Swappernetters Wallpaper

Scene from: "Swappernetters"
Made with: "The Sims 4: Get to Work"

BACKSTORY
===========

The year is 2029. 
Setting: Arkansas, Toklisana.  Earth-G7.0.0.

Ten years have passed since Candi and her friends braved the treacherous grounds of Ameristan in search of a better life in Toklisana.  Post-American America has only gotten worse, given the Society of the Icy Finger having infiltrated the Toklisanan Government.  The Sodality of Gerosha has been torn to tatters, with the Icy Finger's plants in the government being the only real threat remaining.

Candi/Ciem and Donte/Emeraldon are now married, with a child, and on parole/probation in Waco, TX.  They may, with SCALLOP permission, resume superhero duties in limited capacity.  Otherwise, they are paying the price for being born with DNA outlawed by the draconian Kirby Act.  The McArthurs may contact the Malestroms or Lambrelli Labs personnel.  But otherwise, any contact with anyone else from the Sodality of Gerosha is strictly off the books or not at all.

With the death of Wilbur Brocklyn, the Sodality is adrift and lacking a spiritual leader.  With Donte unable to leave Texas and Candi under strict house arrest three days of every week, it is clear that the McArthurs will be grounded for Candi's remaining five years.  They may take care of Frank, but are effectively no longer Sodalists until those five years are up.

Jack and Miranda finally get married on the Apache reservation - which they must remain on until their five years are up.  The Kirby Act has a devastating impact on Malestrom Industries, which sells out to and merges with Lambrelli Labs to stay alive.  Hea Pang is under strict watch, and is no longer allowed to provide a home for her daughter Tabitha.  A new Gray Champion has been discovered - Roy Bernald.  John Domeck has vowed to train Roy in the ways of being the Gray Champion - before he ultimately forfeits his powers and retires for good.  The two Gray Champions find themselves joining the increasingly-mistrusted Navyrope Society.  Having also joined the Navyrope Society is Extirpon and his family.   

Jeral and Emily Cormier have since become SCALLOP agents, stationed in Mexico and with Emily working aboard the Chen.  The Phaletori have been beaten back, and have retreated to Phaelon.  The Phaemer Village Peacekeepers have them under control there.  One thing is clear: the Kirby Act enforcement insanity in Sodality: Vindication has left the Sodality all but completely destroyed.  Each modality has had to turn to its own devices for survival.  The Florentines are now completely cut off from contacting their Geroshan cousins. 

Yet, the heated political battle that took out the Sodality and much of the Icy Finger as well had another casualty: the Swappernetters.

The Icy Finger's plants in Arkansas wanted to repeat the mistakes of Common Core and then some, and would not tolerate any alternative to state-controlled totalitarian education.  A society, branched off from the Navyropes, dared to challenge this usurpation of power in the Earthly Governance that dared defy the Heavenly Governance.  They were the Swappernetters.  What were they?  An underground network of independent education activists.

Swappernetter society, also known as the "Sneakernet Underground," came to be seen as a sort of "black market" of education - but usually without the swapping of monetary funds.  Regular homeschooling organizations were shut down forcibly - often with tanks, rockets, and SWAT.  Until Lex Philippine could acquire a means to finance SCALLOP independently of the government, he dared not risk the ramifications of giving the Sodality permission to reconvene while they were on parole, just to start a revolution.  So grounded for now, they remained.  The Swappernetters were broken into three camps: parents, "professors," and "apprentices."  Parents would choose a professor that they trusted, a man who was more tour guide than traditional teacher.  These mentors would take on apprentices until the apprentices were old enough to become professors themselves.  Instead of meeting in traditional classrooms, each apprentice was taught that the whole world was a classroom.

Emphasis in learning was on God first, and Do-It-Yourself knowledge of the world second.  This was viewed as imperative to counteract the slavery-in-all-but-name and sexual addiction being taught to children by the Icy Finger's plants.  As usual, however, totalitarians tolerate zero dissent to their education model's priorities, and have little tolerance for anything outside the Prussian model.  Sneakernet Underground members would soon have to live up to the "underground" part of their name, as operating freely meant painting targets on their backs. 

Teen apprentices were often given more responsibilities than the younger ones, including fetching mail and performing various odd jobs for the professors to keep professors out of the public limelight.  They often dressed like they were homeless regardless of actual income.  They were picky to scrub the reality of their lifestyle in order to improve their odds of finding jobs outside of serving their professors and aiding their parents.  They would swap their information - including entire textbooks - to one another on flash drives.  These exchanges often took place in alleyways, thus earning them the name "Swappernetters."  Police were told to treat Swappernetters the same as drug dealers, since the back-alley exchanges looked like drug deals from a distance anyway.

