The only faction to have achieved an increase in technological level during the Burnout: Formers has invented a system of implants to partially computerize the human consciousness of their agents. A ruthless technocratic order with unrivaled access to Pre-Burnout informational resources and some of the most intelligent people currently alive. 

Formers started as a loose ring of international college students in the mid ’20s (Making it one of the Post-Burnout’s oldest factions), headed up by the British-born American Lucas “Chessman” Chesteridge. Chessman, an aspiring futurist, frequently engaged his friends in thought-experiments on how geopolitical powers would respond to worsening storms and resource-depletion. By 2023, Chessman and his friends were convinced that civilization as they knew it would collapse soon. Chessman made a tentative date at 2030, and then shifted their conversations to how their group would survive this collapse, and what their role in the new world would be. By bringing in specialists, researchers, and other colleagues, Chessman’s “Doomsday Project” had grown to around 300 people. With these numbers and multiple contingencies, Chessman realized that they actually stood a chance of making it through the inevitable. But most importantly, they could play a deciding role in how the world fell. With the understanding that a collapse-of-civilization event was unavoidable, Chessman believed that the event should be made as destructive as possible in order to fully eradicate any power-structures and give the survivors a “fresh start”. He formalized the group, calling them the “Order of Formers” and outlined their master-plan for riding out the apocalypse:

• Through a series of highly publicized research papers and other hysteria producing events, generate a global consensus that civilization will collapse soon.
• Powerful governments will make contingency plans, gradually infiltrate the relevant committees/departments and begin influencing them towards the following practices/assumptions:
  • Hoard resources and let weaker countries collapse
  • Try to create well-supplied “Last-Stand” settlements while destroying infrastructure everywhere else to cull the rest of the population.
  • When a majority of the population is dead, society will restart from the Last-Stand settlements. 
  • Invest heavily in high-risk high-reward research projects that can be undertook in isolated sites. 
• Use information gleaned from these government projects to identify:
  • “Low-danger” zones that are unlikely to see any chronic violence
  • “Burnout” zones that are guaranteed to experience such an extreme degree of violence that there will be nothing left after the collapse. 
• Misappropriate funds from governments to build compounds/bunkers/reinforcements at these sites.
• As the global situation decays, sabotage these government contingency plans so the following occurs:
  • Global communication is permanently disabled
  • The richest countries are assailed by billions of refugees
  • Culling tactics either fail or are enacted too late to kill a meaningful majority of the global population
  • The Last-Stand settlements are not equipped or supplied enough to withstand the sheer numbers of displaced people and thus are razed to the ground.
  • Military forces are supplied enough to function autonomously until they run out of ammunition/fuel
  • Any plans for nuclear, biological or other WMDs are neutralized, or done in a way to minimize collateral damage (The Florida Detonations). 
• After the collapse, or when “Burnout” occurs in the Last-Stand settlements, move to occupy the now-vacated zones and set up long-range communication assets. 

By the summer of 2030, most of the world had ended and Chessman was holding court in the blackened remains of London. His Order had done more than survive the Burnout, they had acquired incredible amounts of valuable equipment, weapons, and research assets. Their crown-jewel was a database holding a near-complete instance of the Pre-Burnout internet (This explained why the internet fell-apart multiple times near the end, Formers was downloading it ALL and transcribing it to hard-copy), all in Hard-copy form. While most sects of the Order engaged with their local communities as fellow survivors, the existence of the global network was a closely guarded secret. Chessman, still the de-facto ruler of Formers, was unsure about next steps. He even considered dismantling the Order before he received a communique from “Madillo”— a paramilitary and war-zone-logistics expert who was operating out of Manhattan in 2031. Madillo’s partner, Plu appeared to have a technokinetiic ability and they believed it could be replicated. 

