Freedom Wars takes place on Earth, in the year 102013. The world surface lies in ruins and is no longer capable of supporting life. As such, humans live in underground cities called "Panopticons", where they struggle to research how to be able to live on the surface once more. A Panopticon functions as an artificial nation in the form of a city state that provides security for its inhabitants, in exchange for contributions each inhabitant is obligated to make towards the state. This system forms the overall societal structure of each separate Panopticon, which were created following the disintegration and demise of countries. Due to lack of resources, each Panopticon has developed conflicts with others, and large portions of the populace are forced into serving sentences in order for these cities to maintain effective control. All inhabitants of a Panopticon are constantly watched by the state to ensure they abide by the draconian laws put into place, essentially forming a collective of dystopian surveillance societies at war with one another. Source: Wikipedia, "Freedom Wars," available under the CC-BY-SA License.