You might need a LinkedIn account to read the posting, but it’s well worth it.

The primaries for this shop include two of the founders of Wolfpack Studios (Todd Coleman and Josef Hall) and Tom Hall (Anachronox, Monkeystone Games, etc.) who have been set up in Austin for three years or so and supposedly have two projects going. Only problem is no one seems to know what they are outside the offices.

So they need a CM! Resumes on rapid auto-fire! Commence!

Voices from the future are all over the Internet, and they’re warning us that the world’s about 15 years away from going entirely to shit. No bees this time, but the branding’s way better. At least this time it’s obvious what you’re supposed to buy.

Year Zero is the new nine inch nails album. I can’t recall ever being excited about anything nin ever did, even though I was in the target age group when the first albums came out. Couldn’t manage to give a crap about the downward spiral. Might have listened to broken once or twice, but that was a long time ago.

But here I am buying the new album. I already knew what it would sound like, because the entire thing’s listenable on the above Web site — just input an e-mail address, any one, and you can listen. So far it’s fairly entertaining noise.

What tipped the balance for me was the accompanying alternate reality game to go along with it as a promotional effort. 42 Entertainment is involved in this one like they were for ilovebees, and their marks were all over YZ long before they got credits on the album booklet. Not that suspension of disbelief is especially important, but word is, it’s going to continue for maybe another year and a half.

In a literary sense, YZ is miles wide and about an inch deep. Story is, in the year 2022, America becomes an oppressive hyper-religious police state at war with half the world, and resorts to seeding all potable water with drugs that suppress fight-or-flight hormones so their population stays extremely subservient — until they go for any length of time away from municipal water. Global warming is such that Alaska has become temperate and anywhere within 1,000 miles of the Equator is Hell on Earth. Pockets of nonspecific resistance spring up, but those not careful enough get honey-potted and exiled. Meanwhile, people all over the world keep seeing staticky, shadowy hands reaching out of the sky and touching earth. (Be sure to turn your audio down if you watch this.)

Somewhere in all this, some scientists managed to send data back through time before they all met an uncertain but certainly horrible end. Thus far, that’s been the only suggested explanation for why there’s all these Web sites describing the future (seeded with bits of banned media writ backwards and strange strings of numbers), but not why last Friday there were a bunch of guys handing out ammunition boxes full of promotional materials (though not surprisingly, at least one joker’s trying to sell one on eBay) or who was dropping Flash drives in the bathrooms at nin concert dates in Europe, with, among other things, leaked tracks from the album and the video for the first single.

What’s the connection with the future? Is the world of Year Zero our destiny, or merely one among many possible destinations? Can it be prevented, and just how seriously ought we take the implied political stance of the story?

Plenty of room for explanation, no guarantee we’ll get one.

The album? About the catchiest lot of noise you’ll ever hear. Keep tabs with me at NinWiki, if you want to follow along.

Edit: Right after I wrote this, there’s a new video of a “resistance meeting.” One in the present day, even. Everyone gets a treat for watching, just stick with it.

Yeah, you really need to see it. It’s that good.

Don’t think I’m kidding, here, even if it is April Fool’s. Go.