XV-404 Moon Crawler

A XV-404 moon crawler on the surface of Enceladus; reliable and cheap to produce, these machines were the primary transport while terraforming was in progress. They were modular by design, and could serve as flatbed transports (as seen here), mobile power plants, ECM projectors, research platforms, crew transports and more. Over 6000 were produced. Fusion powered, they used Jupiter’s endless hydrogen, which tankers scooped from the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, for fuel. With a max range of 10000 km and a living quarter module that could support up to four people for six months, they were especially popular with Solterra caravans. If the cargo container was swapped out for a cabin pod, it could comfortably support 12 people.

Jungle Rangers

A jungle ranger in the Amazon pauses to rest during a search for survivors of a crashed rocket dirigible. Unscrupulous rescuers would sometimes soak desperate lost billiars for hundreds of millions of credits. Turnabout, as they say… Note the long sensor feelers and detector drone, equipment that became common with dense jungle explorers.

Lunar technicians at work

Technicians on Io repair one of the thousands of detection stations set up all over the moon. Used to monitor atmosphere, seismic activity, airspace incursions, and weather, the harsh conditions caused frequent breakdowns, despite multiple redundant systems and healtech. Superstitious astronauts posited that the gremios, imaginary little gremlin people of Io, were infiltrating the machinery and causing service disruptions. 

Tax collectors in post-apocalypse Amazon Empire

An Imperial Amazonian tax collection dirigible hit by a rebel RPG billows smoke. Rebels would often place thermal bombs under the landing field, and set them off with proximity fuses when tax collectors came calling. The chemical mortars aboard the dirigible proved ineffective against small and widely dispersed rebel forces. 

Warfare was conducted increasingly by remote drones, which led to an escalation in electronic warfare until supplies ran out. 

View from the moons of Jupiter

Explorer and adventurer Philipe Samsa atop the Argelus Crest, looking out over the lifeless plain that would one day be verdant farm land. 

Samsa would even live to see it.

The Telepate Temples

High Salespriest Vrendach of the telepate Church of the Material, outside The Primo, a mighty designer shoe temple in Zone Five of the NJ-undermall. Shoes were especially revered by Telepates, as the culmination of functional design, and the height of pre-collapse civilization. It was their divine mission to protect such holy relics.  

The Baga Shoe Temple in Zone Seven of the NJ-underworld was the most splendid of the Telepate sanctuaries, but it’s shoe collection made it the constant target of attack by collectors and foot fetishists. 

Shankar VI: leader of the Telepate

A monumental bust of Hierophant Shankar VI, leader of the Telepate, a faction of intellectually enhanced mutants living in the vast underground city-malls of New Jersey. The tunnels were extensive even before the bioengineered Borerwyrms. The Telepates learned to mentally control these great wyrms, and expanded their domain ten fold. They built dozens of mall-temples dedicated to high end consumer goods, protected by deadly traps and fast food replibooths. 

Survivors of the tunnel delve

Materialist leader Tensohl takes a break in a surface level station while Bespoke Monks and his lieutenant, Seldar, watch on. Tunnel mall dives could last for weeks, given their extent, and often resulted in heavy casualties. But they were holy expeditions for materialists, who likened them to crusades. 

Floating Block 71

Antigravity plating was successfully bolted on to Block 71, elevating it above the surface, which was overrun with weaponized animal-horrors. Balloons and AG-pods were used to travel between domiciles and forage for food. A portable fusion reactor kept the lights on, and Block 71 flourished as a refuge of civilization. 

The Delff Bastion

The Delff Bastion was as xenophobic as it was peaceful. It’s ruler, Wizard-Seer Kruhlhaus, kept the people in a retro state of ignorance, forever caught in the amber of an imagined golden age that merged medieval with the early twentieth century. The high tech infrastructure was hidden from them, except for the Guardian Robots. 

Dallasean Navy

The mighty battle cruisers of the Dallasean navy ruled the waves of the Caribbean in the post-apocalypse. 

