It is the year 2074. The world has been ravaged by unchecked climate change. Brutal Resource Wars have destabilized existing nation-states and impoverished much of the former developed world. Governments and Nation States have collapsed, leaving a network of rival mega-citystates that dot the retracted coastline.
Massively powerful corporations have emerged as the defacto government. Most came to power supplying the various sides of the resource wars, and rushed to fill the power vacuum as traditional governments fell. While the San Francisco Accord of 2064 ended open hostilities and provided a nominal framework for inter-corporate peace and governance, covert actions and proxy wars continue to reshape the balance of power.
The vast majority of citizens eek out an existence in the shadow of their corporate overlords. Natural and engineered diseases are rampant, and antibiotics haven't worked in decades. Pollution from industry and continued fallout from nuclear exchanges in the Resource Wars make food production difficulty. Legitimate access to goods, energy, services, and education are all tightly controlled by intellectual property laws and monopolies. Official prices are kept high, and most citizens need to participate in the pervasive black market to meet their basic needs.
These laws are usually unenforced, but provide a useful pretext for prosecution should the need arise. Corporate profits are ensured by millions of citizens working off punishing 'contracts' handed out for subverting the corporate economy. More serious economic crimes are met with deadly force by corporate security.
For those within the corporate power structure, however, life is good. The Resource Wars saw huge advances in technology, especially in those areas applicable to warfare. Nano-fabrication allows for the quick construction of almost any manufactured good, and advanced medical technologies can keep people alive and healthy as long as they have the cash to pay for it. Ubiquitous robotics and drone technologies allow for safe and cost-effective law enforcement. The ultra rich live in exquisite arcologies and high-security towers, and vacation at sea in one of the many man-made corporate mobile islands. But even those near the top know that they are just one 'rightsizing' away from exile with the unwashed masses, or worse.