after having slept through the Apocalypse the protagonist awakens to find the world has drastically changed, and after sheltering in place for what is later discovered to be far longer than he needed to he ends up linking up with other survivors, making his way across the state of california to his hometown only to be exiled. Eventually he links up with military remnants and mobilized national guard troops who are now having to fight a chinese invasion force. He drives a tractor, helps confirm and relocated supply caches, ends up harassing chinese military on the coast before heading inland on a "secret" mission which turns out to be a spies like us twist where the team he's with is the distraction team meant to draw heat from the Chinese invasion forces while the actual team does their job.
Then the
US version of the deadhand mutually assured destruction system activates ending the first "blastwave" on July fourth 2013. Also known as N-day by the survivors.
The second arc starts One year three months and twenty seven days later (though admittedly I did post filler, teasers and time displaced posts in the interim) and recounts just how the protagonist survived the second bath of atomic fire and just what has happened following all that and how much the world has changed the and fallout of the second string of strikes, eruption of Yellowstone and the emergence of magical abilities in the populace as well as the discovery of varying anomalies both in and out of the ashlands where no one but the roughest survivors dare to walk. Largely is it believed nothing is alive in the the ashlands, or further to the east but no one has made it that far and lived to tell the tale, however in the second arc the protagonist makes his way not only out of the ashlands, but ends up returning twice to the very heart of the ashlands to the now very active yellowstone caldera and discovers strange new organisms and forms of magic. The second arc closes after a timeskip after the protagonist and accompanying ecological survey team sets up camp in a temporal anomoly and one of the members ends up angering one of the denizens of the ashlands, only to be killed an remade for his trouble.
The third blastwave arc strangely enough has only just now started after a four month lull of malaise where the protagonist, more or less had nothing worthwhile to post about, however (teaser from here on out, and subject to change:) the drums of war have started to beat once more as the fledgling California Republic and Salt Lake Confederations ideologies begin to spark against each other and the military remnants known as The Order desperately try to keep the careful peace between them.... meanwhile.. ancient and timeless beings begin to make their presence known in the ashlands.