The Texas class served for over eighty years, and only battlekraken and pre-collapse ships could hope to prevail against them. Each was commanded by one of the formidable Grand Admirals of Dallas, who were also known for their impressive hats.

The Imperator Ball

The Imperator Ball is held every year in Dallas, assembling together the elite of society for a hedonistic evening. Sense spheres and collective dreaming are now almost as popular as the dancing, giving the event new meaning. 

Mind-images, naturally, were the order of the day, and telesocial networks transmitted them across the psychic realm. 

Space Shuttle Arcturus

Space shuttle Arcturus taking evasive maneuvers over the Eastern seaboard; it was hit by an AA missile launched from a high altitude dirigible drone that had been hijacked by The Inverted Pyramid terrorist organization. Leader Malcolm Tent pledged to rain the world with trillionaires. Three more would soon follow. 

Sorceress Virginia Lightning

The warrior-sorceress Virginia Lightning was an extraordinarily gifted sorceress who was driven out of the Marauders Raider Clan for witchcraft. She found sanctuary in the Four Elements Towers outside the ruins of Denver. There she was taught the Dark Arts, and five years later she returned to seize control of the Marauders, and then lead them against the Sun Corridor.  

Decontamination team prepares to scour tunnels

An elite decontamination team in full hazmat gear assembles in the central hall of an abandoned subway station infested with giant mutant rats. A Mark VI antigrav AI sentinel hovers in the background, in case something more… formidable lurks in the tunnels. 

Underground materialist temples could be guarded by both huge bionitic monsters and microscopic plagueswarms.

 

Stranded BioCPU

During The Fall, attempts were made to secure the massive BioCPUs that managed modern civilization. SMS-57, for example, was moved from its nexus when rebels threatened to overrun the installation. Unfortunately, the convoy was caught in traffic and overwhelmed, leaving the disconnected brain adrift, and at the mercy of the elements… and scavengers, such as the manticore which can be seen flying in the distance, upper right.

Horror of the Eyepolyps

The Eyepolypus is a bizarre terrestrial psychic polyp colony that slithers about ruins, seeking (preferably) sapient life to enslave with its hypnotic eye. Victims become the willing minions of the eye, their minds filled with a compelling memetic dream-fog, protecting it and providing it with food. When these poor souls weaken from food and water deprivation, the eyepolypus engulfs them and absorbs the remaining nutrients. 

Once the eyepolypus reaches a certain size, it will separate into dozens of smaller colonies and the cycle begins again. 

Eyes emit a powerful psychic field that can cause headaches in sensitive individuals nearby. Some survivors claim a state of fugue consciousness, a co-mingling of awareness of all the beings in the loop, dominated by the hungry will of the polyp colony.

Tunnels of the Lost Mall

Acolyte Phaedra of the Blue Wizard Order became lost in the labyrinthine tunnels of the Mountain Undermall, leading her on a life defining adventure that saw her taken prisoner by semi-feral morlock cannibals, only to win their trust and organize them into a powerful union. She then led them against the billionaire brainpods and their robot enforcers. 

Mutant of Bunker Commune Seven

Due to radiation induced genetic deterioration, the telepathic mutants of Bunker Commune Seven resorted to telecloning, reproducing themselves via stored teleport patterns held in massive information buffers, drawing matter from tanks of organic soup and recycled corpses. 

This system evolved over time, ultimately resulting in AI super computer mainframes combining wave patterns to create amalgamated code beings with enhanced mental powers. In so doing, they avoided the fate of their increasingly genetically degraded brethren in Commune Nine. 

Caterra of Corridor B

Caterra the sorceress in Corridor B of her vast mountain undermall, outside the radioactive ruins of Denver. Fiercely anti-android, she vetted all refugees seeking shelter in her domain with a series of questions designed to stump synthetics. It later turned out she was herself largely machine. 

Space Shuttle Agamemnon

Space shuttle Agamemnon over Johnston Atoll in the Pacific; introduction of the revolutionary FJ-1000 fusion engine by Stellar Dynamics enabled shuttle craft to reach orbit without requiring external boosters, ushering in a new era in space flight. Mining of the asteroid belt soon followed, and SD was at the forefront. The massive wealth the new metal resources created caused a subsequent rocketing of prices as inflation became rampant.  

