The Fall (Novian)

The Age of Stability
 The Age of Stability  Genesis

1945: The Second World War ends at an enormous cost of approximately 1.70 trillion dollars and the loss of more than 70 million people. Entire economies have been anihilated, and the world will soon see a new threat in the form of nuclear proliferation.

Several secret meetings are held in parallel to the Yalta, Postdam and UNCIO conferences amongst world leaders but also including financial and religious leaders. Their goal, somewhat maximalistically -yet vaguely- is set to find ways to make war obsolete as a geopolitical factor. This is defined as granting nations the ability to achieve major strategic gains without incurring in the enormous loss of life and materiel.

To not be seen as collaborators with the soon-to-be enemy countries in the Cold War, these conferences and meetings are kept secret from the public and most echelons of the government.

1948: Utilizing funds left over from the prioritary Manhattan Project, the RAND corporation launches an inquiry on a so-called "Kinder, Gentler War", dealing with possible methods of achieving the original goals of the commission.

The USSR likewise launches a similar project, becoming the United States' homologue in such research behind the Iron Curtain. German reparations to the Soviets are used to fund such an undertaking.

Both organizations achieve some degree of success, mostly in the fields of theorical international relations, economic development, long-range planning and crisis management. Their developments are filed under the general label of "Operations Research."

Details of the nuclear bomb are leaked to the Soviet Union through the only known member of these original Operations Research comissions, codenamed Rudolf Abel. The circumstances of the leak are shrouded in secrecy. A CIA investigation reveals several RAND documents discussing the possibility of Mutually-Assured Destruction (MAD) being the key to end war.

The investigation is inconclusive.

1949: First Soviet nuclear test.

1953: The devastation caused by the Korean War lays silent witness to the inefficacity of the programs supposedly destined to geopolitically end war.

Confronted with MAD's inability to avoid proxy wars and the unwillingness of people to employ nuclear weapons, the Operations Research comission turns towards the esoteric, a move mirrored on the other side of the Iron Curtain by the Soviet Union and its OKB-288. It is rumored they are influenced by Nazi research on esoterism.

The Soviet Union is suspected to have played a part in helping their Chinese counterpart jump-start a similar project.

1954: The capital discovery in human history. Unearthing XIX century New Thought philosophy and Berkeleian writings, both RAND and OKB-288 begin dwelling on the human mind's ability to influence its surroundings.

Patterns begin showing a possible confirmation for the "Law of Attraction" formulated in the second decade of the XX century. Through an unknown process, it is observed that a human subject's subconscious conviction is capable of producing certain outcomes in experiments. In other words, a subject being convinced that the result of a dice roll will be 3 influences the result into being 3. These initial experiments produce very minor results, such as microgram alterations in samples or small changes in velocity of observed objects after lenghty hypnosis sessions that convinced the subjects into accepting (and causing) false results. The discovery is nevertheless of enormous implications, both projects are buried under secrecy and deceit.

Unlike research into psychic powers, it is proven that all subjects regardless of background and education exhibit this property, the unimaginatively named "Attraction". It is believed to be a trait encoded within the human mind or genetics. The only thing required for a subject to begin influencing his surroundings is to have a degree of subconscious conviction that the desired result is inevitable (to think as if he has already achieved the result). However, single subjects are universally shown to be only capable of minimal changes on the physical world. The effect augments more or less linearly with numbers.

The RAND project is terminated and transferred to the Department of Defense under the codename MKCANTOR.

1957: The Soviet Union enlists scientist Nikolai Alexandrovitch Kudryavtsev in OKB-288 in a project to spontaneously generate oil out of Attraction. It is the first known case of trying to employ the strange, ethereal influence for a practical goal.

Several oil wells are built in the vincinities of Tourinsk. These are built in areas where geological surveying has confirmed there is no oil. However, the surveying results are kept secret from the extraction teams and the Tourinsk population, the former of whom undergo heavy sessions of hypnosis and thought implantation. Results are negligible at first, then the oil starts coming up the well.

The People's Republic of China launches its own project codenamed '491'.

MKCANTOR, 491 and OKB-288 launch investigations on naturally-occurring attraction phenomena.

1959: The Tourinsk abiotic wells extract a small but continuous ammount of oil throughout the last two years.

