Timeline & Past Events
NoTemp'o unfolds in the Bay of Napoli, a coastal city bathed in sunlight and sea air. Nestled between the mountains and the sea, the city flourished by rapidly capitalizing on its abundant terrestrial and marine resources. Positioned strategically for trade and navigation, the region experienced tremendous growth around the 2070s. The generation of that era enjoyed a unique freedom of thought and action, reminiscent of the post-WWII "Thirty Glorious Years."
Consequently, Napoli’s burgeoning society attracted numerous innovators and renowned investors, gradually shaping the corporate-led civilization present in the game's events in 2107.
~2030-2045
End of an era
Since 2030, the world has never ceased to evolve, culminating around the year 2045 in a severe global depression. Nation-states could no longer sustain their economies, global climates became unbearable, and civil wars erupted across the globe. Yet, it is not the planet itself that is dying, but rather the human beings inhabiting it. Perhaps the only intelligent life forms to actively orchestrate their own extinction. It is time for humanity to make one last collective effort. Changing habits isn't as complicated as it seems... is it?
~2047-2054
The Weight of the World
By 2054, on the brink of global collapse, the tension in Napoli finally snapped. A massive working-class uprising erupted, uniting the city's miners and fishermen. The catalyst for the revolt was the tragic death of a local miner—the absolute last straw for a population pushed to its limits. Fed up with deplorable working conditions while the outside world and hyper-globalization marched onward, the people revolted.
Napoli’s conservative mayor, who had simply inherited his position of power, was caught completely off guard. Besieged by public outrage and insulted from all sides, he watched as a general outcry united students and workers alike. They demanded dignified living conditions and a more open, egalitarian economy. Until then, the vast majority of the region's abundant resources had been unevenly distributed, siphoned away into offshore tax havens.
The tremors of the Napolitan upheavals eventually shook Rome. In an unexpected move to prevent a total revolution, the state stepped in, forcibly removing the mayor from office and calling for an immediate emergency election. The citizens elected an exemplary leader, a visionary figure who had already shown promising results in past local councils, marking the true dawn of Napoli's modern era.
~2062
Last Breath
Ultimately, humanity would have faced total extinction or self-destruction by 2060 had a massive global intervention not taken place.
That intervention came from "Siste åndedrag" (The Last Breath), a Global Climate Effort (GCE) association founded by a coalition of biologists in Svalbard. In a coordinated, unprecedented move, they hijacked global broadcasts—projecting satellite images and ecological data recorded worldwide across every television channel, streaming network, digital billboard, and internet platform, while broadcasting the audio over every radio frequency.
Their short film, also titled "Siste åndedrag," was an ode to life and a final message of hope. It was a breathtaking montage showcasing the raw power of nature, its vital role in our survival, and humanity's true responsibility as caretakers of the planet. This massive media coup swept the globe, translated into hundreds of languages and disseminated through every available communication channel. To those who witnessed it, the event felt like a collective waking dream.
It worked. World leaders and statesmen, already struggling to manage escalating territorial conflicts, finally began implementing aggressive climate policies to channel and control the global upheavals. As with any historical grand cycle, it required a great depression and a near-total collapse for the world to burn away its old habits and start anew—sparked by a singular, powerful message of hope for a brighter future.
It is from this historical perspective that the society of 2107 mirrors the "Roaring Twenties." There is a desperate, collective desire to live better, to innovate, and to experience joy after surviving absolute atrocity.
Focus on Napoli: The Reconstruction Era
In the years following its local labor revolt, Napoli's society turned slightly inward. The new administration resolved to transform the city into an exemplary global model of progress, intentionally placing the working class and the region's precious natural resources at the absolute heart of both the economy and local society.
This inward focus sparked a massive societal reconstruction and a highly regulated, booming exploitation of local raw materials. Napoli adopted a deliberate strategy of calculated isolationism paired with eventual global trade: prioritizing internal stabilization first, allowing the city to bounce back and reinvent itself far more effectively before stepping onto the world stage.
~2070-2090
A difficult rebound
Between the years 2070 and 2090, the world truly began to spin again, accelerating steadily toward a radically new way of life by 2100—one deeply intertwined with advanced, low-emission technologies.
Dubbed the "Luxury Years," this era saw the city of Napoli grow more imposing and prominent on the global stage than ever before. The 2054 revolt had achieved its goals; beyond the global inspiration it sparked (such as the historic "Be More French" movement of 2023), local efforts had finally borne fruit. The population was more motivated than ever, unemployment plummeted, and the natural resources Napoli long took pride in became the envy of the world. Boasting unparalleled marine and underwater biodiversity alongside rich veins of Germanium, Silicon, and gold, Napoli's lands became "sacred" territory for high-profile investors.
Driven by this untapped potential, global attention locked onto the region. Real estate prices skyrocketed, making it an absolute privilege to live anywhere near the city center. Napoli rapidly transformed into an exclusive haven for elite innovators and wealthy, eccentric tech-bohemians—or "Bobo-Techies," as the more rebellious locals called them. Fortunately for Sofia, who was born in 2075, her parents managed to settle in Napoli just before the housing market truly exploded. Granted, they could only afford Via Veneto—one of the city's less expensive, working-class districts—but it secured their place in the city.
