The Sanctum

The city of Proles was founded in 3063 on planet Z-158 (aka Zeus) as first a mining outpost, but it rapidly became a center for commerce and culture as the successive mineral rushes occurred and flooded the fledgling city with wealth.

However, not everyone was pleased with Proles' good fortune.

The Crash and the Arms Race
Tensions mounted as the nearby cities became increasingly jealous of the prestige and wealth concentrated into the hands of not only the Proles elite, but her working class. More insidious, the descendants of the first waves of colonists, the terraformers and wildcat miners, grew suspicious of the concentration of power and the talks of the world being drawn into an inter-planetary government--with Proles in the lead of course.

In 3135, a group of separatists hijacked a passenger liner and set off a chain reaction that destroyed nearly every man-made object in planetary orbit--and worst of all, the deep space communications port that had acted as the lifeline between Zeus and Earth. This event became known as the Crash. Without the promise--or threat--of Terran intervention, the planet descended rapidly into chaos, with cities squabbling amongst themselves.

While raids and inter-city violence had always occurred on a small scale, the abrupt loss of all communication with Earth and with each other caused a rapid spread of territorial fighting, which led as its next logical step to an ever escalating arms race. While most cities and the companies they hosted concentrated on flashy conventional arms, someone--and it's never been known who--focused on biological warfare.

The Contagion
In 3137, from the arms race came something worse than death: the Contagion. With communication between the cities so uncertain, it is still unknown where the plague started. But the people of Proles know that it took their sister city and greatest enemy, Notus, like a wildfire, transforming her population into ravenous, shambling monsters that did their best to spread the infection outward. Worse, some twist of fate, Contagion, and chemical weapon began to unravel the careful work of 250 years, turning the welcoming atmosphere of Zeus into a chemical fog that could melt skin and scorch bone--for humans. The victims of the Contagion, the dysthropes, thrived.

Bifrons, Inc, and the Sanctum
Bifrons, Inc, the largest company in Proles and a leading light of science, did its best under the guidance of its CEO and Mayor of Proles, Eric Goldstein, to fight the Contagion with the best weapons Proles had--the brilliant minds of its scientists. In the end, they could only advise the building of the dome, which was completed at a record pace in 3139 while the Proles Army did its best to simply hold the hordes of dysthropes at bay.

Proles remains the last bastion of humanity on a world blasted by strife and war, the guiding light of peace and the final hope for survival as the brave scientists of Bifrons, Inc search desperately for a cure. Protected now by its dome and welcoming to all weary travelers, Proles is best known as : THE SANCTUM.