Worldbuilding project founded by my friend: MTRI

[MiyuwiAuthor]

I would like to share a collaborative worldbuilding/roleplay project founded by my friend that some of y'all may find interesting. I should also probably disclose that I am a co-owner of the project and have written a lot of the articles and lore. It can be found at this website: http://mtri.wikidot.com/

I'll just copy-paste the synopsis I wrote for TVTropes.

MTRI, short for the Mariana Technology and Research Institute, is an online collaborative worldbuilding and roleplay alternate history project. It describes itself as taking elements from many genres, including urban fantasy, magical realism, supernatural fiction, science fiction, and cosmic horror.

The encyclopedia on the website is set in the year 2004, in an alternate history. In the MTRI universe, there is a fifth fundamental force known as the spiritual force, which is powerful and unpredictable. Natural processes such as nuclear fusion generate spiritual matter and energy, which are what dark matter and energy are in this universe. Spiritual matter and energy are often concentrated around objects with mass. Complex processes such as life generate complex, differentiated forms of spiritual matter and energy, and when conscious minds are destroyed, a spiritual copy of them is created. This allows the formation of beings known as spirits, conscious systems of spiritual matter that inflict their wills upon the universe through the spiritual force. Some of these spirits have assimilated and subsumed so much complex spiritual matter and energy that they act as gods and have developed forms of intelligence and consciousness far beyond what humans are capable of. Though life is extremely common in the MTRI universe, it is mostly microbial, preventing the development of powerful spirits.

A being known as the Shepherd developed from the processes of life on Earth, eventually growing to guide and protect ecosystems so that they can be used as generators of complex spiritual matter. Another being, known as the Serpent, developed from the spiritual residues of logic and reasoning after the evolution of neurons. During the Late Pleistocene, the Shepherd and their follower spirits, known as Edenists, wished to eliminate humanity due to the ecological devastation it would cause, while the Serpent and their follower spirits, known as Prometheans, wanted to preserve humanity and cultivate it into a civilization, as humanity's high intelligence brains would be able to produce plenty of high-quality spiritual matter and energy. The Edenists used their god-like powers to try to wipe out humanity, dividing them into small groups, creating horrifying diseases and creatures and preventing the development of agriculture, while the Prometheans used their god-like powers to protect humanity, giving humanity knowledge on how to fight back against the disasters that plagued them, as well as altering humans in ways such as creating the uncanny valley effect so that they would naturally fear imitators. Eventually, all the human species were wiped out except one. The conflict entered into a stalemate, and eventually it was agreed that the spirits would let humanity develop free from spiritual intervention for 12,167 years and re-evaluate it after to see if it should be allowed to live.

Since then, humans were able to forget about the horrible diseases and creatures that once plagued and hunted them, remembering them only as myths and legends, though an unlucky few who wandered into the wrong remote regions re-encountered them. Humans were free to settle down, developing agriculture, civilization, and eventually industry. Despite the truce, a few Edenists still sowed harmful ideologies into humanity, while a few Prometheans would briefly help humanity by giving it knowledge. Over the millennia, some humans observed and even communicated with spirits, calling them various names, worshipping them, and even utilizing the artifacts they left behind.

Nearly 12,000 years after the end of the Late Pleistocene war, humanity had developed science and industrial capabilities. During the Russo-Japanese war, an ancient virus from the time of the Late Pleistocene war, later termed the Karafuto Virus, was uncovered in Sakhalin, which had the power to reanimate the dead. The disease would lead to minor outbreaks, until in 1925, when an outbreak in Sapporo prompted the Japanese Government to create a research facility dedicated to studying the disease on Pagan Island of the Marianas Islands. During WW 2, numerous prisoners of war and captured civilians were experimented on with the Karafuto Virus and other diseases, in an attempt to weaponize the diseases as biological weapons. The facility was captured by US forces in 1944, and a provisional organization was set up to manage what was found on the island. This organization was known as the Mariana Technology and Research Institute.

After the war ended, the United Nations was created. Many envisioned a new era of peace and scientific, technological, and social progress, one which would be free from all the horrors of what had happened during the war. As such, the world was greatly reorganized to ensure minimal conflict in the future. All colonies were reorganized into independent nations, borders were altered, and the United Research Association, a global association of nearly all researchers, scientists, and engineers, and the World Council of Defense, a global militia dedicated to preventing wars and genocides and safekeeping all nuclear weapons, were created. In 1946, the MTRI was expanded to the level of a global scientific organization, given possession of research sites around the globe, and split into departments and branches, each department dedicated to a field of study, and each branch dedicated to a region of the world. Over the years, the MTRI and the URA as a whole have led to rapid technological development. By 2004, new species of genetically modified humans, A.I.s with human-level intelligence, and research bases on other planets have been developed.

In 2004, the world's 206 nations are divided into three main factions: the Global Organization of States, the International Commonwealth, and the United World Citizens. Though the world of MTRI is peaceful and collaborative, extremism has been brewing for quite a while. Many movements see current global leaders as too moderate and too clingy to old ideals and the status quo. In particular, certain ideologies have developed criticizing humanity's negative environmental impact, demanding that humanity take measures to make itself extinct. Some of these groups have even turned violent. And there are rumors of a certain group of powerful people manipulating the world from the shadows, planning to collapse current civilization in order to lead over the ashes. The so-called 60 year "Era of Peace" may not last for much longer...