Sino-Soviet split. 491 loses the great majority of its Soviet technical support. This galvanizes the Chinese leadership into one-upping the Soviet "traitors", causing them to organize an operation of unprecedented scale. Using enormous propaganda campaigns backing up pseudoscientific principles, the Chinese state intend to use the principles of Attraction to become a fully-industrialized communist state. The Great Leap Forwards begins.

Mimicking Kudryavtsev to subconsciously suggest results into reality, the Chinese employ the disproven doctrines of Trofim Lysenko to boost agricultural output. Instead of taking an individualized approach of hypnosis, the suggestion is simply blared out loudly to the masses in hopes that the numbers compensate. To eliminate a possible ideological counterweight to the Chinese visions, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Anti-Rightist Movement and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution eliminate dissent in force. 491's own scientists and technicians end up being persecuted.

1961: OKB-288 and MKCANTOR take note of the Great Leap Forward's catastrophic failure to further refine their methods. It is deduced that the desired results cannot be explicitly stated to the subjects, as conscious thought seems incapable of exerting physical influence like unconscious ideas.

Following some research, MKCANTOR arrives to the conclusion that the more subliminal a message is, the stronger its individual influence becomes.

The term "Noetic Effect" is first used to refer to the subliminal manipulation in a DoD paper. It replaces the previous, inaccurate term of "Attraction".

1969: The US and Soviet Noetic programs advance at full steam alongside the less secret nuclear and space programs.

The CIA learns of the Tourinsk "Noetic Oil" wells and their nature. With presidential authorization and in utmost secrecy, they begin a campaign of psychological subversion to employ inverse Noetic Influence to close the wells. The CIA does this by introducing information "contamination" on the Soviet experimental subjects by way of discrete leaflets containing seemingly-random code, creating cognitive dissonance that nullify their belief on the wells. The nature of the contamination remains unknown.

The attack is succesful and the Tourinsk oil wells cease producing overnight. Soviet attempts to re-hypnotize the excavation crews and nearby town through subliminal messaging are unsuccesful.

First appearance of the term "Silent Weapon" to refer to the utilization of Noetic Influence to attack the resources or combat capacity of a nation. It is seen on an intercepted report written by Soviet scientist Hector C. Sechayelevskiy from the Tourinsk site.

The fruitlessness of the CIA's efforts to find any trace of Sechayelevskiy cast doubt on his existence.

Noetics become advanced enough that small objects can be replicated with the power of suggestion, even if the subject has never seen the original. These replicas are referred to as Hrönir (s. Hrön). Hrönir can only be created out of extremely simple, intuitive objects at first. Par example, a person who lost a pencil and who is unaware the pencil has already been removed from the scene can cause a second pencil to spontaneously appear.

1970: The Vietnam War rages on.

In collaboration with the US Army, the MKCANTOR commission attempts to create Hrönir of several missing Green Berets soldiers in Laos to bring them back as heroes and raise morale. A more important goal of the operation is field-testing human replication through Hrönir. The joint project is codenamed Operation Architect.

Architect backfires horrifically, two chemical airstrikes are employed to suppress the entire area, codenamed Operation Tailwind. The exact nature of the failure is never revealed. A wave of CIA-sponsored domestic network seals the whole affair in inscrutable secrecy.

The catastrophe is blamed on the Soviets, who are believed to have used their own noetic contamination to sabotage Architect as revenge for the neutralization of Tourinsk. The crisis attracts the attention of the United Nations Security Council, who begin suggesting a regulation of Silent Weapons. For the purpose, several methods of detecting the Silent Weapons are developped, mostly based around pattern-recognition, a joint effort of the emerging fields of programming, social psychology and cryptography.

1975: After three years of arduous labor, the Soviets create the most complex Hrön to date, a non-functional copy of an Intel 8008 processor. Their next attempt at noetically reverse-engineering microchips would prove fruitless when a taunt engraved in a VAX 780 chip (VAX - when you care enough to steal the very best) throws the subjects off-hypnosis. Similar small bits of noetic contamination are then used in a wide array of classified objects to avoid Hröning.

Stagnation reduces available funding for the Soviet Noetic program, MKCANTOR overtakes OKB-288's research by a wide margin.

