Horizon-1

After the apocalypse, humanity struggles to survive in a lush world populated by runaway vegetation and small animals, fending off strange advanced machines that protect and tend to the ruins of the ancient world.

Type: Blossom

Active Characters

Aloy

Overview

    Set a thousand years after a swarm of rampaging machines killed all life on Earth, Horizon is a world where a rebirth has begun. Plants have overgrown ancient ruins, small animals are flourishing, and humanity has emerged from machine-tended nurseries to form primitive societies, watched over by machines in the shape of long-extinct animals.

    This primitive world surviving on the scraps of the ancient one is now merging with the World Tree. Suddenly, the world has a chance to rediscover the wonders lost by the mistakes of the ancients. The Sun King Avad of the Carja preaches caution, attempting to study and integrate such wonders slowly, while the Oseram to the north experiment more recklessly. The Nora savages argue if these gifts are a heresy to be rejected or a boon from the All-Mother, and the power-hungry Eclipse have united with the remnants of the rebellious and bloodthirsty Shadow Carja in grasping any destructive powers they can, slowly rebuilding their power base.

    It is a world where tradition and fear of the mistakes of old battle with the need to advance and understand. A world where the caretakers of the planet, the machines, have been driven insane with Derangement that could take years to fix.

Machines

    The Machines of Horizon are terraformers, but their guidance is glitchy and has not yet been repaired. It may take years to fully repair it. In the meantime they are confronted with integration with the World Tree, a concept that their limited minds cannot comprehend without guidance from the central AI that has been destroyed.

    When confronted with unfamiliar beings or concepts, the machines tend to attack. When they encounter pollution or uninhabitable terrain, they enter into terraforming mode and attempt to cleanse the air and soil, which may involve setting up a local base - a Cauldron - that manufactures more machines. While this is good for the environment in general, their faulty programming means they regard large animals, unfamiliar creatures, and humans as threats. This makes them dangerous to deploy on other worlds that have different biospheres.