On November 9, 2017, first contact with what appeared to be extra-terrestrial life was made when an apparently spacecraft appeared in the sky, popping suddenly into existence in low Earth orbit. The world scrambled, both to establish communications with the city-sized craft that hung silent in the sky, and to quell the chaos that erupted worldwide at the appearance of the alien vessel.
No recognizable signals or signs of life were detected for months, until, on New Year's Eve, something began to happen. The alien spacecraft began to twist and shear, splintering into thousands of fragments. Some of these pieces inexplicably winked out of existence where they drifted, some contorted into unfathomable shapes, some blossomed into explosions of weird energy.
Many, too many, fell to Earth.
Most of the smaller fragments of the wreckage burned up in the atmosphere, creating a strange foreign haze that hung over the world for decades. Larger pieces of the ruined ship, however - the Shards, as they became to be known — impacted and embedded themselves in the earth, twisting the world around them.
Things got weird after that.