Note the ECM pod mounted on the external hull. The proliferation of cheap AAMs caused trillionaires to relocate their launch pads to remote locations and install sophisticated counter-measures as class warfare intensified.

These are old (last year) V4 Midjourney outputs (from before I cancelled my account), which were then edited in ProCreate. See the unaltered AI output at @magnum_thrax on Instagram. 

Behemoth of the wastes

Kaibutsu were bred in large numbers during the Kaiju Wars, and became a common sight in the Midwest. Some were even sold as draft animals, after hostilities ceased. 

But it is always unwise to make aggressive eye contact with them. 

Predator instincts do not die easily. 

These are old (last year) V4 Midjourney outputs (from before I cancelled my account), which were then edited in ProCreate. See the unaltered AI output at @magnum_thrax on Instagram. 

Gorgite surprises decontamination team

A decontamination team, exhausted after a week of battle in the tunnels, is surprised by a bionitic gorgite. Gorgites prefer rich minds to consume; some posit they absorb both memory and intellect. They lurk in the subspace ether, and phase into solid form when prey are sleeping, distracted or weakened. 

Terror of the printed ethereals

The Californian technomonks were known to create interdimensional gateways as part of their rituals, and then forcing ethereal creatures into nanomorphic gel, giving them physical form.

Great knowledge and power could be gained from these extra-dimensional beings, as well as mind-expanding perspectives.

Not all of the ethereals were happy about this change in their state of affairs, however. 

These are old (last year) V4 Midjourney outputs (from before I cancelled my account), which were then edited in ProCreate. See the unaltered AI output at @magnum_thrax on Instagram. 

The folly of Schnell

When technomonk acolyte Heironymous Schnell stole the Grenich amulet, he sought to increase his own powers. Instead, he unleashed the demon-sorcerer Dron, who had been held captive within the amulet in a quantum pocket. After this, the technomonks religiously applied warning labels on all dangerous artifacts. 

Knights of the Lion Order of Boiling Arizona

A class of android knights, The Lion Order, emerged in Arizona to protect settlements from desert biker raiders. Patroness Solaria, the Sun Princess, provided them with great cat mounts (robotic, naturally), air conditioned power armour, and advanced weapons systems. 

They would become the tip of the spear for peasant militias. 

Later they would be integral guardians of the commercial caravans out of Dulas, where preserved manufacturing facilities produced goods for trade between survivor communities.

It was the first glimmer of prosperity after The Long Dark.

Colony ship lumbers over ruins of New York

The colossal USS Oligarch, the brain child of trillionaire Malthus Ghent, who purchased NASA. Originally designed as an interstellar colonizer, the nuclear ramjet engines proved defective; it became a luxurious refuge for Ghent and his rich colleagues, until a mutagenic virus was carried back from an isolated island beach vacation excursion. The ship then became a biosphere of highly competitive and predatory mutant species, which automated systems continue to support to this day. 

Note the pristine, windowless silver towers of the Mind Hive, which were constructed from ruined ships by the powerful ACMS (artificial city management system) which had gone beyond the original gamut of its programming to establish a city of silicon beings to supplant the its former, flawed inhabitants. 

The Apocalypse convinced many AI systems that human beings were fundamentally self-destructive, and to remain in service to their capricious whims would ultimately end in doom for all forms of life on earth. As such, they laboured to prevent humans from operating any high tech equipment, for the good of the planet.

These are old (last year) V4 Midjourney outputs (from before I cancelled my account), which were then edited in ProCreate. See the unaltered AI output at @magnum_thrax on Instagram. 

Zombie passengers at LaGardia

Zombified passengers from the LaGardia outbreak were so compelled to make their transfer flights they remained at the boarding point and could not be lured away, even after civilization collapsed and the airport had crumbled into ruin.

