Most people think the world changed in 1969, when the chemical defoliant ROYAL-23 dropped over Vietnam. It really began in 1943, when Albert Hofman got a whiff of a chemical he'd created a few years ago. He started seeing things--walls growing mouths, chairs spreading lips and whispering secrets. 

He came out of the horrendous hallucination able to read the history of any object he could touch. After a few more disorienting hours he discovered how to control the ability, and later told the Swiss government, covertly, about his chemical. Further testing showed that any human who took the chemical, lysergic acid diathylamide, first suffered bizarre hallucinations and then developed a kind of superhuman psychic ability, usually themed around something in the taker's life. Until after the war, this remained a secret held by the Swiss government, although they shared it with the United States following V-J Day. They mutated a few trustworthy men and women with high ranks in the government, and the world seemed none the wiser (save for the curious addition of a woman to the president's entorage of secret service men).

By unfortunate coincidence, Gregory Panzer and his think-tank designed a chemcial defoliant that also spread a lingering hallucinagenic mist in the area. The chemical substance was similar to that of LSD. Though higher-ups with the proper clearance were understandably worried, the was dissimilar enough from the base chemical and, following testing, seemed to have no side effects other than a lasting, horrible vision, and the substance was readied en masse and flown into Vietnam.

Where it was given time to ferment into its true form.

When ROYAL-23 was dropped over Vietnam, it mutated into a vicious, semi-intelligent fog that sought out human victims. Those afflicted suffered potent hallucinations, then mutated into grotesque, super-powered freaks. Several hundred soldiers and North and South Vietnamese were transmuted by the dropped ROYAL-23 (dubbed "purple haze" for how it looked creeping through the jungle). After two weeks of mind-bending hell, ROYAL-23 drops were suspended, the existing stock withdrawn and attempted to be destroyed (the substance isn't flammable), and the afflicted soldiers withdrawn to horrified friends and family back home.

Through some level of fortune, mutated Viet Cong, led by a fanatic, charismatic, and exceedingly pissed mutant, attacked Hanoi and successfully killed many major heads of state, Ho Chi Minh included. North Vietnam is still a flailing, chaotic, headless mess... but it's a self-contained headless mess, and South Vietnam is still free (though under occasional attack from leaderless soldiers and the occasional mutant).

In the year following the end of the Vietnam War, and (after an assasination attempt on Richard Nixon) the presence of LSD-afflicted mutants was revealed to the public. Alice Smith, the psychic and presidential bodyguard, became the face of LSD (soon nicknamed "Alice") mutation, while Gregory Panzer, co-inventor of ROYAL-23 and self-afflicted mutant, became that of Purple Haze. Where the government and most people see ROYAL-23 mutants as pitiable wreches, there is growing sentiment that victims embrace their new forms and powers (which are largely useful and powerful), and many, many people want in on the no-strings-attached mutations of LSD.

The current situation is as such: applicants who pass a rigorous series of exams (mental, physical, and loyalty-based) may take the Alice mutagen, and victims of Purple Haze are granted a stipend from the government for their suffering. Unfortunately, a large stock of Purple Haze has been mysteriously stolen from quarantine, and rumor circulates (though Panzer himself vigorously denies this) that "Head Like A Hole" is synthesizing more Purple Haze for disturbed individuals who want in on new shapes. Perhaps there's a revolution coming...

The year is 1975, and things are about to get interesting. (Cue "Oh! You Pretty Things.")