Survival Of The Fittest

Hello, everyone. With the opening of V8 Pregame approaching, it's time for an update on the state of the SOTF world:

Despite President Canon's campaign promise to stop the activities of the Arthro Taskforce, he failed to prevent the abduction and mass murder of yet another class of high schoolers, this time from the nations capital. This failure combined with a general public distaste for Canon's aggressive policy making, blunt manner of diplomacy, and numerous controversies, and Canon soon found himself losing significant support among independent and moderate voters. This would only worsen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which swept the United States in early 2020, leading to lockdowns and a massive economic downturn that would be blamed squarely on Canon himself. This was followed shortly thereafter by a nationwide eruption of civil unrest in response to police brutality against African-Americans, with anti-racism protests occurring in every major city around the country. Canon's response to this was to decry of protestors as rioters and implement a brutal crackdown using the national guard, which only ended up losing him further support and bolstering his opposition.

In an effort to regain approval among independent and moderate voters, Canon proceeded to implement a number of nationwide measures to contain the pandemic with joint support from both the Democrat and Republican parties, such as limited social gatherings and mandatory mask wearing in public places. These actions ended up successfully limiting the spread of the virus within the United States, and as a result of this success and the later release and rapid deployment of the vaccine, life has mostly returned to normal as of early spring 2021. Quarantine restrictions have been lifted in most areas, but the virus continues to circulate in some parts of the USA, primarily in denser cities with low vaccination rates. Some measures still remain in place to prevent further outbreaks, such as limited international travel, mask wearing for those unable to be inoculated, and recommended self-quarantine for anyone displaying symptoms. Some aspects of life have yet to entirely return to normal, with many major movie releases in particular being forthcoming due to massive production delays caused by the pandemic.

While Canon did successfully contain the pandemic, this victory came at the cost of receiving significant backlash from his primary support base in the wake of the measures for, as they viewed it, compromising with Democrats and restricting American freedom. Taking advantage of this drop in support, the Democratic party fielded former President McAllister's former Vice President, Delaware Senator Charles Kirby, as their candidate for the 2020 election, promising a return to normalcy and an end to the political polarization left behind in Canon's wake. To go along with this and in response to the anti-racism protests that dominated much of the year, Kirby nominated Marisa D'Cruz, an African-American California Senator, as his own Vice President. These nominations ended up facing significant criticism from the party's progressive wing, due to Kirby being an older man known for his more moderate policies in comparison to the rest of the Democratic party, along with controversies surrounding D'Cruz's actions during her time as District Attorney of San Francisco. Despite that, however, Kirby and D'Cruz ended up winning several key states during the 2020 election, and successfully ousted Canon from the White House. Not enough time has passed yet for the success (or lack thereof) of Kirby's presidency to be evaluated by the American public, but many are relieved to no longer have Canon holding the most powerful position in the American government.

• The year in V8 is 2021. Pregame spans the autumn semester, from the first day (September 1st) until the kidnapping, which will take place sometime during early December.
• Pregame will be taking place in Salem, Massachusetts, and students will be attending John Endecott Memorial Academy. More detailed information about the school will be provided when V8 applications open.
• 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 2018, but the government remains on high alert, continuing to maintain a manhunt for its orchestrators, and currently cooperating with the ongoing investigation from Interpol that first began in the wake of V6. Whilst none of the perpetrators have yet been apprehended, the government believes that they are closer than ever before to catching them and bringing them to justice.
• Senior trips have all but disappeared nationwide in the wake of V7, as a result of SOTF. Very few schools continue to run them even out of protest against terrorism, and the few that do receive extremely rigorous security and protection provided directly by the US government when possible. In particular, John Endecott Memorial Academy has cancelled its end of year trips, and is instead running winter trips for seniors. Bayview Secondary School and Aurora High School continue to hold the trips out of tradition, while Cochise High School and George Hunter High School have discontinued them. Other field trips continue to occur unabated and so far without incident.
• The fate of the known survivors of the 2015 destruction of STAR is still in limbo, as negotiations between the United States and foreign governments holding said survivors were handicapped by Canon's strained international relations and reputation abroad. People are hopeful that Kirby, being more moderate and well-liked outside the US, will be able to move that along.
• There may also be rumors about SOTF survivors who didn't get caught up in the fall of STAR (i.e. the surviving characters who canonically left STAR or went their own way without joining up), but these are unconfirmed unless some such person chooses to come forward. If an active handler from that era wants to have their survivor do something major, they should contact the staff team with their plan to work out how that would happen, to make sure it fits with established canon.
• Recordings of SOTF continue to circulate online, primarily through torrents and sites akin to LiveLeak, being much more readily available than in years past due to a lapse in government efforts to remove them. The cultural status of the recordings is roughly equivalent to graphic execution footage. It is easily accessible, but carries a serious stigma, and the government still makes the occasional, token effort to shut down host sites, and there are periodic rumors that looking it up is a great way to land on FBI watch-lists.
• While SOTF merchandising has all but disappeared outside of a few fringe/counter-cultural groups, it has since given away to a significant number of illegal gambling rings profiting off of the incidents, many of which first began operating in the wake of V6. A few of these gambling rings have been shut down by the US government, but most remain at large, eagerly awaiting the next version of SOTF.
• There continue to be a number of local memorials, especially in the areas affected by the kidnappings. In light of the number of incidents and the total number of lives lost over the years, US Congress recognized the unofficial holiday of SOTF Remembrance Day (July 19th) as a public holiday in 2019.

If you have any questions regarding this, or other world-building questions, please PM SOTF_Help, and we will see about answering them. Please try only to address major issues in this fashion. A few other things of note:

• Battle Royale and The Hunger Games still do not exist in the SOTF universe, nor do derivative works. Please 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 onward 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.