They say that necessity is the mother of all invention; therefore excess is the father of all destruction. It’s been about three hundred years since the invention and popularization of the home computer in the US; and with it, the human race had changed exponentially. As a species we suddenly had access to health care and entertainment, education and riches beyond the wildest dreams of so many. But with all of these niceties, came the turmoil of a completely digital life; toiling away entire generations to raise and lower an arbitrary score, accumulating numbers on a screen that had replaced real and tangible currency. The entire worth and virtue of a human had been boiled down to information on a screen: far favoring new developments to honoring the art of communication and common decency.
We had been leaping forward without a backward glance – enjoying all that this new and exciting atmosphere had brought us. There were glitches along the way of course – neighbors hardly spoke to one another, communities held much more weight in the digital realm than in the real realm, and the cost for these fortunes of technology was astronomical, landing most people in crippling debt for which there were no escape. The numbers that held the worth of a man or a woman began to waver, changed by unseen hands in a new form of digital warfare; woe is to those who might have their numbers plummeted. The consumption of news might be swayed one way and then the other; weaponizing emotional response and fear. Finally, the ultimate disaster in this landscape; the digital and the physical were violently introduced by way of “accidental” launch of frightening weapons against our own kind. Cities were decimated – and when the fearful and angry public demanded to know whom had launched the missiles, they were shocked to see that it had been our own. The United States Digital Defense Force admitted we had fallen victim to hackers – but the distrust had been planted.
It was time for a revolution.
Remember those who had their scores plummeted? With no choice but to start over in a digital landscape with no buying power, no worth, and no possessions, so many that had been hacked realized what dependence the digital realm had held over their lives. They had previously been slaves to a wage under the survival limit, working to gain more and more tech in a system that rewarded only compliance and a total disregard to individual needs in the pursuit of new toys. This small, ragtag group of temporarily embarrassed millionaires grew from the odd lawyer, wage slave, and laborer to a number in the tens of thousands. With the recent political upset created from the deaths of those at the hands of the hacked missiles, those with perfectly intact scores began to join the mission. The tipping point that began the New Civil War, however, was quite small; the virtual straw that broke the camel’s back. A power grid outage in one of the most metropolitan cities led to mass crime and hysteria for three long days; and the growing number of revolutionaries got a wicked idea.
If they would not see the error of their ways; by God, they would have their eyes opened by force. They called themselves Haffites, and they had the assistance of some of the best and brightest former programmers at their disposal. The use of technology of any kind was highly toxic and shunned…but to defeat evil, they were willing to use evil one last time. They loaded up their launchers all over the country and set off one final devastating blow.
The people ran for their bunkers, hiding in basements. Children cowered under their school desks as their devices all emitted the emergency detonation tones; hundreds of thousands of sounds filled the air as explosions rang across the sky. The real damage would not occur until the thick blanket of silence swept across the nation, the screams of fear replaced by confused quiet. That silence was deafening – for all of those tones and sirens and sounds had been extinguished. For good.
They were called E-Bombs, and they were created with the intention that no one would be harmed in the explosions. The Electromagnetic pulses would do their damage in another way, however: and when the people of the most technological advanced country in the world went to place a simple voice call; they found that they could not. Cars failed to start, and even if they did, the grid laid under all roads to recharge their batteries had been destroyed. Communication had been halted, and when the Haffites stormed the federal buildings in the second wave of the Civil War – they were met with no sizable objection.
It was the first Civil War with minimal loss of life to date. And it lead to generations of forced, uneasy peace.
Many things that had been the cornerstone of life until this moment were suddenly forbidden. Textbooks, museums, and technology production plants were burned then razed to the ground. All mentions of technology and the demons within were jealously guarded and severely punished. All of the methods of emotional control such as religion and science were outlawed: and by the passage of much, much time – almost nearly forgotten. Men and women began to work the land as they had done for centuries before, children returned to in-person school. It was a tiresome and bloody transition with fearsome opposition; but all could see that the war had already been won. To live meant to grow your own food and trade with your neighbors; gone were the jobs of productivity, replaced with the jobs of simply staying alive. Eventually, the children lived lives better than their parents as the fight and memory of times before left them, and the scant existence turned into simple happiness for many.
But, from even the most devastating fires, seeds may grow. There was but a scant moment or two all those years ago when the tones were deafening and the bombs were hovering, where there had been some warning. In small pockets all across the country, some of the best and brightest technology giants had fled underground – to deep bunkers that not only protected their identities but also their technology. This did not prevent the grid to which most of them relied on from being destroyed, of course. But it did protect their devices, so disconnected as they were. And, these people continued to develop their technology – after many generations and many many decades, it too had changed. The religion that had been forbade in the Haffite world, the above world, morphed and grew into technology itself. The line between the digital and the physical had been blurred – what had once been known as “technology” had changed drastically. Without access to grids, power, electricity – energy had to be derived from somewhere. No one is quite sure who first made the connection between man and metal; but it changed everything. Blood coursed through man, and now machine; and the two had become one.
Some had an innate talent for this magic. It was easy to move energy through themselves and then through the wires clumsily pushed through their skin. This archaic technology evolved with the people: and every pocket under the ground developed their own useful and powerful powers.
By the time the users of this lost magic had begun to outgrow their confinement, when they returned to the surface, the world had changed drastically. Heavily wooded areas that had once been metropolitan jungles became the homes of these people; and when they emerged, they donned their proper names. They were Witches, and the magic they practiced was an ancient and powerful art. What had began as Foundation families and their specific talents eventually grew into bustling Covens full of young Witches eager to take on the burden of branching into the world and spreading their work.
The re-emergence of Witches into the Haffite realm brings with it many growing pains, of course. There are skirmishes and even a full-blown war; to which the loss of life is too great for either side to continue. For now, they live alongside each other with great distrust: the Witches and the Haffites do not mingle whatsoever, both quite afraid of one another.
But there are forces at work that will soon bring these dissimilar people together – whether they be the mysterious network of ruling Witch Masters that call themselves the Panel, the deaths of the most celebrated beings in the Witch community (the Sages), or the disturbing disappearances of Haffites that live on the outskirts of their villages. Both parties will discover, over time, that one cannot live without the other. This truth will become evident, and it is up to the people to decide how painful a lesson it must be – this is the New Age.