Background for Chumbe Bandia

What is the Industrial States Trust?

In Chumbe Bandia, the Industrial States Trust, or simply, IT, is the name of an alliance of economically powerful and highly technological countries who, before the war, ruled the global economy. Most of the world’s multinational corporations had their head offices in these countries. Their sphere of influence contained most of Africa, India and South America. Over past forty years, in this timeline, the military, economic, environmental and political policies of this block has alienated a significant portion of the global populace.

What is the Bioregional Progress?

This alliance originally started as a political philosophy espoused by certain eco-terrorists, labor agitators and, later, militants fighting against colonial rule. In several ways the ideology corresponds to that followed by the Unibomber, the Khemer Rouge and the Shining Path. Its strange mixture of totalitarian socialism, xenophobic nationalism and deep ecology drove revolutionaries to overthrow governments in the developing world. Before the war, the sphere of influence of the BP bloc contained Europe, North Asia and a growing portion of the newly independent North American counties. It should be made clear that even though Bioregionalist thought contains several strongly anti-technological themes, the BP nations are unafraid to use any technology to achieve their ends, and invest heavily in military research.

What is the Commonwealth of Independent States?

This loose alliance arose in response to the polarizing of the world between the Industrial Trust and Bioregionalists. It is a small number of neutral counties in the regions of Australia, Oceania, North America, Europe and Asia.

What does Zombie mean?

The Czech loan word, robot, doesn’t exist in the world of Chumbe Bandia. In this world, the meaning of the West African word, zombie, evolved from its origins in African myth to mean the same thing as robot means in our world. In Chumbe Bandia, zombie means exactly the same thing as robot–a machine that does the work of a human being.

Why is game called Chumbe Bandia?

Chumbe bandia [pronounced choom-bay bahnd-ee-ah] is Swahili and it means, literally, “creatures of a synthetic nature.” I was the closest I could come to finding an expression, after combing the African language sites, that meant something similar to the expression artificial life without using loan words. The Era Chumbebandia might be best translated as the Synthozoic Era

Who is Shango and What is Shango Station?

Shango is a sky god among the Yoruba. Sometimes called the “Lord of Lightning,” he is known to be god of victory and male virility. As such he is often found as a nickname on military hardware such as tanks, planes, smart bombs and powered exoskeletons.

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