As the Space Race reached its zenith while the tensions of the Cold War threatened to engulf the world in a brand new war a strange and mysterious event occurred that forever changed everything; the “Day of Awakening” as it is called now in the present…
It was a strange day for sure, as both the USSR and the USA were set on launching what would be their landing missions to the Moon, despite trying to get there before the other they ended up switching the same day and time; as the rockets left the Earth’s atmosphere everything went silent with the ships and before long they crashed back into the Earth with somehow no one being injured in them.
What caused this event was “The Stranger” as soon as the spacecraft left the Earth a mysterious spherical object of porcelain white appeared in the skies above the Earth, its appearance was heralded by earthquakes, typhoons, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters that somehow avoided killing even a single person worldwide.
Since that day on debris began to fall down from “The Stranger” bringing with it amazing new technologies and advanced when surviving pieces were recovered and reverse-engineered, but perhaps more startling than that, from the day it appeared the “Awakened” began to be born worldwide, men and woman with strange powers and abilities unlike everything that was seen on Earth before.
At first the people of the world feared them greatly nearly turning into a grim ethnic war against this new kind of human, but some governments of the world quickly found a way to correct that, taking some of them for their symbols and showing them in a good light as heroes to the nation with more and more joining their ranks; this began to ease the fears of the people and before long those heroes became a common place addition to the world.
After such events the Cold War finally came to an end and new progress started worldwide, the heroes became such a sensation they soon outpaced Pop stars and other Idols in popularity for the mainstream people, this was further intensified with the advent of the reality TV show “Hero TV!” where camera crews followed heroes around and showcased their exploits live for all to see; not long after companies of all sizes began to pay heroes to show off their logos and essentially became their sponsors while turning the heroes in half-time spokesmen for the company.
Despite all the advances brought in thanks to “The Stranger” mankind still hasn’t managed to reach the stars, somehow every attempt at leaving the Earth ends up as a crash where no one is hurt; several of the wealthiest nations of the world joined together to try to burst through this unknown barrier through research and technological research; creating a large artificial island/seastead close to the equator in the Pacific.
The new land known as Arcadia had a rough start, as an joint effort far from the home turf of each of the nation’s that joined the program it became pretty hard to enforce rules, especially those that varied greatly from each nation; thus despite supposed to be a center of enlightenment and scientific breakthroughs it was quickly boggled down by crime of all sorts. Eventually a solution was found, a non-governmental organization that greatly encouraged heroes to deal with crime and had quite a big share on Hero TV’s holdings made a great offer, setting up a couple of holdings for Heroes to strike out and deal with the crime riddling Arcadia while getting some minor profits from Hero TV and the scientific breakthroughs to aid places around the world; since then “Hero TV: Arcadia” became the most popular show of the whole world and Arcadia finally began to be used for its actual purpose.
Now in the present crime still is part of life in Arcadia, and as heroes it’s your job to stop it… after all how else will you win the King of Heroes contest Hero TV holds on a bi-yearly basis to appease your sponsors and gain more funding?

A bit about Arcadia:
Arcadia is more like an archipelago of artificial islands linked together by bridges and roadways, some of them have grand domes covering them entirely with a fully simulated biome within them, this adds some variety to the place despite being a mostly tropical area due its location on the Equator.
Under the surface long spires go into the ocean, serving as laboratories, research stations, yet more artificial biomes as well as housing the power generators and batteries that gather energy from wind, waves and solar energy which are the main power sources for all of Arcadia.
Some areas are still slums that haven’t been recovered from the time before law became effective across Arcadia, serving as hideouts for criminals, black markets and other shady organizations.
Random Setting Facts:
The USSR is still very much alive, and while tensions with the USA have evaporated, there is still a great “friendly” rivalry between them.
Arcadia’s primary funding comes from the USSR, USA, Japan, Germany, China and Mexico.
Attempts at building a Space Elevator have failed miserably.
Submarine exploration is a bit better, with Arcadia’s lower spire heading quite deep into the Pacific Ocean.