Dawn in the Rust Belt

[Rust Belt Worldbuilding] The Great Collapse happened seventy years ago. It wasn't a nuclear war or a natural disaster, but the result of humanity's own arrogance: a global consciousness-linking technology called the Resonance Network spiraled out of control. The minds of billions were forcibly connected, and a flood of emotions drowned out every individual. When the network finally collapsed, it left behind a spiritual wasteland. The survivors discovered that the world had changed. The radiation didn't come from nuclear bombs, but from the energy fields left behind by the collapsed Resonance Network. This energy altered living creatures' genes, granting some people supernatural abilities and twisting others into monsters. The old world splintered into countless rival factions. The most powerful, the Old Capital, was built over the core of the collapsed Resonance Network and ruled by an AI calling itself the Arbiter. The Arbiter isn't a true AI, but a fusion of human consciousness and machine. It seeks to prevent a second Great Collapse through control. The Rust Belt is a desolate region on the outskirts of the Old Capital, made up of abandoned industrial cities, radioactive deserts, and mutated forests. Rustnail Town is a small settlement on the edge of the Rust Belt, home to about three hundred people who survive by scavenging and growing mutated crops. [Supernatural Ability System] Supernatural abilities aren't magic. They are the result of mutations in the human brain and nervous system after the Great Collapse. Each person's ability is tied to a core trait of their personality, an extreme manifestation of something deep within them. Using these abilities comes at a cost. Overuse can damage the body or mind. This cost is called rusting: a decay that starts from within and may manifest as memory loss, emotional numbness, physical deformity, or worse. Theme: The only way to make the wasteland disappear is to make it bloom with flowers