Punklorde Stage Zero

Thanks to technologies from the Genius Society, Punklorde's monopolistic capital built an information industry that far surpasses the interstellar average. The Internet of Everything, Consciousness Uploading, Virtual Life... Roam the Overworld of Punklorde, and you'll witness a neon paradise of the mortal world: Roaring vehicles tearing down the lanes, converging streams of light weaving through the air, and bustling entertainment centers gorging on extravagant desires and insatiable greed. However, if you look down from above, Punklorde is nothing but a desolate, run-down sprawl. Mountains of electronic scrap and compacted trash litter the landscape. Middlemen, black market dealers, gang members... people prowl the mean streets like wild beasts. There's no shortage of epic legends here, or absurd tales. So much so that hackers' legend claim the Aeon of Elation was once drawn to this place, personally adding THEIR own twisted flavor of fun to Punklorde's rebellion. Those seeking to reach the pinnacle of Punklorde found their inspiration and compressed their lives into data within Aether Cartridges. With the birth of hackers, the game known as "Punklorde" began. If you put on the goggles of a hacker and look at this world anew, you'll see drab curtain walls layered with graffiti, every crack potentially concealing folded space, and cursors that suddenly appear in dark alleys turn out to be directions or traps left by those who came before. In this world of information built from 0 and 1, hackers believe that life is a game, where they challenge the authority, mock the false, create things that exist only in imagination, and tirelessly explore their limits, until the day they "beat the game." The Interastral Peace Corporation once tried to acquire Punklorde, but an unprecedented attack on the Interastral Network forced the IPC to abandon the plan. In the years that followed, no fewer than ten cosmic powers attempted to swallow up Punklorde, but all of them returned empty-handed. To this day, Punklorde remains a free zone in the cosmos. Even in spaces so cramped people can barely move, countless souls still yearn to break free from their shackles. They wander through the world of information, hoping to travel toward the heights of Rainbow City and the universe beyond the stars.

Just as Masks define the Masked Fools, Aether Cartridges are what make hackers, hackers. Massive amounts of virtual currency, entertainment disguised as ordinary files, programs loaded with classified intel, a single command capable of bringing down the entire global network... By plugging in Aether Cartridges, hackers risk being swallowed by the torrents as they navigate through data channels. In the game of Punklorde, a hacker's cartridge level determines how far they can go. For most hackers, their journey ends at the limits of their own talent. For those rare few known as "legends," their names will remain forever on the Hacker Guild's leaderboard... "Zero" triggered the first data meltdown, "Sage" pioneered aether editing technology, "Stoneblade" was remembered for his heroic defiance of the Oasis Zone... But if you scroll from bottom to top, the name at the very top is an indelible piece of graffiti: Silver Wolf pulling a funny face. No one knows why an orphan from Mount Scrap skyrocketed to fame overnight, or why she "gifted" her graffiti to the Hacker Guild before vanishing without a trace one day. Coming and going freely through the "Dark Zone" created by Mythus, engaging in cyber warfare with the genius of Planet Screwllum... Rumors both true and false still circulate. Legend has it she touched the very peak of Elation, yet for some reason never uses that power. Yet even legends must take their final bow. At the end of the game, hackers eject their cartridges, wipe their data clean, and embrace the GAME OVER screen. Back in the day, Punklorde hackers liked to call that final moment Lv. 99. But how much would it be now?