In a world 26 years away, things are different. Very different. The United States has been obliterated. All government forms have failed, causing a unique chaos. In this awful time, the people banded together to form a somewhat uniform society. There are three levels to the society - no one wants to be in the lowest level. The lowest level consists of the outcasts, the rebels, and the poor.
Twenty years before present, things got weird. The government kept hiding things from the citizens. Lying was considered an every day thing and no one was punished for it. In that year, there were more than two billion deaths - or executions. Everyone knew what was happening then. The Revolution was slowly building. In the end, all it caused was oblivion.