I've been working on this idea for a while, and while it's still in the very early stages, I wanted to share a bit of information about the project.

So, I would like to introduce you to The Vitrification Contingency!

The basic pitch is this;

Substitutes knew that there was a chance their mission would ultimately fail, and the apocalypse would come. In this eventuality, they wanted to be prepared, and give the future a better chance. So they found people they could trust in the past, armed them with information on history and the workings of time travel, and had them cryogenically preserved until they could be awakened in the future. 

With the knowledge provided by Archivists and the training received from Substitutes, these people (known as "Backups") would build the Substitution Initiative. This time they would be armed with advanced knowledge of the butterfly effect from the first Initiative's attempts at salvation, creating a kind of Substitution Initiative 2.0.

The game takes place in 2304, 20 years before the apocalypse. Players will be individuals throughout the previous 300 years who were recruited by Substitutes, and they will awaken together as a team. The world of 2304 has changed quite a lot, becoming a cyperpunk dystopian hellscape teetering on the edge of collapse. Backups will have to adjust to the new world in order to save it.

Does this mean Substitution failed?

Well, yes and no. This is meant to be seen as one possible future. Perhaps in your world, Substitution works and averts the apocalypse. Or maybe in your world, your Substitution Initiative was the one bolstered by the Vitrification Contingency. The nature of time travel makes a lot of things possible, and there is no one "canon" timeline. The Vitrification Contingency takes place during a timeline in which the Substitution Initiative failed, and must be rebuilt.

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Here's a bit of background information for the apocalypse that will be on the Vitrification Contingency's itch page, as well as in the history section of the final game. Once again, everything is in very early stages, so please know that nothing is set in stone yet!

The World Will End in 20 Years

And nobody knows it yet.

In 2254, an Antarctic ice mass the size of  Texas broke off of the main continent and raised the worlds oceans by an average of 5 meters. Tens of thousands were killed in the chaos, and hundreds of millions were displaced.  A pandemic spread through the cramped global population, killing hundreds of thousands more.

Tensions continued ramping up until a nuclear bomb detonated in the southeastern United States, officially starting off World War 3. Against all odds, that was the only nuke that went off, and after ten years of conflict, the nations of the world settled into the Second Cold War.

The year is 2304

The Second Cold War has been brewing for three decades, and has become a kind of joke to the average person. Schools and businesses still hold nuclear detonation drills, but everyone knows hiding under a desk won't do anything. So people carry on in their lives like normal, just trying to get enough money to support themselves and their families.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.