The New Era Chapter 16

IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NEW ERA
The man gulped down his water greedily. A small trickle of water flowed down his cheeks. Kyoko drank her water a little more slowly. Hans simply stared at his glass, not drinking any of it. He was feeling dizzy, his head spinning with the new information he had learned. He didn't quite know what to make of it, but it certainly was different then anything he'd ever suspected before.
Wiping his mouth with his hand, the man continued where he had left off as if no break had ever occurred. "After five thousand years, the humanoids had acquired some extraordinary technology. With this technology, they were able to discover the kingdom of the gods. Indeed, the discovery occurred quite by accident, since up to this time the humanoids didn't even know the gods existed. Nevertheless, they discovered the gods' kingdom, and the gods were furious.
"Raging in there anger at being disturbed, the gods lashed out at the humanoids. Almost all of them were killed, the gods permitted only a handful to survive. The gods also destroyed all their technology. Every building, every computer, everything." The man gulped some more water. "Well, okay not everything."
Hans gasped. "The city."
"Right you are Hans. The city, the one you Watchers now live in, was overlooked by the gods, probably because it was underground. Now Hans, do you want to try for two for two? The humanoids had, by this time, pretty good technology for space travel. A small group of the humanoids escaped into space. Do you want to guess what happened to them?"
Hans head began to spin even faster despite the fact that things were finally beginning to fit together. "Your their descendents."
"Right again. The gods had no powers outside of the planet Fabulae, and were not able to give chase. For the humanoids remaining on Fabulae, the gods were determined not to let them ever regain the technology they had. The gods were convinced that the way to stop technology was to break up the unity of the humanoids. There first step was to create other life, millions of other life forms were created, in the hopes that the humanoids would not be able to relate to non-humanoids. Primates, dogs, cats, dinosaurs, all of the other non-humanoids were created then. The plan didn't work. humanoids and non-humanoids were able to get along perfectly." The man briefly stopped to consider his words. "Alright, there was an occasional fight, but they got along well for the most part.
"The gods had to resort to plan B, stir up dissension in any way possible. To do this, sometimes they would send sub-conscious messages into the head of someone, or sometimes they would appear to someone directly. The gods appointed one of their number to be responsible for making sure war and hatred persisted, and technology did not. This god revealed himself to several people, who in turn would most likely carry out his will of destruction. Hans, you've had more then your share of questions, so I'll give Kyoko a chance with this one. Kyoko, can you guess the name of that god?"
Kyoko's eyes widened. "Of course, the cult of Deka."
"Exactly. Deka started a religion that believed he was the only true god. Deka was very influential in the founding of the Calet empire. He stood right behind it, urging its kings to make war, and helping it to conquer other nations. Dekaism was the official religion of Calet. In this way, Deka used Calet as his instrument of destruction. Once Calet had conquered over three fourths of the world, Deka realized he had created more peace then war. He ended is deep involvement with Calet. The empire slowly fell apart without Deka there to ensure its every victory. Dekaism died out slowly also, although there are still a few believers in Fabulae today, it is not nearly as popular as it once was.
"Now, back to the small group of humanoids who escaped Fabulae. They called themselves The Renegades, and they founded several colonies on other planets suitable for life. Over time, there numbers increased dramatically. Their technology continued growing at a fascinating rate. They kept in touch with what was happening at Fabulae through 'the city' as you Watchers now call it. Naturally, they were less then please when Haket and his friends accidently stumbled upon it, but there wasn't much they could do from twenty light years away. They did develop computers with extremely far range on transmission. With these, they were able to connect with the computers in the city even from twenty light years away. The Renegades shielded information from The Watchers. Among the information shielded, was history before and at the founding of Calet, and space travel."
"Pardon my interruption, but this is something those of us in the city have been curious about for a long time, is there life on other planets?"
"The Renegades never encountered any real life forms, although they did come across several different species of quasi-lifeforms. That isn't to say other life doesn't exist somewhere out there. Anyway back to The Renegades, eventually they developed technology to the point where they could defeat the gods, easily. A select group was sent to recapture the motherland from the gods. We are that group."
"So, your plan is to defeat all the gods and recapture Fabulae as your own?" inquired Kyoko.
"That was the plan, yes. However, as we were on our way, we observed a very strange thing happening. A meteor, hit by a projectile form Fabulae, went out of the course it normally would have taken, where gravity normally would have pulled it, and hit the satellite that transmits information to the city."
Kyoko held up her hands. "Hold on, you said the gods didn't find the city because it was underground. If that's true, then how come the satellite wasn't destroyed?"
