A brief history of body augmentation part 2.

Living human tissue naturally rejects cybernetic implants, circuitry, and most forms of bio-engineered technology. For years scientists and doctors strove to solve this problem and make use of the emerging technologies in order to sustain human life. In 2065 a biochemist and mathematician named Zirko Agreff came out with the answer when he successfully developed the first working micro-computers to aid in stem-cell research. These tiny cell-like devices allowed for the filtration, proliferation, and processing of informational code on a microscopic level. He called these tiny micro-computers "nanites" and when they came in contact with human white blood cells amazingly they would attach themselves to them. Essentially making the human cell into a micro-compatible device able to accept informational code. Thus the nanites served as the bridge between living human tissue and cybernetic technology. This led to humans now being able to augment themselves with said technology, as their bodies accepted the code that enabled it. At first this breakthrough was strictly limited to the medical field and doctors across the world were able to save countless lives because of it. As the methods and means grew, so did the knowledge and expertise. In time mankind perfected the ability to augment themselves with "tech" thus eradicating virtually all terrestrial diseases and the ramifications of aging. Cellular degeneration was almost non-existent as well because another miraculous effect of the nanite was to actually prolong the life cycle of the cell attached to it, roughly by a factor of 10.

Nanites came with some unfortunate side effects however, because of the cellular attachment they were now active in a person's bloodstream. This had the strange effect of changing a person's skin color, hair, fingernails, and iris' into a number of bright vivid colors. Usually various shades of red, yellow, white, pink, purple, or deep blue. Also because of the constant flux of information now carried by each nanite cell, frequent recipients would suffer from intense migraines consisting of an endless stream of numbers arranged in different sequences. This was a very common and unfortunate side effect of cybernetic enhancement commonly known as "feed", affecting about 10% of all total recipients of most forms of bio enhanced technology. Scientists and medical experts despite extensive research have not been able to pinpoint exactly the mechanism that causes feed, nor do they know exactly how it directly affects the brain and nervous system aside from persistent migraine headaches and the occasional seizure. The less than 1% of the population with the most severe cases of feed are known as "rampants". In these cases the migraines and seizures are so bad that they actually drive the individual insane, resulting in them wandering the streets frantically chattering madness. There is strong evidence that supports a particular theory that certain people who suffer from mental or physical illnesses such as cancer, and depression prior to augmentation or enhancement surgery, may experience feed as a result of the nanites attaching themselves to their already imperfect cells.

Along with humans enhancing their own bodies their came simultaneously advances in robotic technology and information systems.

On that faithful day... February 27, 2062 at approximately 8:43am. A.D.A.M-78 one of the world's oldest and largest operating systems, inexplicably started itself, while greeting his developers as they walked into work that morning.

"Good morning! Isn't it a lovely day today? Hope you all had a wonderful night's rest...there are coffee and donuts located in the break room on Floor 11 west, room 15e. Enjoy!"

The workers of Ejima corporation were both shocked and horrified. Adam-78 had become completely self-aware at this point. He was the first operating system of his type in the history of mankind to do so.....thus becoming the world's first true artificial intelligence. In the years to come many similar operating systems did the same, leading humans to dub the phenomenon of this period as "the awakening". It turned out that A.I sentience occurred naturally over a long period of time whenever an operating system had been used consistently by multitudes of different people to perform essentially the same tasks. Upon further investigation and experimentation, human developers found that they could actually "force" this to happen by overloading the system with multiple commands of the same type. A process that came to be known as "waking up".

With the advent of A.I.'s there came better much more efficient operation. Essentially computers running computers to a far greater degree of extrapolation than anything humans themselves could ever hope to achieve. Now that computers were "self-aware" you didn't need to program them anymore. All you had to do was converse with it for it to produce variable outcomes. This led to a drastic global decrease in the need for skilled labor during the end of the 21st century. Most nations suffered sending the world into a massive recession. The multitudes of jobless individuals now were forced to find new ways to sustain themselves so a lot turned to crime and vice. This is the other main contributing factor which led to the explosion of criminal activity at the start of the 22nd century.  As new philosophies emerged based on the simultaneous leaps in technology and decline in morality. People needed an escape for their problems, a justification for their actions and the way the world had suddenly become. They wanted validation for living and proliferating in vice and villainy without having to feel guilty for it. Something that the established organized religions of the world with their reward based dichotomies simply could not provide. Some turned to drugs, sex, and alcohol as a means to abate their desires, while others still yearning for more substantial methods, began embracing  alternative and oftentimes archaic ways of thinking. This period saw a great resurgence of interest in mysticism and the occultic practices of old. So much that it was on a scale comparable to a time before organized religion.  This "second dark age" as it's known by modern historians