A DoD inquiry on the usage of Silent Weapons on the global markets following the 1973-1974 stock market crash uncovers a truly countless amount of Noetic effects at play in the markets. Without any of MKCANTOR's elaborate engineering and scientific method, the blind forces of the global market have created, completely naturally and accidentally, a globally-spanning network of Noetic influences and counter-influences where the line between speculation and direct altering becomes muddled. The labyrinth of interdependent Noetic forces overwhelms the DoD in its scope, capable of creating droughts, altering land fertility, causing inexplicable rises in production or efficiency amongst a myriad of other effects. The most powerful Silent Weapons are completely natural, simple seeds of doubt and speculation able to snowball into devastating bear markets that cause much more damage than the Silent Weapons' relatively puny effects. Most surprising of all, created by subjects unaware of their Noetic actions.

Following the discovery of what the inquiry termed the Fisosphere (Fis- faith; defined as the Noetic component of a system) in the stock market, a significant question shakes the foundation of Noetic research: What if Noetic attraction was a natural quality of all systems in existence? How much of the properties observable universe could be attributed to human systems that have been in place for centuries such as scientific currents, states, human values; or even since millenia such as ethics, morality, religion and social castes? Was there any intrinsic aspect to the universe, or did the Fisosphere define and rule the cosmos? To what point could it be said the Fisosphere was the cosmos?

1978: The philosophical aftershocks of the Fisosphere discovery take its toll on MKCANTOR's secrecy as several of its members attempt to leak the secret to the public. CIA begins a campaign of counter-intelligence to discredit the whistleblowers. Their main tool for this is the New Age movement, through which they publish countless examples of exaggerated contamination with which to discredit the real leaks in view of the general public.

Project Stargate begins under the auspice of the Defense Intelligence Agency, trying to create subjects known as "witches": subjects that have equivalent Noetic influence over reality as dozens, even hundreds of common humans and are immune to contamination. This does not succeed.

Taking notes from the failed Maoist attempts, DARPA works on its own version of a mass media-distributed Silent Weapon using a conjunction of subliminal cryptology and national audiovisual media. An episode of The Love Boat is broadcasted to millions with a Silent Weapon encrypted in it, designed to collapse the Cuban sugar harvest. It is considered ineffectual.

1981: Somewhat reluctantly, the Xiaoping administration in China restarts its own Noetic projects. Technical help is offered by the US as the relations between the two countries warm. The Tiananmen Massacre and its political fallout would later mark the end of this cooperation.

Silent Weapons now permeate most aspects of daily life, having been used and stacked on top of each other over years of use; altering reality in a myriad subtle ways. Boosting, neutralizing, delaying or interfering with each other's effects, their interaction becomes a secret field of study.

The United Nations Silent Weapons Comittee (UNSWC) is created after decades of failed or vetoed attempts. A secret wing of the UN Security Council, its main task becomes regulating the proliferation and usage of Silent Weapons.

Glimpses of Noise
 Glimpses of Noise 

Escalation

1991: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapses, bringing down with it the entire Fisosphere that had grown around the communist system. Communism falls in the east, superpower dichotomy falls in the west. The sheer rapidity of the change begins stressing reality. Unexplained disappearances spike worldwide, mysterious naturally-occuring human Hrönir are first discovered in Eastern Europe and are quickly abducted for study.

2004: Some degree of commotion happens in the UN Silent Weapons Comittee as some delegates claim global warming is a silent weapon.

Operation Lilt takes place, a CIA attempt to create a Hrönir of a weapon of mass destruction and retroactively place it in Iraqi hands fails to yield anything other than several 155mm binary shells filled with an inert cyclosarin structural variant. The manufacture date on the shells is 2038, all labels are written in Hindi.

This would be the last major action of the CIA and Project MKCANTOR. The 2008 financial crisis causes a large cutback in silent weapons research. After countless failures and little to show for their original intent of ending war, a new generation of politicians and military leaders find themselves unable to trust Noetic research to achieve results. Russia abandons its ambitions to revive OKB 288's work. On the other hand, China's economic growth and increasing military budget (and lack of deployments to spend it on) strenghtens its own program.

2012: China creates the most complex Hrön in the history of nations: a non-airworthy F-35A Lightning II fighter jet, which is used as a basis for the J-31. A anonymous CIA informant informs that crafting the Hrön took over 10 years and a taskforce of more than a hundred subjects hypnotized to such degree they lost all cognitive functions, being neurologically incapable of doing anything but picturing the fighter jet. Leaked blueprints and spy data was used to fine-tune their efforts. The colossal scale of this Hrön shocks the world, a commotion is caused in the Silent Weapons Comittee.

Liaoning, the first Chinese aircraft carrier, is accepted into service.