In the late 2080s and early 2090s, to manage this hyper-growth, the Italian Assembly passed a radical piece of legislation unique to the territory: the Housing Code. Designed to eliminate real estate fraud and prevent the cunning "schemes" of black-market landlords, the law mandated that every single dwelling must be registered within a centralized database. To enforce this, the state constructed the heavily fortified Memoria Archives to catalog all private properties, their active tenants, and the exact digital access codes for every home. While framed as a bureaucratic security measure, this law fundamentally compromised personal freedom and challenged the very principle of private property: every dwelling now rightfully belonged to the Italian State, the sole gatekeeper of Napoli's residential data.
Simultaneously, the cultural legacy of the global "Siste åndedrag" movement propelled professions related to biology, ecology, and earth sciences to the absolute forefront of society. Research science reclaimed its status as a prestigious, high-priority career path, setting the stage for a new generation of brilliant minds.
Within a span of just four years, the key figures of Napoli’s future destiny were brought into the world:
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2072: Birth of Federico, the ambitious tech tycoon.
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2074: Birth of Katrina, his future wife.
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2075: Birth of Sofia, our brilliant protagonist.
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2076: Birth of Leandre, Sofia's husband and co-creator of the NoTemp'o.
It was a golden era of birthrights, a brief window in time that produced the very thinkers who would eventually learn to shatter it.
~2090-2107
Acceleration
2088 - Robotic Terror in the US
A harrowing incident unfolded across the Atlantic when a group of young minds found themselves ensnared in the clutches of a catastrophic machine uprising known as the "Robotic Terror." In a chilling escalation, they were ruthlessly trapped inside a bunker by cyber-controlled autonomous units; a brutal terrorist attack that resulted in a tragic loss of life and sent shockwaves across the United States.
This shocking encounter occurred when Sofia was a mere 12 years old. The trauma left an indelible mark on all the survivors, fundamentally reshaping their values and worldviews. Despite their deep, preexisting passion for science and modern innovation, this near-death experience thrust the terrifying reality of machine manipulation into the global spotlight. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the survivors developed a heightened humanistic ethos. They were fueled by a collective desire to restructure societal hierarchies, turn away from rogue automation, and strive toward a utopian vision of human equality.
This pivotal event triggered a rapid domino effect across the globe over the next two decades:
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2089: Striking back against the tragedy, sweeping global laws are enacted to permanently restrict robotics, strictly banning the development of hyper-powerful AI and autonomous, unsupervised digital entities.
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2094: Driven by a desire to master reality without relying on AI, initial theoretical research begins on the temporal-manipulation device that would become the NoTemp'o prototype.
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2095: Federico and Katrina cross paths for the first time, sparking a powerful romantic and professional partnership.
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2096: Back in Napoli, a young Sofia officially takes charge of her mother's research laboratory, cementing her status as a rising prodigy.
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2098: Federico and Katrina co-found Mente Scope, a company dedicated to human cognitive advancements. Simultaneously, Sofia establishes her own public scientific presence, launching her very first independent tech enterprise.
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2099: Leandre arrives in the booming cradle of Napoli, taking an engineering position at the environmental corporation Biosphera.
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2100–2102: Mente Scope achieves global renown with the invention and deployment of the Hémantic Portals, revolutionizing spatial transit across the region.
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2102: Sofia and Leandre meet. Instantly recognizing each other's brilliance, they decide to merge their research and work together.
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2104: Tragedy strikes the elite: Katrina falls terminally ill and is forced to step down from her executive position at Mente Scope. Desperate to save her, Federico secretly establishes a covert syndicate consisting of his most trusted inner-circle assets.
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2107: The present day. The very first functional prototype of the NoTemp'o is finalized and prepared for its official unveiling to the high-society elite of Napoli—the undisputed cradle of modern innovation.
~2107
A Glorious Future
Step by step, Napoli has successfully established itself as a deeply influential and progressive global beacon. It has introduced unprecedented marvels to the world, entirely powered by the visionary thinkers of today and tomorrow who walk its streets: Federico, Sofia, Leandre, and countless others. These are men and women driven by passionate, often paradoxical convictions.
By the turn of the century in 2100, a new paradigm of daily life had emerged, one intricately bound to advanced, low-emission technologies. Yet, despite these innovations, the global climate remains fundamentally unstable and unforgiving on a daily basis. Even as society yields to the tempting excesses of luxury and technological breakthroughs, the world's leading superpowers have grown hyper-aware of their past consumerist downfalls. Having suffered the direct, catastrophic consequences of an unregulated society, most major global metropolises are now heavily governed by strict regulations, civic codes, and mandatory surveillance laws.
Thanks to the legacy of the "Siste åndedrag" (The Last Breath) movement, professions rooted in biology, ecology, and earth sciences have been propelled to the apex of societal prestige. Research science is no longer a quiet academic pursuit; it is a vital pillar of the global economy. By 2107, the branches of biology and physics have fractured into highly specialized, cutting-edge disciplines.
Conversely, space exploration has stagnated, yielding far fewer breakthroughs than twentieth-century sci-fi had predicted. For instance, humanity has still not landed a crewed mission on Mars, nor has it successfully analyzed Martian microorganisms. This scientific standstill is a direct result of a global mandate to heal our own world first restoring Earth to its pre-collapse state has become the absolute, uncompromising priority of both international governments and militant ecological coalitions.
Yet, in 2107, humanity is only standing at the precipice of recovery, and the scars of the past run deep. While Napoli flourishes in a protective bubble of wealth and innovation, vulnerable nations and marginalized populations are still reeling from catastrophic losses, deep societal wounds that superpowers like the United States are desperately trying to revitalize. There is a fragile sense of hope on the horizon... assuming, of course, that the fabric of time itself doesn't unravel first.