What caused the collapse of civilization?
The story is never really explained in full. In the 4th edition it just says for “reasons unknown” around 2200 AD the world suffered from the ravages of nuclear, chemical and bacteriological warfare. The first edition sets the cataclysm a century later. It suggests that after decades of social unrest referred to the Shadow Years, a terrorist group of misguided scientists known as the Apocalypse set the ball rolling. In the 2nd edition the term “Shadow Years” is used to describe the period after the bomb.