Despite the fears of the UNSWC's delegates, the 2012 Mayan apocalypse does not happen.

2027: Vikrant, the first Indian aircraft carrier, is accepted into service.

China's export-driven economy has by now largely restructured into a services-driven economy. Trade between the US and China diminishes, the latter's demand for dollar-denominated assets fall. The US dollar begins rapidly inflating, which results in a great slowing of Chinese lending to the US.

India experiences explosive growth as it overtakes China on the global export market, catering to the voracious consumption of the P.R.C., whose well-positioned renminbi allows it to keep an edge on the US's faltering currency.

2041: Operation Hope Agleam results in the US occupation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A fierce insurgency remains.

The People's Republic of China overtakes the US as the largest economy in the world. US President Ingram N. Johnson's "Pivot to America" policy will, in the course of a few years, allow the large Asian country to occupy the vast majority of its disputed territories. Cries of silent weapon usage and treachery abound.

The UN relocates its headquarters to Dubai. The official cause is given as the degrading structural integrity of the old building. In reality, the increasingly-libertarian United States found no desire to further weaken its own economy by providing funding to the organization that proves powerless (if not downright approving) to Chinese expansionism even in the face of such dire events as the sinking of the JDS Myōkō.

A political referendum of an enraged Japan reinstates the Japanese Armed Forces.

2050: India overtakes the US as the second largest economy in the world. Mirroring China ten years earlier, its economy begins restructuring into a services-driven one, galvanizing the growth of the Brazilian export sector.

Chinese interventionism in the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia, a well as their backing of the Prophet's Brigade in the Kashmir Occupation leads India to accuse China of trying to contain them. As the economies of both countries detach from one another in favor of the more lucrative African and South American markets, relations between the two countries worsen and reach a critical point with the interception, forced detour and subsequent crash of of CCA-097 by the Indian Air Force.

Chinese Aircraft Carrier Taiwan is sent to the Bengal Gulf under the guise of recovering the Sri Lanka-bound CCA-097's wreckage, India responds in turn by deploying the INS Bhaskara. The UN demands moderation from both sides as cases of ethnic violence begin occurring in both countries against Indians and Chinese. The Sino-Indian border soon becomes the site of a large mobilization. Chinese Crouching Dragon drones hailing from the former USAF base in Bagram fire missiles on Indian occupation forces in the Kashmir Region, claiming they were Turkestan separatists in disguise. The Indian air defense forces respond by establishing a no-fly zone over Kashmir, shooting down a Chinese electronic intelligence aircraft outside of its boundaries.

Alongside their conventional, orbital, cyberspace and nuclear forces, but in complete secret, India and China ready the next generation of Silent Weapons.

2051: The standoff in Asia reaches its second month as border skirmishes increase in intensity. EU, Russian, Brazilian and American markets dwindle in anticipation.

The UNSWC holds its final meeting, missing two of its representatives. Compared to the chaos of the global stage, the ambiance is solemn. Over a hundred years have passed since the original postwar meetings that led to the creation of Operational Research, the discovery of Attraction, the creation of the Noetic sciences and finally the Silent Weapons. The world has come full circle, as the meetings that once signalled the end of a war now herald another. The failure of the original Operations Research is considered absolute.

A final moment of reflection is held by the scientists, generals and politicians attached to the SWC. More with intellectual interest than resignation, the most brilliant minds in the world in the field of Noetics ponder what could have been done differently to avoid the situation, to give humanity the hope that Operations Research originally promised. If the Silent Weapons were not the answer, what was? They once again returned to the century-old fundamental question.

The press is evacuated from the room, followed by security and national dignitaries. Only the scientists remained locked in the assembly hall at their own request. What followed remains only conveyable through rumor due to the lack of eyewitnesses. It is said the intellectuals dwelt in meditation as one, having long trained their minds to the vicissitudes required by Noetic research.

Of the 124 people in the room only 12 came out, the others had vanished without a trace. The 12 remaining would in turn disappear into the desert in a few weeks. When questioned, only one of them ever spoke, cryptically saying "Seed A Barren Earth."

Benefitting from the cover offered by the Indian air defense, Turkestani terrorists demolish the Ürümqi Train Station in response to the martial law imposed over Xinjuan by the fully mobilized PLA.

Chinese J-40 aircraft from the Taiwan, aided by submarine 099, carry out a missile strike on the trespassing INS Bhaskara.

