The world is recovering from years of pandemics followed by a declining population. The tide of national power has swung back to the old world with France ascendant among the nations. The older world powers are not happy, particularly the USA which has become more authoritarian, and China. The French advantage is their high investment in new technologies. However, some of these are beginning to 'get away' from them. Numerous protest groups have formed, some of them violent. Even with this background of violence the French continue to make astounding progress in nanotechnology particular in medical and military augmentation applications. The progress blends in with other activity involving biologically grown artificial intelligence. The two come together to herald in The Chaos times.
