Prelude to the Decline

Part 1

The Prelude

It hadn’t come as a surprise, the steady decline and descent into a scarcity of resources and overseas shipments.
With no money left in the government coffers it was up to the people to look to their own defences and needs.
What tools and parts necessary were made from locally fabricated places. The oil and gas still flowed. But life got a lot harder when the road wars began. With the armies overseas and an ineffectual rear-party echelon remaining at home the threads of civilisation were thin indeed.

Times were already tough but the scarcity of food and clean water in the cities saw the collapse of law and order. With too many outbreaks of social breakdown there the police moved to enclaves on the outskirts. Places where the few could shelter and be fed. Power shortages had gone from being occasional, to perpetual and added to the breakdown of ‘the system’
It started with various gangs at first, robbing vulnerable motorists in areas they’d have to slow down in.
Then with little to fear from a population which largely relied on a slow police response it was a criminals and anarchists paradise.
After several months of this, the term ‘wreckers’ came into prominence to describe the violent marauding bands. Looters were rampant in the cities while strange reports of a rogue army unit on the rampage spread like wild-fire.