The World of "Download Me" - Freedom City (Patreon)

###This is the beginning of teaser images and worldbuilding for the "Download Me" experience that will be coming along after the end of E-Girl #4 this week. All of them will be combined into the more complete "Dramatis Personae" that will indicate the start of the "Download Me" Experience on Saturday, with the first song, "Earth 2074 - Part 1" planned for Sunday.###

Earth 2074.

Cities have become cityscapes, stretching out to the horizon, connected by highways dominated by trucks and threatened by biker gangs who raid the trucks, but who will kill anyone for sport.

Freedom City is anywhere and everywhere. It has no beginning or end.

Towering skyscrapers feel as though they stretch up to the heavens, while neon billboards litter the city streets advertising the newest offerings for 'escape' to the digital world. While there are some new technological developments, such as nanotechnology, culture and society is dominated by one company: HyperNova. Those who can spend their entire lives hooked up to HyperNova's virtual reality. Even when they're free of the virtual world, they wander the streets still with their headsets on, experiencing the "real world" through the 'alternate reality' of HyperNova.

Those who can't take to the streets, and particularly the highways, either killing for sport or seeing how long you can go without getting taken down.

What makes a place uninhabitable? The air is still breathable, although the skies and oceans are a different hue for most of the day. Smog gives the lights of the cities halos, and evenings are cast into long purple twilights.

Some people choose to make their bodies a kind of digital playground, amplifying their bodies with whatever cybernetic enhancements they can afford and get their hands on.

Others, rather than diving into the world of virtual idols, demand a more kinetic fix. These people make androids their companions, often with the personalities downloaded from HyperNova's digital idols.

The result is that the streets of Freedom City often feel both full of people, and yet empty at the same time--full of people who aren't people--androids, nearly-blind people wandering around with their heads covered with virtual goggles, and sinister villains who only choose to frequent the "real world" because their tastes are too violent for what HyperNova would allow.

It's a lonely time for one man and his dog...