In the year 2040, events conspired to bring about the beginnings of Shock.  Two wealthy industrialists, Michael Jenkins and Thomas Snyder, both life-long fans of football, attempted to join the ranks of the team-owners in football.  They were fully snubbed by the team-owners and the association as upstarts and undesirables.  After the initial reaction, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Snyder set out to investigate their options.

After much undirected and fairly idle analysis of current trends in spectator sports, the two gentlemen discovered that sports were rapidly losing the interest of the ticket-purchasing, bar-going public.  By 2041, they had come together and were both of the opinion that baseball, football, soccer, hockey, lacrosse, cricket, rugby, basketball, and all manner of other professional spectator sports were steadily losing the interest of a jaded and over-stimulated public, and had been doing so for quite some time.  They saw a potential opening and decided to investigate the possibilities.

Not men to waste any time, within a year a prototype Modular Arena had been built in semi-secrecy for experimentation and research on a not-fully-formed idea they had conceived.  Later this arena would be scrapped completely, as it was built differently from the many arenas to come, the better to support complete changes of its internal structure and features.  But for the next 4 years it would be the scene of a great deal of work, so much so that Jenkins and Snyder arranged their other involvements into silent partnerships so as to have all their time passionately devoted to a seemingly more and more valid alternative sport.

Contacts within defence contractors, major high-tech companies, and experimental technology companies all netted the pair serious technological benefits for the sport that was only beginning to form itself.  Early on, the two decided to rely on several key technologies:  teleportation, musculature-boosters, capacitors, energy- and physical-reactive polymers, mass-produced super-conductors, miniaturised induction matrices, accelerators/collimators, and real-time high-power dedicated processors.  The game that would come to fruition in the end would be a distinct contrast from the fairly conservative and humanistic spectator sports up to that time -- Shock would be a game that could not be played on a dust-field anywhere in the world; rather it would be for solvent people of affluent countries; and this was not a problem for the two, as they knew it would set their game apart.

In 2042, experimentation had commenced and a beginning rule-set was proposed by several "experts" hired to study the possibilities.  Diverse sports writers and journalists, sports equipment manufacturers, and even some players being courted were brought in for their opinions.  In keeping with an effort to make the resultant game as simulatedly brutal and free-form as possible, the fundamental impression of its having "no rules" was focused on and all the "rules" were hidden in subtle but rigidly enforced environmental characteristics.  It was decided that players would be forced into situations and given no choice as to whether to obey or not; there would be no referees; and anything left unregulated was thus left completely open to interpretation and a "free-market-style" rules structure would result.  As long as it was not allowed to permanently injure players, who would not agree to play in such a situation, it was fair game.

By 2044, the rules, the technology, and the first two non-prototypical Modular Arenas were all shaping up.  Marketing studies and experiments began at this point in earnest and the markets of the first arenas planned to be built were tapped, analysed, sponsored, and primed.  Players were poached from other "similar" spectator sports such as hockey, football, lacrosse, and soccer.  Training began, franchises were sold, and the International Shockball League (ISL) was formally created.

And in 2046, bar-goers and ticket-buyers were confronted with the first season of Shock...

Shock includes a great many themes "borrowed" from earlier mainstream spectator sports.

From football and rugby, it inherits a measure of brutality, but not the constant interruptions of play of football -- instead, Shock maintains a thematic nod more or less to rugby on this score, with a play-until-a-score style.  From soccer, a game-flow and the forever-counting timer.  From hockey, a speed of action and back-and-forth contest.  While these phenomena were incorporated, it was recognised that resistance would be severe -- these sports had been around, growing, and part of the world's general knowledge for hundreds of years in some cases.

Shock in the form in which it was unveiled to the public in 2046 has numerous roots, and thus also has a precarious "mish-mash" market position.  To combat this, its creators brought in player and arena enhancements that had been rejected for so long by the traditional sports in a complex attempt to blind the public to any shortcomings, simply by deliberately overwhelming spectators with visceral stimulation.  Technology was tapped on every level to give both subtle and blatant "wow factor" additions to the entire game:

• Players carry a Launcher-weapon; not fancy gloves, not nothing at all, but an energy-powered Launcher.  Its purpose is to carry and shoot and pass the ball, and to attempt to disable other players in what is effectively a longer-range kind of "tackle", a short-range energy-zap burst.
  
• Players dress in a protective suit, suitably emblazoned with team colours and logos, of course, and powered from the Launcher's internal capacitors.  The suit is supple and permits free movement, but protects against energy bursts and physical impacts of whatever nature.  Energy bursts are counteracted by a combination of the arena's own smart-tracking system and the suit's internal sensors.  When a burst is detected, power is diverted to the area hit and its polarity is precisely the opposite of the inbound charge, cancelling out the effect, and leaving the player basically unaffected.  Similarly reactive, when a physical impact is detected, power is diverted (in smaller, almost insignificant amounts) and directed to the area, and the suit's material (a specially designed polymer) hardens to protect against all but the worst hits.
  
• On the suit's legs are still-large (research is being done on miniaturisation) musculature boosters.  These electrical muscles increase movement speed, jumping height, and have shock-absorbing properties, all at the cost of some of the suit's/launcher's energy reserves.  With these enhancers, players can achieve running speeds faster than traditional hockey players can skate.
  
• The suit's protective helmet provides targeting information used to pass the ball and "tackle" other players.
  
• The ball has a semi-soft exterior to limit its physical impact effects and to increase its bouncing capability, and contains multiple capacitors, inducers, and emitters.  It contains solid-state "gyroscopes" that are linked to targeting systems and allow for a homing passing system on demand.  And the ball maintains a "Shock Clock" that emits a powerful charge if the ball is held for too long.  The charge is built up while the ball is physically possessed in a Launcher, and dissipated steadily while not possessed.  Too long and it goes off.
  
• Arenas include a complex watchdog system that monitors all aspects of game-play.  When balls are scored, they are teleported away.  When players are too low on energy, they are teleported away.  The arenas detect the number of players and adjust the arenas accordingly after each goal-round-reset -- often removing and adding obstacles and features to balance the game-play should there be a player-number-change.

All in all Shock was organised from its lowest levels to be a loud, powerful experience for fans, to open up a new market within a saturated yet latently unsatisfied, jaded spectator general audience, and to do so across the entire world.