East Hastings

[Barding]

In the early nineties, the Norfolk Medical Research Facility in the British Isles began to investigate into the process of therapeutic cloning. First the scientists involved adapted to use of stem cells, isolation of genes, crude removals - secessions - of genes from sequences. They researched therapeutic cloning - the growth of new organs; motherless and outside the human body, unsupported and unappreciated by all of nature but for the cold glass dishes in which they were developed and molded into shape - and, while they could create simple organs, they took far too long to cultivate, not to mention their each requiring the donation of an embryo for the basis of their cellular division to come into play. Furthermore, the organs grown in such a way could not survive for long after their having been developed, in a mockery of love, closer in kin to obsession, by the scientists who tended to them. They quickly decayed, and freezing simply caused the tissue to atrophy and become useless.    The answer, at the time, seemed obvious. If the tissue and organs could not survive outside of the body, they must, logically enough, be put inside some semblance of a human body. While localised simulations of bodies were attempted, the results were distinct in their failure; atrophied homunculi, deformed and twisted by their development - boneless, faceless and more meat than human, thankfully. They were not human, and so the international laws of morality that forced the researchers to toe the line did not come into play. However, as previously mentioned, such attempts at simulating an environment that could maintain developed tissues and organs were failures.    The scientists moved onto animals; frogs, sheep, cats, pigs, apes, and, finally, they reached their goal - the complete cloning of a human being; organs and all. The idea of creating a human for the sake of their being a walking vestibule for organs and its moral reprehensibility fell by the wayside in the joyous uproars that burst into action worldwide. People need no longer fall ill or suffer the clutches of death when anything within them that could possibly fall faulty could be replaced in the blink of an eye. Not only a cure for organ failure but for cancer and for death in almost all situations had been provided to the human race, and once it had been granted - that glimpse of an apparent utopia - no-one would have it taken away, no matter the cost. One cannot simply stand by and allow death to continue to plague humanity while one can stop it...Humanity would not stand for it.    It was then that the Morning Project began. Soon, the dregs of humanity were being cloned in return for financial incentives and institutions for the 'students' as they called them on account of their almost constant process of education in apparent boarding school-like complexes, were opened up and down Britain. The Students were treated with the utmost care; educated and carried safely into adulthood. Most importantly, they were kept healthy, until their Donations began. There were four in total, each a new organ, and yet most survived until their fourth, cared for as well as possible until that point at which they would Complete.    The Students would have known their purposes, in one way or another, from the first times they entered the classroom. They would know how they would die, and they would know, therefore, why they must keep their bodies healthy - for the use of others. Some Students rebelled at this. Life's being a constant memento mori can damage the mind irrepairable and, in turn, the Students could damage those around them.

The Norfolk Medical Research Facility began its studies once more. They hoped to rid the next generation of Students of the gene that made them capable of rage. The first few trials, conducted, first on animals, were sucesses, each creature being perfectly docile and yet, somehow, happy. However, the genetic treatment, when introduced to cloned humans, had an entirely unpredicted and adverse effect. The capability for anger within human subjects was not reduced but amplified to mindless, all-consuming and homicidal extents. The genetic treatment moved through the body, affecting all cells it came across and re-writing them at a genetic level, changing the body like a cancer, until it reached the mind within minutes. Occasionally, the results of this sudden, radical, cancer-like re-writing process were horrific, deforming the victims to the extent at which their humanity was only obvious enough to be all the more disconcerting.    Furthermore, the victim of the Treatment would attack and, if it had its way, kill all whom it could possibly access. This, coupled with the brain denaturing as a result of the Treatment, rendered the Treated as simple savage animals, uncapable of rational thought or long-term ambition. The only creatures whom the Treated would not attack were those like it; other Treated. The scientists at the Norfolk Facility only ever created one human clone affected by the Treatment, and yet, when it attacked others, which, due to a lack of foresight, it did, the exchange of genetic material that took place through biting, intercourse of blood or other bodily fluids, or consumption of the Treated flesh, the human that received this genetic information was Treated similarly. Within a few minutes, its mind and, occasionally, its flesh would denature horrifically, the all-consuming rage overtaking that creature too.    Sure enough, the Treatment spread among citizens and Students alike, and the England-Wales-Scotland landmass of the British Isles was quarantined. Elsewhere in the world, similar projects to the Morning Project were abandoned in the majority of cases (although rumours still abound of eastern European countries practicing illegal cloning for the sale of harvested organs and tissue on the international black market), and the world simply stopped observing the British Isles within the month, a small minority of people succeeding at evacuation, and yet, the rest, being left behind to either survive or become Treated themselves.    In two months time after the Treatment outbreak, all radio signals and evacuations of the British Isles have ceased, and power production has fallen to a standstill. Gas does not run, water pressure has, in most cases, died, and lights no longer illuminate their surroundings. The Treated, normally, lie dormant; corpses (albeit deformed ones, in some cases) to the casual observer, until a sign of life to be attacked approaches. On occasion, however, normally in noisy circumstances, the Treated find it impossible to fall into dormancy, and so roam their surroundings, looking for the source of the noise, as if praying it will turn out to be life to be extinguished or subverted.

RP IDEA STUFF: Now I've gotten all of that setting fluff out of the way (and I really do have a lot of respect for you if you read through it all) I can reveal my intent with regards to the roleplay I would like to take place within the setting above.
   I'd love to play out an RP between two survivors of the Treatment outbreak; one male (played by me) and one female (played by you). They may have survived either through skill, luck (or a lack thereof, if you want to think of it like that) or a mixture of both. Whatever the cause, they have survived and have come into contact with each other, or they knew each other before the Treatment outbreak and stuck together. Either way, their lives collide and they are forced to stick together for safety's sakes.
   In brief, they both would, as a result of the situations they've been put through together, come to some odd kind of affection and, eventually, grow to love each other and depend on each other; huddling together in darkened supermarket corners for warmth and for fear of being parted, and the like.
   At the end, they may or may not escape the quarantined isles together. That is for you and I, as co-writers, to decide and play out.
   [Note: if you really want, 'The Treated' can be made to be more like traditional 'runner' zombies for simplicity or a change of tone's sakes.]