The End War
 The End War 

Catharsis

Hour 0 : The Bhaskara is struck by four anti-ship missiles to her starboard side. Miscoordinated damage control and confusion cause the resulting fires to grow out of control and partially detonate the magazines, preventing the crew of the Bhaskara from counter-flooding the ship. The aircraft carrier capsizes and sinks four hours later. A small flotilla of destroyers group around their struck flagship to protect the survivors, reinforced by aircraft deployed from the Indian mainland.

Hour 6 : Silent Weapon codenamed 'KAMALATMIKA' is used by the Indian government. A loud infrasonic, modulated humming is reported over the subcontinent.

Hour 0-II : The Bhaskara safely sails its patrol on the Indian Ocean. Some of the crew reports mild confusion, headaches and a couple seizure.

Hour 1-II : KAMALATMIKA is reinforced by an onboard broadcast to the Indian population, Chinese admiralty is dumbfounded.

Hour 6-II : Silent Weapon MAHALASA is used.

Hour 0-III(M) : Aircraft carrier Taiwan is sunk after a combined strike by aircraft from the Bhaskara and land-based aircraft after it trespassed into Indian territorial waters. A crew gripped by confusion and inexplicable panic attacks is unable to right the ship's listing. The Indian pilots are likely affected, 3 out of 8 fail their landing procedures, one crashes against the deck of the Bhaskara.

Hour 3-III(M) : Major Chinese websites are hacked and display images and footage of the sinking Taiwan to the population. The PLA quickly catches on to what is happening. Total war is declared. Deployment of silent weapon '01080' fails due to contamination.

Hour 5-III : Elements of the Chinese 139th Division are quickly given the order to mobilize to avoid being capture and seize the highway 31A in Sikkim, supported by army-level artillery assets into a deep push in the mountains. A major Chinese air offensive starts over Northern India.

Hour 13-III : Silent Weapon '01080' is employed again, this time tuned to compensate for contamination.

Hour 48-IV : Supported by aircraft from the rebuilt Taiwan, the 139th, reinforced by the 31st and 40th divisions, captures the majority of Sikkim; rapidly seizing Reshi, Gangtok and Mangan; as well as the Pakyong Airport. The first 'void' is reported by soldiers from both sides.

Hour 5-V(M) : Indian stealth bombers destroy the divisional headquarters of the PLA's 139th division as well as multiple bridges leading into Sikkim. The 139th is neutralized, its soldiers overtaken by panic attacks and mass epileptic seizures. All bombers crash.

Hour 52-VI : The 139th succesfully occupies Siliguri, the N31 highway and Bagadora airport with minimal casualties after defeating the 15th, 48th and 61st Armored Regiments in a battle they do not remember. Mass defections and even suicides cause the 139th to be relieved almost immediately by the 40th Division. Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mirozam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh provinces are all isolated from the rest of India.

Hour6-VII(M) : Having bombed the Katiadi Airbase, the Indian 4th Gurkha Regiment, augmented by the 77th, 53rd, 61st and 24th Armored Regiments as well as a mysterious unit of origins unknown even to the Indians, score a major victory for India by seizing the Chinese-aligned Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka and all surrounding highways. All units involved immediately break out into mutiny, savage massacres occur in Dhaka. Radio contact is lost with all units except for the unknown unit, whose only transmission is "We Are the Architects".

Hour 7-VII(M) : Indian high command, sensing a foreign relations disaster in Dhaka, recommend lowering the intensity of Silent Weapon Usage.

Hour 62-VIII:  With the Indian 17th and 29th Cavalry Regiments' having been silenced by preparatory airstrikes from Bagram Airfield, the Chinese 126th, 67th and 70th capture the N947-N8 and N15-N14 highway intersections and threaten Ahmedabad. Chinese high command lose contact with the three divisions and have to piece together what happens next after the 67th and 126th begin attacking the 70th in a ferocious, uncoordinated offensive. Only one repeated transmission from the 126th's divisional comms officer arrives to HQ, who screamed that the "sights of hell malign and threaten reality."

Hour 21-IX(M) : The situation has largely escalated out of control as the entire Indian XXI Corps, having seized the Martaban Gulf Area, disappeared from the face of the Earth. What replaces it horrifies the Indians into carrying out strategic airstrikes against their own position in Martaban, leaving units in the north unprotected from the PLA Ground Forces' advance.