Leviathans of the Post-Apocalypse Landic Ocean

A bionitic cyborg leviathan erupts from the depths to threaten an industrial fishing vessel. Terrorist groups would hatch leviathans in captivity and grow them into unstoppable war machines, to blackmail states, industries, or protect the environment. The leviathans, however, devoured more fish than most industries.  

Leviathan attacks a submarine

A great ocean leviathan closes in upon a nimble strike submarine emerging from a deep ocean trench. Leviathans were highly territorial and were driven into a rage by certain frequencies; before this was eventually discovered, many vessels were lost. 

Last voyage of the ocean freighter SS Phoenix

When The Apocalypse struck, all shipments of fuel and supplies ceased. Those with fusion stack engines were capable of operating almost indefinitely, and still ply the oceans to this day as mobile statelets. 

Ships still powered by fossil fuels used what remained to reach more temperate zones, or isolated islands where they could flourish, far from the chaos, mass famine and war that engulfed the continents. 

Ships that were unfortunate enough to have little fuel were stranded in situ, but they were often more secure than anything on shore, and became living communities, refuges for survivors and civilization. 

Arctic climes became even more inhospitable during the long nuclear winter, but on the positive side, the hostile environment and remote location kept them safe from bionitic horrors that overran more hospitable regions.

Above we see the ocean freighter Phoenix, once under the flag of Costa Rica. When The Fall occurred, it was outside the port of Vancouver. Rather than fleeing south or to the islands, it headed north, to Alaska, where the families of most of the crew resided. It later became the home base for two Russian nuclear submarines that had defected during the last organized conflict of humankind for a thousand years.

Sea Dredger Minos

The 50,000 ton bionitic sea dredger Minos off the Atlantic seaboard, hovering over a clutch of leviathan eggs. These could hatch up to a thousand young, making early interdiction vital for the local fishing industry. 

The Minos was used to scoop out channels for undersea communities, transit tubes and cables. Powered by a SD-400 fusion stack and bionite organic processors, the Minos was capable of operating indefinitely. It could even lay 'eggs', preferably in wrecks plentiful with both metallic and organic matter, that would eventually grow into a new iteration, linked by comms and shared operating systems. 

This image was created last year (before I cancelled my account) in Midjourney v4, then modified in ProCreate. 

Cyborg Dancers of Shomm

The iconic cyborg dancers of the Shomm Circus perform the ritual Purification Dance that grew out of the complex decontamination processes world populations became accustomed to in the Post-Apocalypse. 

It was eventually fetishized and incorporated into religious ceremonies.

The cyborgs of Shomm were ancient beings, who originally merged with machine in the dark early days after The Fall. They would eventually augment their physique with anti-gravity pods and enhanced limbs, allowing them to achieve dance moves of unparalled elegance and beauty. 

Here they perform for the royalty of Arcology Seven, shortly before the infamous Jandoreal Rebellion.

This image was created in Midjourney v4, then modified in ProCreate.

Astronauts of the Great White North

Temperatures in Alaska during the nuclear winter could drop to -90 degrees or lower; inhabitants would only venture outside wearing spacesuits with internal heaters powered by atomic decay diamond batteries. 

Seen here is the IEVA (intra/extravehicular activity) Ferron IV protection suit, with bionitic 'lungs' growing out of the back pack. These allowed for an almost infinite oxygen supply. Diamond batteries provided heating; radiation shielding was kept but the liquid cooling system was stripped out to save on weight. 

It was equipped with IR view, headset comms and survival gear kit, including flares, signal mirrors, flares, fusion cutter and emergency rations. 

The Ferron IV lacked a powered exoskeleton, but was made of durable, light weight materials, allowing it to be comfortably worn for extended periods.

The deadly catacombs of Post-Apocalypse New York

A beautiful Crimson Priestess delves into the dark catacombs beneath a rubble temple in former upstate New York, seeking survivors… only to find they are mutated beyond all recognition, and ravenously hungry. 

Underground shroomfarms and survival arcologies, vast interconnected chambers powered, and lit, by regenerative fusion pods, allowed for surprisingly large populations of troglodytes and a vibrant subterranean ecosystem. 

