Humanity enjoyed about a decade of amazing technological advances and luxuries following the discovery of Olympium. Everything from entertainment to transportation rapidly improved thanks to the seemingly limitless energy provided by this technological breakthrough. Some academics had even already started calling this new era “The Olympium Age”. However, at the end of the first decade side effects started to manifest.

Episode 0-2: The Olympium War

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By the year 2034, people started experiencing a wide range of abnormal physical symptoms which inevitably all led back to exposure to Olympium. After extensive research, it was discovered that Olympium triggers genetic mutation in a small number of humans and while mostly harmless, some of the effects of this mutation were extreme. Some human beings gained tremendous strength while others saw their bones become as bendable as rubber.

Official figures from the government estimate that between 15,000 and 30,000 individuals worldwide are likely to have some form of what they call “Olympium poisoning”. However, the genie had already been let out of the bottle -- the world-changing discovery of Olympium was considered to be too important to ban and the tremendous political leverage possessed by Zenethen assured that it would remain legal and widely available. Those who were affected with Olympium poisoning were described as ‘martyrs of human progress’ by politicians and largely tossed aside in the march towards the greater good for the rest of us.

These mutated humans soon came to be known as ‘Olympium-poisoned subjects’, or OPS for short, and the public started to panic about what their presence meant for the safety and security of the masses. While most OPS had relatively mild symptoms and were paid sizable settlements by Zenethen, some didn’t take their infection nearly as well. Some OPS developed a hatred for Zenethen or the people who could continue on with their normal lives that were enhanced by the very element that’s making them suffer.

Some of these OPS realized they could use their newly-acquired abilities for criminal activity or to strike out in anger against a society which had both cursed and discarded them. Others pledged to treat their mutations as a gift and a responsibility to both protect the public and stop criminal OPS when law enforcement was outmatched by these newly enhanced threats.

The ‘heroes’ established an officially sanctioned response force to combat the threat of criminal OPS, which came to be known as “The Council”. As the network of criminal abs grew, they too banded together to work as a team and they named themselves “The Martyrs”.

As these two forces started to clash more and more often, it kicked off the start of The Olympium War.

// To be continued in episode 0-3: The Splintering

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The SteemHeroes Story

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Prologue:

• Episode 0-1: The Discovery of Olympium