=====Human Technology=====
The inexorable march of humanity's technology has continued through the 21st century. Many ideas that were once derided as ridiculous, impractical or impossible, have now been realised, as is the way of things. However, while great progress has been made, much has been abandoned by the necessity of practicality. The world has gone through both global depression and large scale wars over the past few decades, which has to some extent shaped the technological breakthroughs of recent years. Below are a few notes showing the kind of advances mankind has made.
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==Technology==
While mankind has indeed made leaps and bounds, it is still true that some cutting edge equipment is exclusivley owned by the rich. Personal robots, flying cars and the like all exist, however most are ruinously expensive and as such owned by few. Similarly, whilst rumours of human cloning and true Artificial Intelligences exist, research into either is outlawed by the international community.\\
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A combination of wars and extreme cost has caused humanity to step away from space travel in its current form. Indeed many of the existing space stations and satellites orbiting the planet were destroyed in the recent conflicts. Mankind has instead focused its hopes on other ways of exploring. Experiments into the idea of teleportation have lead to the study of the ITP and indeed it is theorised that by rapidly taking a "shortcut" through another world, a teleportation-like effect could be observed, however much research is still needed. Recently, a stable [[u.n.i.t.e.d#The gate|ITP gate]] has been created by UNITED.

Many recent advances have been in the field of war, one of the few areas which still pays reliably well, and indeed there has been a great amount of research into advanced EMPs, railguns, camouflage, armour and the like. Much effort had been spent on the creation of super-weapons, the most infamous of these being the OA's Weather Control Warhead, which over the course of the last year has converted much of the Indian ocean into an icy wasteland. Seeing the disasterous implications of these weapons, there has been a recent effort for disarmament. In the past few years, much of which the military experimented with but deemed impractical has found other applications. For example, in construction and disaster recovery, basic mechanical exoskeletons have achieved relatively common use, enabling workers to lift and maneuver heavy or large objects, whilst giving them a reasonable amount of protection.\\
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==UNITED==
Along with the more obvious standard weaponry and body armour, UNITED agents in the field are typically equipped with state of the art communications and handheld scanning equipment, along with the latest in survival and first aid gear. For more specialised tasks, UNITED has state of the art R&D facilities, which ensures that they can be best equipped to deal with whatever problems they may face. After all, little is known of the worlds to be explored, so the Research department must be able to prepare for anything and any environment, and the base stocks a small fleet of various vehicles, ranging from jeeps to jets.

All UNITED agents are issued with a MindGuard Implant, this small augmentation provides protection against subliminal mental manipulation by subsonics and pheromones, techniques beloved by intelligence and advertising agencies alike.