Bloom-Tides

Praise the Gifts from Above!

Every part of human life in the Beneath depends on their ancient clone-labs and the artificial wombs within. Settlements work tirelessly to keep them in as good repair as they can, to placate the machine-spirits within, and feed them with the raw biomass needed to fuel the birth of clones. This cycle determines days, weeks, months, decades, and centuries of human life within the catacomb-like tunnels of the Beneath. It is a life of constant struggle and shortage, but sometimes, the heavens smiles upont he poor and downtrodded human-clones.

The Bloom-Tide are irregular phenomena of unknown origin where the biomass that usually trickles down from the Above turns into a flood. Discarded food, waste, corpses (human and otherwise, whole or in parts), clothes, bits and pieces, industrial waste... All of is spills down into the Beneath from seeming random access-ports that connect the Beneath to the Below, but some are more regular than others. Entire city-states have wagered their existance by placing themselves beneath such ports, living and dying by the grace of the Bloom-Tide.

A single Bloom-Tide can ensure the survival of a clone-kingdom for years or even decades... Or kill it. Sometimes, the heavens generosity knows no bounds, and they end up drowning the recipients of their gifts in a tidal wave of random matter. Still, where one dies, others can pick over the corpse and the tide in one for a once-in-a-generation bounty.

As much as it is a time of bounty, it's also a time of conflict. Those near the emergance of a Bloom-Tide stake their claim and fight tooth and nail to keep it from those who come to take it from them. War and blood follows in the wake of a Bloom-Tide, as everyone wants a part of the gifts of Above.

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Bloom-Tides are the result of sewage and waste overflow from the civilizations of the Above. When the junkyards and cesspits grow too bloated, or when some magistrate decide it is time, they dump the slurry of garbage, food, discarded items, and all the rest down into the Below. Out of sight, out of mind, although some magistrates know enough about the chittering vermin (humans, that is) Below to know they are feeding them. Some places deliberately feed some clone-kingdoms to keep other, more aggressive humans at bay, while others try a variety of bio-toxins and engineered plagues mixed into the Bloom to try and eradicate them. Humans see these too as great gifts, as they've always been able to turn these weapons into additional features for their cloning-vats.