Taos
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| Taos | ||
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| Location | New Mexico | |
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History
History Before P-Day
Taos had a long and storied history dating back well before it was incorporated as an official town of New Mexico. It was most famously the home of an art colony and the Taos Society of Artists. While its history was rich, the town was a fairly unassuming destination with tourism being one of the only major sources of income.
While there was talk of opening a datacenter nearby, talks with the city ultimately fell through. In no small irony, the data center would have been a hub for what would eventually turned into a bubble server. As this did not happen, however, the city continued to live a fairly quiet existence up until February of 2008.
During P-Day
While it is not entirely certain why the town was spared the worst of the effects of nanites, current theories estimate that a combination of factors helped shield the town from severe nanite infection. The first is that despite having a fairly decent population, the closest nanite server let alone major city was 100 miles away in Albuquerque. The second is that with the Rio Grande running along one side of the city and mountain ranges in all other directions, mutants would have had reason to go around rather than through the population center. Finally, because of its geography and the weather at the time of the event, wind did not serve to aid the distribution of nanites to the region as rapidly as it otherwise might have.
Regardless, when P-Day occurred, the sudden loss of communication with the outside world and loss of power not long after led to panic among the residents. As the city was fairly reliant on importing necessities, the writing seemed to be on the wall that simply waiting and sheltering in place wasn't going to be a long term strategy. Over the next week and a half, a large number of the population fled the city leaving very few behind. However, after that point, a large caravan made up of primarily human survivors and remnants of the American military road back into town and were finally able to give the bad news.
The nanite apocalypse had begun.
For better or worse, Taos was in a fairly unique position for several reasons. The first is that due to its position by the Rio Grande, and the fact it was upriver from the only major nanite bubble directly beside it, the nanite concentration within it was fairly low and simple water treatment was enough to allow for safe consumption. The second was that the military presence that moved in were able to make a very secure parameter around the town at strategic choke points which made defending against inevitable mutant incursions far easier than it might have otherwise been. And while many of those returning to the town were themselves mutated, for better or worse, they were able to hang onto their humanity. While there was certainly fear of what they had become, more immediate threats made the presence of (albeit sane) mutants a begrudging necessity.
Most unique, however, was the fact the town still had children. Due to the combination of factors that led to the town's lower initial nanite concentration and more gradual increase to baseline out of bubble levels, the children who had not left the city within the first week and a half were spared the quick but gruesome death of being torn apart by nanites as seen in more populated areas.
Aftermath
The city remains fairly isolated and primarily only interacts with the outside world when the odd trader comes through town. The mutant population has remained a tiny fraction of the overall in large part due to hesitancy of trusting them. Despite the lingering distrust, however, the mutants within the town are the largest number of the city's salvaging division which helps brings in supplies from areas far too nanite riddled to be safe for humans and the uninoculated. While the town eagerly trades for inoculations when a trader happens to have them, 100% effective inoculations are hard to come by in the hands of traders which leaves mutants the safest bet to venture out.
While the city has had infrequent talks with New York to establish an outpost in the region, the eastern city's policies on mutants has always led to a half in talks. As distrusting as much of the city's population are of mutants as a whole, their complicated relationship with their own city's mutants has made it hard for New York to make quick progress in acceptance of terms.
