The Blackout

At the time, they called it the “Information Age.” Generations later, it was known by some as “The Dawning” and by others as “The Slip.” We now look back and see it for what it was—the precursor to “The Blackout.”

It was the turn of the 21st century and the Internet, a distant ancestor to our Link, was becoming a ubiquitous presence. The commonly accessed parts were called the World Wide Web, or simply “the Web” or “the Net.” Ironic that, even calling it by its name, humanity didn't recognize the trap they were in. You see, there were people at the time who realized that kingdoms were no longer defined by lines on a map; they were defined by how many people believed in your representation of the world around them. How many people bought your flavor of what the ancient classic 1984 called “Newspeak.” Their Internet that they so prized as the backbone of freedom and enlightenment was used against them by those who craved power more than progress. Billions of minds were manipulated with skewed perspectives, outright falsehoods, and sometimes even facts, if they were convenient, to build the new armies that would fight proxy wars with the militaries of the day. People were promised more, given less, and told they were good soldiers that just had to see the fight to the end.

There was little that could be done to combat the poisoned information. Credibility of experts was an early casualty. People's hubris born from the ready access to information made them believe study was unnecessary since one could simply search the Net for an answer. They were fed information in absurdly short sound bites with no context outside of what the presenter built. Discussion took place via equally short missives left to be viewed online. Nuance was derided by those in control of a message and was eventually lost with the population's attention span. The most powerful people became those who controlled media empires and who were most adept at spinning tapestries of worlds where the most sensible actions benefited those at the top with no regard for anyone else.

Independent journalists were the enemy of these would-be kings. Anything that contradicted the message was a threat to their power and had to be eliminated. At first, this was largely at the hands of governments. Some were heavy handed and made sure these journalists turned out to be diabolical criminals who needed to be locked up—forever. Some were less subtle and an inconvenient journalist might walk into a meeting at a consulate and leave dismembered in duffle bags. Still others simply made it a crime to report unauthorized news; but that was a little too authoritarian for the general population to stomach. At least at first. The more clever ones simply destroyed credibility. They would find a mistake, no matter how small or how quickly and publicly it was resolved, and they would exercise their information army to blow it up and disgrace the journalist neutralizing their ability to attack the New Truth. One prominent journalist who was an early victim of this machine was Daniel Irvin Rather. Known to most as Danrather, he built a decades long career of unwavering integrity. But, in an attempt to compete in a news cycle defined in seconds instead of the hours he was used to, he ran with a story that turned out to be false. His apology was swift and thorough, but so was his demise. No network or newspaper would employ him. He popped back up, though, years later speaking out on the still largely uncensored “Web.” It's this spirit that the Renegade Journalists channeled. RJs as they were commonly known when society had turned, often referred to each other as “Dans” to preserve what anonymity they could.

Eventually, economic disparity widened to the point that even the most devoted sycophants realized they had been left behind by their new kings. A barrier between the haves and have-nots became entirely insurmountable and then it was codified into law. New Feudalism was born and would dominate for decades, but, Oppressors and the Oppressed are passionate bedfellows and their offspring is Revolution.