The project, based on Margaret Atwood's novel trilogyOryx and Crake (2003), Year Of The Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013) is set in the mid-21st century in a world where corporations have taken over for governments and the genetic modification of organisms is perversely ubiquitous. It centers on the events before and after a Waterless Flood that wipes out almost all of the world's population and follows an extensive cast of characters, including those responsible for the apocalypse and those struggling to survive it.