Several things happened by 2060. Nanotechnology and cool fusion, the promised twin gods of science, began to really take off. With virtually limitless power and manufacturing capability (albeit amongst limited material resources), society began to change drastically. When the asteroid mining machines began to pay off, what limits existed began to melt away.

In 2063, a nanomedicine, under development for nearly twenty years, came to fruition. It did not cure, however. It preserved. True longevity came into the grasp of humanity, along with near immunity to disease and toxin, and rapid healing from injury. And it was cheap. But not reliable - human testing was still forbidden fruit, and its flexibility was the source of error-causing complexity. But no one could resist its siren song, and so roughly one in fifty people who took it suffered from immortality rejection syndrome, the result of which was death.

By 2069, social warfare sprang out as the government attempted to clamp control on the potion of life. With the war our civilization, as all things must, collapsed into dust. The secret of eternal life fell with it, the records scattered and destroyed. Of the 11 billion humans on the planet, less than 500 million survived the collapse of the civilized food networks. Of the 2 million immortals, less than 50 thousand were not killed in the course of the war.

The collapse of civilization was not sudden. First it was riots, which broke out slowly, almost lazily, over the course of two years. Increasingly harsh measures were instituted in the cities where the riots broke out, and an escalation of violence built up across the nations. Those nations not blessed with the good will of the USA began acts of terrorism, demanding to be allowed access to the potion. Denials only served to increase their fervor.

The turning point is sometimes considered New York, where citizens, spurred by the Net and increasingly violent city life, surged into the streets to protest (often violently, taking out their frustration with the government on administrative buildings and store fronts. The citizens plus the some three million non-residents who had flowed into the city to take part in the protest swiftly became too much for the police to handle non-violently... then became too much even after the police began using "temporary" nerve gas, sonic screamers and finally guns. The military moved in to assist in holding back the surging mobs and then, over the next forty-eight hours, city after city began to riot in similar manner.

Suddenly, news stations were reporting from the field that people felt betrayed by the government. It was not specifically stated, but there was no going back. War had begun.

Enough of the military deserted their posts to help put up a fight. The rest fought to supress the will of the people, and the USA began to tear itself apart.

Other nations began to attack the USA, only to discover that USA troops were more than happy to turn their guns outward as well. World War II had begun. WWIII lasted for six years as the USA collapsed into itself, slowly losing the resources to pound other nations into the dirt. By the end of the six years, the face of the world had changed.

Industry had been largely destroyed. Travel range had been reduced to approximately 100 miles. Short wave radio was the primary method of communication. The most educated regions, the centers of civilizations, were by and large smoking holes in the landscape. Most of the planet had been bombed into primitive conditions.

With the change in available transport and central hubs, food became largely unavailable. Most towns had sufficient reserves for a few weeks... but no one was willing to ship more to the towns. Everyone was in the same shape. Smaller wars consisting of pitched battles broke out on the local scale everywhere. Many people died.

Over the next year, more people died of starvation than bullets. And then winter came, and still more died of starvation, exposure and loss of will.

With the most educated centers reduced to rubble, their technologists and researchers with them, recovery was not easily possible, and no one had the resources to pursue the harder path at the time.

Gradually, the power stations died, and the people that survived lived off the country.

Over the next five years, the survivors formed small local governments and defenses. Farming communities became somewhat ascendant, usually under the protection of some would be general and his group of gun-happy survivalists, or a local militia of roughnecks, or just a rebel military company. Some regions were more organized than others - several military camps near farmland formed veritable city-states. Others were even less organized, and became bandit territories.

By the end of the five years, these microstates had stabilized somewhat, and slowly began to repair the damage to the land wrought by the war. With reduced technology this was harder, and measured in decades rather than months as it might once have been.

Gradually, the initial impetus to "rebuild the civilized world" dies down. A generation comes and goes.

2100

Solar energy is the power source for things requiring electricity. Gasoline is scarce enough that people simply can not afford to drive cars or run generators except in dire straits. Batteries are similarly scarce. This scarcity only worsens as time rolls on.