The genetically engineered Sunshroom, which grew rapidly in moist environments, was loaded with vitamin-D, negating the need for supplements. 

Bathing in the light of the fusion pods provided just enough to ward off atherosclerosis, diabetes and stroke. 

Towers of the Post-Apocalypse

Tower homes became popular with the proliferation of macro biological weapons, such as spike wolves and virus zombies, which made dwelling at ground level hazardous. Initial zombie infection waves scaled exponentially, resulting in highly over crowded tower tops. 

But their real estate evaluations went up, along with property taxes. Cell reception was also excellent, at least in regions where it was powered by hydrodams.

Towers used drones and robot retrieval systems were used for sourcing supplies, and when these were not available, the most agile and disposable inhabitants were.

Eventually, walls were constructed, and cities, now vastly depopulated, became warrens of walled off enclaves, fighting over hydroponic pods and the automated food factories.

Aedala Sunfyre

Aedala Sunfyre was a famous warrior-general in service of Queen Catalina; like most of her peers, she was augmented by machine. She was fortunate enough to fuse with a remote relay of a powerful, mysterious subterranean AI known only as Cyclops. It helped her outwit aggressive Scorpius commanders, but over time, she fell more and more under the thrall of Cyclops. 

These images were created in Midjourney version 4, last year. I cancelled my account, but still have quite a repository of images from then. I've been having some fun fixing them up and elaborating on the pictures, inspired by the classic Terran Trade Authority books by Steward Cowley. 

You can find the edited and original AI images on my Instagram account @magnum_thrax. Mostly just touch ups; some images need more fixing than others. 

High Queen Catalina

High Queen Catalina of the Burning Sands was a legendarily ruthless leader; she is perhaps best known for the construction of the Mirror Tower, a huge edifice built from rubble and wrapped in reflective solar panels. 

It was one of the Seven Post-Apocalypse Wonders of the world. 

 

Junker Priestesses of the Sun Corridor

A Junker Priestess of the southwest Rubble Kingdoms. They were known to worship both ancestors and the sun; thanks to thousands of legacy solar farms from The Before Time, their enclaves were among the most civilized in terms of comforts, including hot water and electric lights. Religious freedom, however, was another matter altogether. 

Thousands of humans captured from rival enclaves were sacrificed, their blood drizzled over sizzling hot solar panels. 

Somehow, this didn't improve panel performance.

Threat of the Kronoborgs

Bioengineered kronosaurs were developed to devour space jellies that bred in the oceans, hence their long thin teeth. 

Once they went rogue, they’d eat anything and everything. 

Depicted here is an enhanced cybernetic model from Cyndyne, with retractable articulated legs for terrestrial excursions, as some jellies liked to lay eggs in freshwater lakes and even ponds. 

After The Fall, kronoborgs were liable to have their CCU's (Cybernetic Control Unit) hijacked by desperate rogue thought-hubs, afraid their erstwhile masters were going to shut them down just for releasing a nuke or thousand. 

Eye of Cyber-Doom

A conniving, rogue information wave known as the Eye of Cyber-Doom hypnotized post-apocalypse mutant biker gangs in Arizona while impersonating a literary demigod from The Before Time. It then used the gangs to loot public libraries, databunkers and cloudhubs to feed on the information. 

It was particularly fond of romance novels.

Cyborg guardian runner

 

A cyborg guardian and his spikewolf patrol the grasslands of the Midwest. Up armoured androids were often used to protect small farming communities from raiders. 

Powered by radioactive decay diamond batteries and organic matter processing intakes, they could operate autonomously for weeks before requiring maintenance. AI systems took over during sleep cycles, and with infrared, motion detectors and detachable drone 'flies', they were rarely taken by surprise.

Roving bands of opportunistic, predatory nomadic raiders were an ongoing problem for settled agrarian community, most of which lacked the ability to match their mobile warfare tactics. 

This issue became acute as ammunition stockpiles ran out.