Prologue
The oceans have always been the most wondrous of places, full of mysteries and monsters. Ruins, too, like the fabled Las Vegas with its flashing lights and gaudy wasteful displays, seen in very old preserved videos from the past.
The excessive use of energy and the fanciful shapes fascinated and appalled those living on New Earth hundreds of years after the cataclysmic event most commonly known as the Fall. Think lots of meteors shattering the Earth and basically killing it.
Not quite everything died, but entire species were wiped out. The very soil and rocks, even the waters and air currents, were forever tainted in some places.
But the Earth was healing. The humans didn't need to hide underground anymore.