Everybody knows the story of Mara. If there was any city that was the perfect city, it would be Mara. Everything from how it's governed, its economy, the people and the government are all perfect. Except for one thing.
Ever since the United States was ruined due to its low economy, everything has been in constant ruins. The majority of the population in the U.S. fled to Asia, specifically China, as it was said to have a very stable economy. However, due to China's already big population, with the added people from the U.S., China simply couldn't handle the population and started to enforce population control laws. People were mass murdered, forced out of the country and it was only made so that only people of exceptional talent were allowed to live. This began a worldwide panic as there was nowhere to go. Europe had closed its gates, the United States was in anarchy, Australia soon followed after the United States, and Africa was quickly wiped out due to high amounts of disease and poverty. The only continent which was free from all of the disaster was Antarctica. However, because of the population situation, there wasn't enough advancement in technology to effectively live in Antarctica permanently.
Fast forward twenty years and China has said to be able to develop technology which allows people to survive sub-zero temperatures. It wasn't a big surprise, since China was already the powerhouse of the world with all of its exceptional talent. The tech was never publicly revealed unless you were part of their grand expedition to travel to Antarctica. The idea was that by using a nanobot that continually radiates heat, combined with the best high resistance wind jacket technology could make, people would be able to colonize in Antarctica and live there. This was dangerous, since the nanobot would continually radiate heat, you needed people which could withstand such radiation and heat. People naturally built from birth underwent surgery, training and anything else that could help them until they were ready. By the next couple of years, there was a team of about seven-thousand who were ready to go on the expedition.
It went wrong. Nobody had went to Antarctica ever since the population control was established and so nobody had expected the type of changes that underwent Antarctica. Due to large amounts of pollution, carbon dioxide inhabited Antarctica and almost every organism which lived in Antarctica had died. The temperature was still sub-zero, however much warmer, and a few people were sick and poisoned. It wasn't such a huge failure since in the end, about three thousand people were able to survive and actually live in Antarctica. Little by little, those people, with supplies sent from China, they were able to build a tiny village which was able to successfully be made into farmland since the temperature had dropped. People could farm broccoli, cabbage, carrots and lettuce. This village was named Mara, in honor of the man who planned the expedition to Antarctica, Albert Mara. All was assumed well. Years passed, and technology eventually grew bigger and bigger. More crops could be farmed, the town was bigger and everything was more robust. However, although things went well in Mara, things didn't turn so smooth in China, the main supporter of the expedition.
Europe, the other remaining continent, instead of limiting itself to only people with talent, other people could come in, provided they had enough money or experience to enter. This caused Europe to contain a much bigger population than China as the years grew but not nearly as much as before the worldwide population control. Because of this, Europe was able to overpower China and become the major leading powerhouse. Without China's support and supplies, the robust city of Mara soon turned bad. There wasn't enough supplies to fix and build new buildings and the food supplies by farming wasn't able to completely provide for everyone. They were in serious trouble until, due to the greed of Europe, the village of Mara successfully survived the endeavor. Europe, finding out about the expedition had, instead of supporting the already existing group, wanted to conquer Antarctica for its own instead of letting China have it. However, unprepared for the harsh environment and changes in Antarctica, Europe quickly retreated, but not before letting the population of Mara find their technology and all of their resources. They used this technology to further their sciences which resulted in making Antarctica completely habitable for those people.
Mara was bristling with good luck and because the rest of the world didn't know how to enter Antarctica without learning of the preparations China did, only the people living in Mara were able to live there. With the small population (now about 1650) of talented individuals, technology made in Mara was enough to rival the rest of the world. The population in the world in that time was about one hundred thousand but since people couldn't enter Mara, they didn't know about the advances in every major field that they were having. However, this couldn't go on forever. Eventually, the population of Mara would die off leaving no traces of them such existing. Realizing this, they tried to conduct many experiments, some inhumane, in order to continue what they were doing. Many years were left unrewarded until they tried to focus on something no other had been able to accomplish. They tried to replicate themselves so that if they had died, their clones would be able to continue on with Mara and be able to clone themselves if necessary. Finding a single purpose to focus on, the people of Mara tried their best to accomplish this when a scientific breakthrough was invented. They were now able to clone themselves, although the clones weren't as fully developed as planned. However, because of the cloning, there was now an absurdly high population count in their time. There were about ten thousand clones living at once, which caused many problems. Not realizing that the clones had minds that differed from their original bodies, the clones didn't approve of living in Mara, so they rebelled and it was an internal war against the original population of Mara compared to the many clones of Mara. However, since they weren't as developed, the original population were able to win, with some losses however. Understanding and learning from the experience, the very few amount of people who originally came on the expedition worked on creating a way to manipulate the clones so that they could follow some rules they made.
Following the rules, the original population, fearing a recurrence of the rebellion, made another rule which limited the population to only 1500, and if such number were to be changed, then necessary actions will be made to change it back to 1500. And so the rules were established but with no way to enforce it into the clones. However, using the original nanobot from when they first started the expedition, they were able to copy the structure and engineer it so that it constantly code the above rules into the clones. And so the city of Mara was now bristling with life and filled with nothing but good times for the future. Everything was according to plan and the clones were able to successfully carry on their creators' legacy. As time passed on, however, the rest of the world wondered how there could still be life on Mara. Mara couldn't just be ignored forever and so people started unraveling the mystery of Mara and how such a society came to be. There were theories all throughout the world while the population of Mara (who came to be known as Marians) never confirmed such theories due to the rules inside of them. And so Mara was a mystery for many years, while people, who could now venture to Antarctica, couldn't due to the Marians' technology which made completely isolated it from the rest of the world. It was too much of a risk to enter Antarctica and so life passed on like this for many years. With the system of only 1500 people at a time being constantly enforced and checked and the now stable population, time passed and technology advanced too. The clones in future generations became more like humans because of such technology and began to think like them, barring any violence, greed and war in their heads.
And that's the story of Mara. The mystery tale of the city which somehow everyone knows about. Although it was a secret for many, many years, everyone knows about it. And it wasn't only until something happened in your timeline where everything suddenly made sense about Mara, and how almost everyone knows about Mara. I can't give what the event is however, as if such things came to light, the rules of Mara could be broken. Especially the rule of keeping only 1500 people at a time. And that, no matter what, can not be broken.