Hour 70-X : Cruise missile strikes ravage Chennai and Sri Lanka. The Indian retaliation destroys Chinese airfields and fuel depots in Tibet. The Taiwan and Bhaskara sank each other in the Indian Ocean, their escorts vanished. Ultrasound signatures resembling warped screaming are picked up by SOSUS and anti-submarine aircraft on both sides.

Hour 71-XI : The Chinese and Indians begin to grow desperate, diplomatic channels for a ceasefire are opened immediately.

Day 2-XII(M) : Silent weapon KARTIKEYA is used. Silent Weapon '1240' is used.

Hour 0-XIII(K/1) : The remnants of Taiwan and Bhaskara battlegroups safely sail within Chinese and Indian waters respectively. Preparations continue for a demobilization of the troops and de-escalation.

Hour 1-XIV(K/1) : The crews of the Taiwan and Bhaskara battlegroups, as well as the soldiers of the Indian XXI Corps, 4th Ghurka, 15th, 24th, 48th, 53rd, 61st and 77th Armored Regiments; as well as the Chinese 139th, 31st, 40th, 67th and 70th Divisions scuttle their ships and torch their bases in an uncontrolled frenzy, then begin moving towards the nearest cities.

Hour 10-XIV(K/1) : The Chinese and Indian governments authorize nuclear strikes on their own rampaging troops.

Hour 0 : The Bhaskara is struck by four anti-ship missiles to her starboard side. Aircraft carrier Taiwan is sunk by land-based aircraft six hours later. Neither ship defended itself.

Voids
 Voids 

Afterglow

~2060: The sheer intensity of the Silent Weapons used in the End War throws reality into disarray. Enormous voids appear in the global population's memories. After being repeatedly overwritten and contradicted, large time periods have ceased to exist altogether. The panic that grips the public is colossal, making the sinking of the two aircraft carriers seem petty in comparison. The economies of the world crashed far worse than they would have had the End War been fought conventionally. The Era of Stability, having lasted since the birth of mankind, comes to and end.

Approximately 9 years of human history have disappeared from causality. The majority of national governments are crippled as the human race faces the unknown. The Voids return, lasting minutes at first, then weeks. 'Asynchronous voids' erase the past only in certain geographical eras. The US, Indian, Russian, European and Chinese Noetic Sciences investigation laboratories lie silent and deserted as the world turns to prayer or outright despair. Apocalyptic cults spring throughout the globe and large portions of the civilized world are reduced to banditry and eschatological panic. Scientific explanations for the Voids fall on deaf ears; the existence of the Silent Weapons is revealed to the public by the remaining people who know them, but their revelations are drowned out in a cacophony of panic and despair.

An anguished public is quickly gripped by a glimmer of momentary hope once a pattern emerges in the chaos: thousands of Chinese and Indian ex-soldiers begin receiving visions and suffering physical mutation, developping hypersensitive albino eyes and, in some cases, stigmata in the form of bullet or shrapnel wounds. In feverous visions they can see each other no matter how far they are. Each vision has them drawing closer to their comrades, fusing into one another. The cryptic figure that was supposed to emerge when they all fused, whose name is lost to one of the Voids, is simply remembered by the dry designation of 'Y', given to it by an archaeological research many millenia later.

The cult around this figure helps society cope in some areas of Asia for a while. Eventually, hopes for Y's appearance wither as the ex-soldiers die to disease or violence.

~2090: The largest recorded Void retroactively erases 30 years from existence. As the Voids grow larger and larger, many prophesize that, one day, humanity and the universe will simply have never existed. Plagues, crime and suicide take their toll on the population, and the great civilizations of man slowly slide into nonexistence, back into a primitive disorder. From space, the night sky becomes darkened again.

~2099: The dawn of a new century. Mankind was dead. 12 people came back from the desert.

Trivia

 * Props to VoughtVindicator for his amazing story which I shamefully ripped off for a backstory: Rise of a New World Timeline 1.
 * Mankind as a species is not dead, merely brought into a state of chaos and barbarism. In other words, human society intentionally and unintentionally pressed the RESET button. They got better, becoming the Novian Empire.
 * Did You Know? The 124 scientists decided to pull off a God-Emperor of Mankind. The results are evident.
 * The 12 purged humanity of the genes that caused the Noetic Effect, though not fully. This had a side-effect of making them the only living beings with significant individual Noetic influence.