Intrigued, Chessman had Plu transported to Britain aboard one of the yachts he had stolen from Pre-Burnout elites in a scam. MRI scans, sampling, and biofeedback revealed that Plu was host to a microscopic alien lifeform. This organism, the “Aria” was capable of interfacing with both human neural signals and those produced by electronics. The researchers gathered saw that this was the breakthrough they needed to make advanced neurocranial implants —a technology that had floundered before the Burnout— viable. After months of experimentation, Formers perfected how to clone samples of the Aria and bond them to an augment-package. Plu became the first Formers to become “chipped”. The augment granted its user the following

• Advanced biofeedback metrics including:
  • Heart Rate
  • Hormone/stressor levels
• Massively increased mathematical processing
• Ability to visualize and alter complex schematics
• Ultra-fine muscle control and the ability to “program” certain movements like chopping vegetables or taking notes to be done autonomously.

Later upgrades allowed the chips to connect to Formers’s servers so agents could download and upload information from the field. With these godlike powers, Chessman decided that Formers needed to play a more active role in societal redevelopment. Perceiving Plu and their Aria as an existential threat, Chessman had them executed. 

Under the guise of long-range sensor testing, Plu was lured out to a remote area and shot in the head. Even after being penetrated by a 50-caliber anti-materiel round, the Aria generated several lightning strikes, radio messages, and other electrical related events for several hours before going quiet. 

Over several years of distributing the augments, training Formers on how to use them, and gathering information about the new world, Chessman created a new structure for the Order. He determined that Formers would no longer function as an open network. Instead, the sects would function autonomously and upload their findings to a central depository. The keepers of this depository would then distribute information as they saw fit. Formers would work as strategic advisors to existing factions to encourage technological redevelopment and political stability. Chessman expressed that his ultimate goal was to have humanity become a spacefaring civilization. Research on the Aria was confined to a handful of agents, and the organism’s existence was kept as a secret from the rest of the Order. 

Formers revealed its existence to American factions in the early 40’s, just in time to attend the first meeting at Conver. They continued to operate out of Manhattan and the Northeast, despite tensions with F5. Formers’s natural ally was the Guild, and a handful of companies in the Passage Lands. They recruited and chipped exceptionally skilled youth to fill the next generation of agents. Despite the inherent elitism, Formers tries not to accelerate a faction’s technological growth at the cost of its culture or “soul”. Often, Formers agents are at odds with Callers and Verdance. Their policy is to only intervene in truly desperate situations, or if the wider economic system needs a particular niche filled. Often, Formers are used as a sort of “ultra-premium” commodity, trading their unparalleled services and knowledge for a faction’s compliance with their wishes. 

The one caveat to their technologically progressive agenda is the re-introduction of digital computer systems. According to Plu, their Aria was capable of shutting down entire city-blocks if moved to do so. Formers’s high command is universally terrified of the Aria-Pattern developing beyond their control and potentially functioning like a rogue AI. Their best solution is to make it so there is no digital infrastructure for a rogue pattern to control— at least until research progresses to the point where they can make an “obedient” strain of it.

Verdant Night, and the arrival of Membrance marked a new era for Formers. The fears regarding the Aria-pattern have extended to several other patterns that show potential for developing sentience. Formers has invested heavily in creating anti-Membrance assets, most notably their “Mississippi-squad” (Named after the American ship that forcibly opened Japan to foreign trade) which has effectively combated the V-Ronin pattern for almost a decade in the Swells. The presence of the Barrier-Pattern has also frustrated their development of space-craft, although their scanners can penetrate through the mass. 

Verdant Night also marked a critical development regarding the Aria-Pattern. A cell dedicated to Aria-Pattern research was established on the outskirts of Manhattan, to take advantage of the area’s incredible power-supply. One of the researchers, Lotus Mcleer was running tests with the pattern during the impact-event. Presumably the sheer volume of Membrance-activity was enough to supercharge the pattern’s growth in her system. Rather than spread word of what had happened or risk the neural surge associated with killing her, Lotus’s fellow researchers transported her to the other side of the country and left her in Redding, California hoping that the brain-damage would render her harmless for the rest of her life. A report to the central depository helped dissuade any Formers presence in the West Range Federation.

In 2067 with the help of a Fallen Vronan and several others, Lotus started regaining a limited understanding of herself and her significance to the Order. A senior agent was reduced to a feral state after a few hours of being in range of her Aria. Lotus is currently treated as the single greatest threat that Formers has.ng of herself and her significance to the Order. A senior agent was reduced to a feral state after a few hours of being in range of her Aria. Lotus is currently treated as the single greatest threat that Formers has.