When the bombs fell, it was not the mutual annihilation everyone feared, but something messier. Russia’s nuclear arsenal turned out to be mostly theoretical and what actually worked didn’t finish the job. Instead, it turned most of Russia, Belarus, and northern China into a radioactive desert stretching from Warsaw to the Bering Sea.

Warsaw got lucky. Two warheads hit the city. Both were duds. Now the Eastern Dam rises from the Baltic Sea to the irradiated wastes, a 500-kilometer urban corridor housing forty million souls who’ve lost everything and found each other. Refugees from the Baltic and Nordic states, survivors from across the continent, all packed into a stratified nightmare where altitude determines your worth.

The eastern wall stands two hundred meters high, concrete and composites, lit with warning lights that glow red against the smog. Beyond it lies the wasteland. Inside, corporations rule openly now that governments have collapsed. The police are underfunded and outgunned. Gangs control the streets. Augmentation clinics range from pristine corporate suites to back-alley chop shops where you might lose a kidney or a limb instead of credits.

Humanity just cracked FTL travel. The stars are finally within reach. But down here in the Dam, most people are still trying to survive another day-trading in black market tech, running jobs for Fixers, racing through neon-lit streets, and dreaming of escape while the radiation scrubbers hum overhead and the warning lights blink on the wall.