Liberty City, the most advanced, powerful and feared megalopolis. Liberty City, the fallen paradise. Liberty City, the cradle of the Idos.
Liberty City marked the beginning of the construction of megacities. Compared to other cities of gargantuan size, its walls only surrounded the old city of New York and a small part of its surrounding area. However, its dimensions should not be misleading. It was the city that began its existence with a more advanced level of technology, quickly reaching the peak of its evolution within the hermetic walls that protected it. And it did not hesitate to use force against other megacities when it deemed it appropriate, even annihilating the neighbouring countries of Cuba and Venezuela during its construction, considering them latent threats to its future security. It wiped the megalopolis of Maple Leaf City off the map, whose only mistake was to be built too close. Liberty City destroyed it with two devastating thermonuclear attacks before its example of a communist-hippie society could spread to any other city.
However, within the megalopolis, things were much less interesting. The inhabitants of Liberty City were free from any work or life goals. Everything was automated, programmed, planned and mechanically covered by the ruling council so that the inhabitants simply had to enjoy their lives. But an idle, jaded and aimless society becomes a decadent, apathetic and dangerous society. It was increasingly common to find inhabitants engaging in extreme activities that brought some kind of excitement to their lives. Extreme sports, mass sex marathons, clandestine fights to the death… The problem became so serious that the council decided to convert the old island of Manhattan into a kind of prison-asylum-reserve to lock up repeat offenders and those considered lost causes, fencing off its entire perimeter. It was a place without guards or caretakers, where those locked up would have to fend for themselves in a kind of isolated micro-society within the Megalopolis itself. This place would become known as Carpenter Island.
But just when it seemed that the problem was beginning to be brought under control, Ambrosia, a highly potent designer psychotropic drug, burst onto the scene like a wrecking ball. Its origin is uncertain and unknown, but some say it was introduced into the megacity by an external agent interested in its downfall.
Its expansion was meteoric, as it initially provided exactly what these people needed. This drug somehow heightened the senses, allowing its users to experience sensations again. A gathering with friends became genuinely enjoyable again, sex was no longer routine, your hobbies filled you with joy, your child’s simple smile lit up your life… But its effect was not very long-lasting, and the emotional void caused by its absence was terrible. Not only that, but with continued use, increasingly extreme and terrible actions were required to continue feeling its effects. Those who enjoyed sex began to need BDSM, then real violence, and finally the need to torture and murder in order to become aroused. The city began to fill with psychopathic murderers, torturers, cannibals… It is difficult to describe the true brutality that became increasingly common in the city. At first, these acts were sporadic and secret, and most of the time, Ambrosia users seemed like ordinary people, but over time it became more difficult for them to maintain a mask of normality until they were unable to restrain themselves under any circumstances.
With law enforcement overwhelmed, maintenance neglected, and the population in a permanent state of paranoia or extreme madness, the city fell into total anarchy. Ambrosia users, now known as the Gone, formed groups that murdered, raped, and mutilated anyone they encountered. The strongest groups, which were increasingly distant from humanity, wiped out the weaker ones. It is impossible to describe in words the horrors that took place during those months. But amid all the chaos and destruction, something logical happened: Ambrosia finally began to run out. The former suppliers were dead or had fled, and the Idos’ perception of reality was already too altered for them to work in a laboratory to create more. Even so, harvesters emerged from their ranks, who were able to achieve a similar, albeit less lasting, effect by extracting liquid directly from the hypothalamus of their prey. The more terrified they were, the more powerful the effect.
It was at that moment, once Liberty City had been reduced to a shattered city, and there were no more victims or challenges within its walls, that the terror of these savage remnants, their minds ravaged by Ambrosia, made its way to the Wasteland. Ironically, within the walls of Carpenter Island, free from the influence of the drug and completely isolated from the outside world, it seems that they were unaffected.
The Idos now roam the Puentechatarra area, where they have found a new batch of victims to satisfy their deranged desires and from whom to extract new doses of this Ambrosia.
But there is something else that is even more worrying. Although from the outside they may seem like a bunch of lunatics who simply follow their instincts, little by little they have formed something resembling a society. At the top is the one known as Mother, for whom the others feel a kind of almost divine devotion, and who, to everyone’s fear, seems to have a plan for her “children”.
Although the Idos groups are not very numerous, since most of them exterminated each other in Megalopolis itself, incredible as it may seem, they are ‘recruiting’ new members to their ranks. From time to time, when they raze a settlement, they leave some of its inhabitants alive and force them to watch all the horrors they commit against their acquaintances and relatives. They are then tortured, abused, raped, and forced to commit terrible acts. Most end up committing suicide or becoming babbling shells, but a few have their minds changed and go from being prey to predators, becoming part of the Idos.
Furthermore, it is unclear whether due to the mutagenic conditions of the Páramo or the new way of obtaining Ambrosía, some of the Idos have begun to transform, as if the beast within them were also manifesting itself on the outside, turning them into nightmarish beasts.
