Invitation to shared world creation (longish)

March 10, 2010 Without any prior warning, a huge alien spacecraft is detected
in
near-earth orbit. It ignores all attempts at communication, and a large
number of apparently robotic probes and units of various kinds begin appearing
all over the face of the earth. While they ignore Mankind at first, as the
governments of the earth step up military responses, the alien probes begin to
defend themselves.

March 15, 1010 A second alien spacecraft, fully as gigantic as the first,
flashes toward the earth, spitting projectile and energy weapons at the first.
The moon settlements and the space habitats are destroyed as a byproduct of
the incredible fury of battle in the first few minutes of battle, and as the
hours pass Man's cities are slagged and even vaporized. The probe units
furiously construct defensive and offensive armaments and fortifications, and
are attacked by similar robotic units from the second ship. Suddenly, some
sort of energy field detonates, and all is still. The probe units fall to the
ground, inactive, and the alien spacecraft fall silent. Some sort of
electromagnetic pulse, produced by one of the alien
spacecraft, perhaps as a last-ditch measure to defend itself, has
apparently fried every piece of hardware in the system. And, unfortunately for
Man, every piece of electronics hardware on the face of the Earth.

As Mankind struggles to rebuild his civilization, a new threat appears: a
virus that brings death in its wake. While it is suspected it was created by
Man himself for biowarfare, it proves almost unstoppable... with an 80%
initial death rate and an 60% sterility rate, civilization collapses in the
space of a few short weeks, and indeed the human race may be on its way to
join the dinosaur...

March 10, 2085 The dawning of a new age, as new nations prepare themselves for
the challenges of a new world... a world where the superpowers of yesterday
are gone, and where the secrets of alien technology offer a range of new and
exciting possibilities. A world where many of the lessons of the
past have been learned, such as the need for ecologically-sound
industry, but where others have been forgotten: such as the foolishness of
conquest. New societies have come into being, built from the ashes of total
collapse 75 years earlier, and founded on new factors such as the very real
threat of human extinction, and the preciousness of human fertility. Man is
now aware that there are other intelligences in the Universe, but cannot know
when, if ever, they may return... and on what terms.
=====
We are looking for people to help us develop this background, by writing up
different nations and regions of the world, with detailed descriptions which
can be used to run games. This background will be used for a number of
different games (although it is being primary run as a shared world background
for Mekton), and will be made available free of charge no the Web.

You don't have to have any knowledge of games, although it certainly wouldn't
hurt. What you need is an overactive imagination, a willingness to share your
ideas with other people and modify them for the sake of a more balanced
gameworld, and above all, have lots of time to invest. Everything is handled
through the Web, of course.

If you think this is something you might be interested in, please take a look
at a few of the files located at
http://www.egroups.com/docvault/axemzswp/ especially in the Common
Background folder (you may have to register with egroups to get access; it is
simple and free).

I am one of the coordinators of the project, but basically all contributing
members have an equal say in what goes on. And, on the most part, contribution
is the name of the game.

A number of nations and regions have already been spoken for, but essentially
all of Africa, Europe and the Americas are up for grabs! There's some choice
turf still available, so act fast!

After looking around in egroups, feel free to drop me a line to talk about it.
Or just join egroups and start punching keys. Either way, your contributions
will be welcome. And please distribute this notice here and there, too.

Hope to see you soon!