In some of these universes, little had changed; it didn't make a big difference which team won
the 2011 World Series, for example. In other universes, there were more important divergences: The
Gray Emissary, who was carrying gifts of advanced technology, wasn't'shot down at Roswell in 1947,
the Black Death didn't devastate the known world in the 14th century, the dinosaurs didn't die out,
Nikolai Tesla did conquer the world with a robot army, and so on. The Cold War went nuclear in 83
percent of the possible universes, and in 3 percent of the possible universes, the French unloaded
their entire nuclear arsenal on the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, because it had to be done. When
reality stabilized again, an instant after the Big Mistake, the familiar Earth of the 21st century was
replaced by one formed from many different realities.
The year is now 2162 (or 151, or 32,173, or Six Monkey Slap-Slap, depending on your point of view).
It's been a hundred and fifty years since the Big Mistake, and the Earth is a very different place. The
ruins of the Ancients (that's you and me) litter a landscape of radioactive deserts, mutated jungles,
and vast, unexplored wildernesses. Strange new creatures, such as beetles the size of cars and super-
evolved badgers with Napoleonic complexes, roam the world. The survivors of humanity gather in
primitive tribes or huddle in trade towns that rarely rise above the technology of the Dark Ages. Even
the nature of humanity is now different, because generations of exposure to radiation, mutagens,
and the debris of other realities have transformed humans into a race of mutants who have major
physical alterations and potent mental abilities.