IN THIS SCENE
===========

With so many families at stake from an increasingly oppressive government in Arkansas, the Swappernetter teen apprentices started behaving less like traditional students and more like vigilantes.  They adopted a sort of "Robin Hood" mentality, maintaining a very shaky peace with local police while attempting to avoid confrontation with bloodthirsty state and federal officials.

Tobias Reno in particular has grown nervous.  He has witnessed friends of his being murdered, and others being sent wrongly to prison on the pretense of being murdered.  He himself was technically a fugitive, having escaped from SCALLOP custody during the Kirby Act mess.  However, Lex has made pursuit of Tobias a low priority. 

His friend Sarah Ruben was sent to a juvenile prison for three years for helping an injured professor avoid capture back in 2026.  She was discovered in the debris of a demolished building, after stopping her professor's bleeding and helping him escape over a fence.  She stayed behind to distract law enforcement.  Due to her inactive Phexo Leaper DNA, she was permitted to go to SCALLOP Juvenile Containment Center - until the Icy Finger destroyed it.  She was one of only around 10 children to escape the center alive, another 400 having been gassed to death.  However, she later turned herself in and was sent to a regular juvenile center. 

After three years, Sarah was to be released onto the streets to fend for herself.  Instead, she was kidnapped and dropped behind enemy lines in Ameristan so that the krockodil-addicted Affadidah troops could come for her.  Having no stomach for the Muslim psuedo-zombie apocalypse that Affadidah started, Sarah was able to smuggle her way back into Arkansas with help from former-SCALLOP-agent-turned-fugitive Shaniqua Tamery.  Sarah rejoins with Tobias, and the two agree: it's time to start planting the seeds for a revolution.

The two are not alone.  When the Gray Champion battled Eqquibus many many years ago, his sidekick Hea Pang conceived a child with would-be SCALLOP agent Kyle Medsor, the latter of whom was killed by Eqquibus during the battle.  That child conceived inside Hea would become Tabitha Pang, who was homeschooled most of her life and was among the sweetest and most innocent children anyone knew.  That is, until just a few months shy of her 13th birthday.  Due to the Kirby Act, Hea was declared a fugitive simply due to her ties to the Gray Champion.  Which meant that upon Hea's capture, Tabitha found herself homeless and terrified of being abducted by CPS.  However, the Icy Finger sent troops after her instead.  Her efforts to get away, however, got her arrested.

Tabby helped Sarah and a few others escape the SJCC alive when the Icy Finger terrorists raided it.  However, she also stole a car and shot a terrorist's hand off.  With her innocence shattered, her heroism was rewarded by a judge reducing her 30-year potential sentence to a 3-year sentence.  Tabby and Sarah were cellmates from 2026-2029, and were finally to be released together.  However, they were also abducted together.  Sarah is surprised by how quickly Tabby adapts to Sarah's life as a Swappernetter.  Yet, Tabby realizes something the others don't: they will need to be faster than the law and its bullets if they wish to see Swappernetter society survive.

Since Tabby can no longer live with Hea per restrictions on Hea, she makes her visit to her mom short.  Hea agrees to the children that they need to pay Marge "Mapacha del Feugo" Ramirez a visit - and take her powers.  Anna Ramirez, Marge's adoptive mother and the at-the-time bearer of Hester's Locket, agrees to this as well.  Anna drives the kids to see Marge, and Marge has her powers transferred into Tabby and her friends.  Dispersed amongst the three of them, none of them will move as fast as Mapacha once did.  However, they also don't have to worry about catching things on fire as she did.  Mapacha covers for the crew as they depart from their heist, happy to finally retire permanently from being a superhero.

The new Marlquaanites soon set to work to free Arkansas from its oppressors, realizing that quick wit and divine favor will have to sustain them in a post-Sodality world.  Sure, they have two Gray Champions, hundreds of Navyropes, and Extirpon to aid them if things get too out-of-control.  Yet, they must strive to use these backup resources as seldom as possible.  This was no longer an era of superheroes, villains, and monsters.  This was an era of patriots and tyrants.  And the Swappernetters were ready, flash-drives-in-hand, to answer the call.

NOTE
==========

This is the first Gerosha Chronicles canon story in Earth-G7 to have been made originally in The Sims 4.  The first Dozerfleet property to truly originate in Sims 4 is Citric Sid.  While work with Sims 4 will proceed as the game improves with patches and mods, Sims 3 (and even Sims 2 in some instances) will not go away just yet.  Most high-end work for Sodality and Phaemer Village Peacekeepers will still be in Sims 3.  And for now, nearly all Q-Basic Gorillas concept artwork will also be made in that game.