THE 2020 BUG

By 2019, over 90% of the global population has cyberware implanted in their brain. Interfacing directly with computers has become an ordinary part of life. Communication, payment, art, everything is done in-network all thanks to Cerebranetic motherboards. Installation at birth is standard practice across most of the world. On January 1st, 00.00.00.00 GMT, 2020, every single one of those chips initiated a process which has since been dubbed ‘The 2020 Bug’. 

In that moment each user experienced extreme, burning pain in their skull that lasted exactly 60 seconds. Side-effects, outside of this initial shared event, are wide-ranging and still developing to this day. For the majority of people, the worst lingering impact of this phenomenon was the harrowing memory, many had more serious injuries simply from collapsing or traffic collisions during the blinding pain. But for some people the chips in their head had caused a permanent change in the molecular construct of their brain. 

Tens of millions of people didn’t survive this process, and many others were left with permanent brain damage. However, a small percentage of the overall affected were left with a brain that functioned in a way it never had before, some of these changes resulted in the rise of entire new subspecies of the human race. One of these altered-human species is the Homo-Mantodea, a portion of the population whose minds began replacing their cells with those more akin to insects, resulting in vibrant insectoid forms. Another group of altered-humans spontaneously developed a singular, shared consciousness, generally going by the name Arnold Wayne. 

Now, in 2023, the world has largely recovered from The 2020 Bug. No similar incident has ever occurred on a global level, and broadly, the altered-humans formed in the event have remained contributing members of society. While many wild theories circulate the incident, no cause has ever been determined. However, investigation into how these computers were able to affect the brain so profoundly, has led to rapid advancements in Cerebranetic technologies and a deeper understanding of our own minds.