Following the failure of President McAllister's office to prevent the abduction and mass murder of two classes of high schoolers, the Democratic party found itself with a large drop in support as the 2016 election approached. Concerns for public safety were at an all-time high, and McAllister was widely seen as impotent at delivering this.
In response to this, the Republican party fielded Jarod Canon as their candidate. Canon was a long-time political activist and runner of his own radio show, "It's Canon". The show was known for quickly jumping on McAllister's shortcomings and failings as a president, whilst also hosting intensely heated discussions, with Jarod often dominating these talks with his powerful voice and intense opinions. The Democrats' nominee, businesswoman and civic lawyer Constance "Connie" Massey, was generally seen as too safe and moderate a candidate in the face of McAllister's failures, especially with the 2016 election happening in the aftermath of yet another SOTF incident.
Jarod's platform cantered largely around national defence, vowing to stop local terrorism and other incidents of mass violence. Given Jarod's experience in the radio industry, he had no trouble saying just the right thing to get the crowds riled up and looking for safety. Whilst some of his more extreme policy suggestions were ridiculed, such as dedicated military escorts for school buses, the inability of the Democratic party to field a potent counter led to Jarod Canon taking office in 2017 without much difficulty.
Since then, his presidency has been quite controversial, due to his aggressive policy making and blunt manner of diplomacy. Public funding for police forces and military has increased, but opponents insist that it has come at the unnecessary expense of areas like healthcare and education.
- The year in V7 is 2018. Pregame spans the spring semester, from the first day (January fifth) until the kidnapping, which we would anticipate to take place sometime between late April and early June.[/li]
- For the most part, SOTF follows along with the real world. Disasters, terrorist attacks, recessions, fashion trends, film releases, etc. are all the same as IRL. Note that as pregame is beginning in the future, we ask that people refrain from inventing events taking place in the wider world, to maintain consistency going forward.
- SOTF has not recurred since 2015, but the government remains on high alert, continuing to maintain a man-hunt for its orchestrators. Whilst this has yet to make significant progress, there has been more demand for international cooperation in this area, which has been spearheaded by Canon. After V6's occurrence confirmed that SOTF is once again active and falling back into a pattern, Interpol finally launched an investigation with the interest of finding and apprehending the personnel behind it. This is not yet public knowledge, so as to avoid security leaks and risks to the investigating team.
- Senior trips continue to be uncommon occurrences due to SOTF. Schools that do continue to run them tend to do so as a protest against terrorism, but also have come to expect rigorous security and protection when conducting them, though this is not always possible.
- Recordings of SOTF still circulate online, primarily through torrents and sites akin to LiveLeak. The cultural status of the recordings is roughly equivalent to graphic execution footage. It is accessible easily enough, but carries a serious stigma, and the government still makes periodic efforts to shut down host sites, and there are periodic rumors that looking it up is a great way to land on FBI watchlists.
- SOTF as any sort of merchandising presence is gone, outside of a few fringe/counter-culture elements (the occasional punk or noise band looking to stir controversy with the cover of an EP, for example). There's very little remaining of the (already quite niche) more mainstream merchandise that once existed, with the bulk of it recalled or acquired and then destroyed; what does remain, however, is considered collection material among certain elements.
- STAR as an organization hasn't been heard from since the events of June 2015, and details regarding the fates of any surviving individuals have not been released to the public, due to the sensitive nature of ongoing government negotiations. Conspiracy theories on STAR's exact nature and possible surviving factions still abound.
- There are a number of local memorials, especially in the areas affected by the kidnappings, and there is a national acknowledgement replete with speeches every year around the anniversary of the incidents.
- Battle Royale and The Hunger Games still do not exist in the SOTF universe, nor do derivative works. Plase don't reference them in-character.
- If your character has any notable experience with SOTF clips/footage, it should be in their profile and should be closely considered and justified--the days of SOTF fandom are long past by the time these characters are at an appropriate age to be aware of such things, and being a "fan" of SOTF is like being a fan of beheading videos.
- If you have any reason to reference SOTF continuity within posts, a good rule of thumb is as follows: Anything from V4 or V5 is fair game unless it's blatantly impossible. Anything from V1-3 is true in broad brushstrokes (names of killers and victims, kill counts and death order, who won, etc.) but anything that would not be acceptable by today's standards (coming from Arkham Asylum, pregame murders, etc.) should not be referenced.
