral Dancers, word goes out among the mystics of the Garou that a quest for another celestine is being considered. There are quieter rumors that the Spiral Dancers are also seeking new gifts to strengthen and unite the Garou.
2068-75: The Great Civil War. Horus, who had laid low for some time, rises up with many supporters of all shapes and sizes, and begins to harry the vampire controllers of the Carpathian mountains. The Resistance all over the world takes this as a sign, and begins to do the same. Infrastructure breaks down even further, thousands die of starvation or disease in cities under siege. Some of the monarchs are destroyed, whole regions are abandoned and damaged in the flight of their lords. In the end, Set himself takes a hand, slaying Horus and a dozen major commanders of the Resistance, and the Resistance reluctantly scatters, crippled for several years.
2070: The Silent Striders, long thought dead and gone, re-emerge from hiding. They begin to move around the world more visibly, apparently on errands of great need, and join forces with the Nuwisha for the running of these errands. No one, however, can tell what they are up to.
2080: A puppeteer-bane, swollen on more than a century of feeding, gains lesser Incarna status and takes over the entire population, vampire and otherwise, of Cincinnati. In response, the vampires reveal their ultimate weapons, the Eyes of Set, two floating weapon-ships the size of small moons. The Eyes utterly obliterate the city and the surrounding countryside. Nephandi and Bane Rider spokespeople deny any involvement.
2081-2086: The 'Just to be on the Safe Side' Purge: The Organized, rule-the-world evilfolk try to strip the power away from the Chaotic, gibbering-is-fun, Gaia-should-be-bubbling-ooze evilfolk. After much devastation, both sides eventually wear themselves down, and an undeclared truce is reached.
During this time, the urban Subterraneans establish contact with their counterparts underneath other cities, create spy networks aboveground, and organize a massive effort with the Spiral Dancers and Gaia's Sentinels to clean out and hold increasingly-larger sections of the underground tunnel network.
2182, Midsummer's Eve: A gathering of mystics of the Changing Breeds and Mages summons a new Celestine, Lilith, to become a new moon in the skies of Earth.
Granny Screech Owl dies during this rite, for reasons unknown.
2183: The Eyes of Set and a fleet of other ships advance on Lilith and are repelled by wave after wave of spirits, organized (in some cases, discovered and brought to the fray) by the remaining Void Engineers. In the course of events, Grandfather Thunder redeems himself, sacrificing his existence to destroy one of the Eyes.
2184: The Year of Disaster; the climate shifts dramatically in some places, hurricanes and typhoons batter the coastlines, and the change in the tides erodes shorelines radically. The Pacific Rim experiences a renaissance of vulcanism. The Changers call the year "Gaia's Awakening" and Lilith is credited as the agent of this change.
Partial list of disaster sites: San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, most of Washington and Oregon, Mexico City, Tokyo, Rome, Tehran, and the Balkans. Just about every near-active or active volcano begins to have eruptions. (A rash of suicides in Japan is attributed to the eruption of Mt. Fuji.)
2202: The Sun returns, destroying Vienna and the vampires who have the misfortune of being outside in any area struck by the Sun at the equivalent of high noon in Vienna.
The Nuwisha vanish. Set and Tremere are presumed destroyed with all the other vampires in Vienna. Rumors abound of an army of Garou appearing in the city and wreaking havoc and destruction not long before the appearance of the Sun.
2203: Those living in coastal areas realize that the oceans are rising and begin scrambling for higher ground. Technomancers confirm the worst: the icecaps are melting.
2205: The Silent Striders, with the assistance of the many allies they garnered during the Long Night, scour Egypt of Wyrm-taint and vampires. A mighty caern is drawn up. All other Garou are given to understand that this point is the new locus of the Moon Bridge network, having become connected to Lilith as well as Luna, as well as being the major spiritual center of the world. It is noticed that all caerns in the world, after this event, become more powerful, and this is attributed to the new connection with Lilith.
2210: While a large percentage of the icecaps remain, there is a substantial rise in the waterline all over the world. Technomancers declare that the melt seems to have stopped for the moment. The great coastal cities of the world are almost entirely abandoned by this time, save for people who have taken up the creation of water-based communities among the shells of buildings and bridges. A brisk trade in salvaged goods has struck up, and trade routes are slowly being established to less fortunate regions.
Approximate map of North America in the Bright Future, overlaid with the former coastlines and cities.
2250: The present.