The man smiled. "Forgive, I guess I should have made this clearer. The satellite is in outer space, the gods have no power outside of Fabulae. They couldn't touch the satellite. The gods have little knowledge of how our technology works, and so where not able to see where the satellite was sending the information, and so the city was not found."
About to continue with the story, the man looked to see Hans staring vaguely off into space. "Hans, are you even listening to me?"
Hans snapped back into attention. "I'm listening, it's just that this information is overwhelming. I can't believe all of it is true."
The man laughed. "Well, I guess this is as good of time to tell you as any Hans, it isn't." Seeing the look on Hans' and Kyoko's face, the man laughed even harder. He tried to say something, but was overcome by laughter. Eventually, he calmed himself down enough to say, "don't-don't worry though, most of it's true. The only lie was when I said the gods didn't destroy the city because they didn't find it. I don't know why the gods didn't destroy the city, no one but the gods themselves know why. We Renegades have always assumed that they didn't know about it. That was until recently. Like I was saying, we were on our way to Fabulae, when the meteor hit the satellite. I think you know the resulting events all to well. We Renegades were observing them, and we are convinced that they were caused by the gods."
Hans leaned forward. "How did you come to that conclusion?"
"If you think about it, there's really no other explanation. For over a thousand years, you Watchers have lived peacefully. If your pardon my saying so, your history is the most boring in the universe. There were no wars, no rebellions, not even a political scandal. Now, all hell breaks lose among you. Rodens slaughters Icelers, Jistap seizes power, killing seven hundred, Gaius creates chaos, and," the man paused, "and most importantly Jistap wanted Calet to conquer the whole world with The Watchers helping it. Sound familiar? It did to us."
Kyoko nodded her head. "I think I understand what your saying. Assuming the gods knew about the city, they could access its computers. Since you were also accessing the city's computers through your own, the gods could access your computers through the city's computers."
"So far so good. It looks like your catching on."
"And," Kyoko continued, "since the gods could access your computers, they could tell what you were doing, and they found out about your plan to recapture Fabulae. As you were returning, the gods stirred up trouble among The Watchers to warn you to stay away."
The man clapped his hands in glee. "You got it! You got it!"
Hans heart beat quickly. "Does this mean Rodens is innocent of any wrong doing? That he did what he did because of the gods?"
The man looked sympathetically at Hans. "Sorry Hans, but I'm afraid your old buddy is as guilty as hell. The gods were no doubt urging him to do what he did, but the final decision was his The gods can make no one do something he doesn't want to do."
Kyoko looked confused. "Do you mean Rodens actually heard the voices of the gods in his head?"
"Well, for all intents and purposes, that's not a bad way of describing it. It's not quite correct, but probably a lot simpler then the truth." The man looked at Hans. "Undoubtably Hans, the gods have been urging you to do there will, but you have refused to do it.
"Anyway, back to the story. Like Kyoko said, we realized the gods were doing this to warn us to stay away. We were horrified. If the gods knew about us, that means they probably knew about our technology too. In fact, that probably meant they had duplicated our technology for themselves. The odds were not good, but we were determined not to turn back. We wanted the madness stopped as soon as possible, so we sealed the doors to the city so you Watchers couldn't do any more damage. The gods outwitted us, turning our actions to their advantage by unleashing Gaius. At this point, the only option open to us was to shut down the Watchers. We sent our ambassadors, only to have them attacked."
Hans thought that The Renegades attitude was largely responsible for the way the ambassadors were receipted, but decided not to bring this up. Instead, he asked, "how can you hope to take on the gods when your men were almost killed by The Watchers."
"Well, you have to admit our technology is impressive Hans. I won't even try to explain to you how it works, but when our ambassador could simply make all the laser guns he saw disappear with a wave of his hand, that's impressive. Do you know where the equipment was that allowed him to do that? It was hidden in the fabric of his clothing. That small, and it could do so much. We also had in the clothing a device that protected our ambassadors from your laser gun. I'll grant you that your laser guns were still able to knock them down, and repeated hits would have killed them, but we have another device that allows the lasers to pass right through the wearer and do no harm at all. Our ambassadors didn't wear this type because it uses more energy then we thought wise to expend. Our ambassadors came to talk, not to fight. We never expected an attack.
"Now you know everything. You must explain this to the other Watchers, and convince them to leave the city."
Hans and Kyoko exchanged glances, and each could tell the other was thinking the same thing they were. "Can we have a minute to discuss this?" asked Hans.
The man nodded. "I suppose that would be acceptable. You can meet in the adjoining room."