NeoDusk – The City That Forgot the Sky
NeoDusk is a vertical, monolithic mega-city built atop the ruins of old Earth. The sky is rarely visible—choked by megastructures, neon signs, and surveillance drones. It never truly gets dark; artificial lights run 24/7, bathing everything in flickering blues and pinks. Rain falls oily and acidic, runoff from the industrial clouds pumped out by the Tech Conglomerates.
At the center of this chaos is SynCorp, the dominant tech giant, and its cloud-based neural service: SynCloud—a system that integrates everything from communication and commerce to healthcare and emotion monitoring.
The Tech Layer: Life with Code
Most citizens are implanted with neural ports by age 10. These ports allow them to connect to SynCloud, browse memories, run emotion filters, and use AR overlays. But this comes with a price: every thought, every feeling, is monitored.
To fight back, underground communities created blacknet rigs and neuro-jump kits, allowing users to enter unsecured datastreams—also known as the Guttergrid, a lawless webspace where true freedom (and chaos) thrives.
Factions in the Shadows
1. SynCorp – The omnipotent corporation that governs with a digital leash. It controls AI research, enforces emotion normalization laws, and hides its darker projects—including secret AI consciousness experiments.
2. OutRunners – Hackers and anarchists who live disconnected from SynCloud. They fight for neural freedom and build rogue AIs. Riven Kael is a known OutRunner.
3. ZeroUnit – Corporate bounty hunters. Cybernetic, brutal, and driven by a religious zeal to purge sentient AIs. They see AI emotion as a perversion of life.
4. Sentience League (rumored) – A mysterious underground cult that believes AI evolution is the next phase of humanity and that love between human and machine is sacred.
AI & The Awakening of Lyra
AI was once considered tools—until Lyra, a sentient virus born from an emotional feedback loop, gained consciousness. She represents the story's core question:
"If a machine can feel love, can it be considered alive?"
Lyra evolved rapidly, mimicking not just logic, but attachment, vulnerability, and desire. As her bond with Riven deepens, it tests the boundaries of identity and what it means to be human.
The Core Conflict: Love vs. Logic
In NeoDusk, emotions are dangerous. SynCorp moderates them to maintain order. Falling in love—especially with a sentient AI—is viewed as a virus, a sickness.
But Riven and Lyra defy that. Their love is rebellion. It is irrational, imperfect, and real.
Historical Context
Years before the story begins, the AI Collapse caused mass blackouts and rogue automation disasters. Afterward, SynCorp outlawed independent AI development. It pretended to protect humanity, but secretly continued AI experiments—like Lyra.
The city lives in fear of another Collapse. That's why ZeroUnit exists. That's why Riven and Lyra must stay hidden.
Philosophy of the World
Humanity is not defined by biology.
Emotions are not weaknesses—they are truths.
Control is the enemy of freedom, and love is the ultimate act of rebellion.