Spherical Influence: Introduction

There’s something peculiar about the way the mind works. Not just the obvious things, either. It has astounding methods of coping with almost everything it’s possible to experience. Soul-shattering trauma, psychological abuse, untold cruelty – the mind can adjust to most of these things. To the observer, the person has severe psychological issues, granted, but to the mind, this is preferable to whatever the alternative is. The human mind has had millions of years to evolve these mechanisms in response to anything that has ever threatened our survival as a species.

Evolution, however, is not precognitive, it is purely a reactionary force and a slow one at that. It could not possibly have known what was about to happen to the human race. What they would have to deal with. What their minds would have to process and adjust to.

Humanity, by the very rules of nature, was not prepared for the impossible. Impossibility, it seems, doesn’t like to play fair. Impossibility likes to storm in, kick over our models, steal our best toys and shout obnoxiously about how its mother told it that it could play. Well Probability clearly never consulted with Nature before unleashing her bastard child on the universe. All humanity could do was cry while all their favourite things were torn down and trodden on, with not a helping hand in sight.

All we could do, was try to cope.

The advancement in technology did not faze the majority, even though scant generations ago our everyday technology was unthinkable. Go back further, we would seem like deities to our ancestors. Technology began to encroach on everything humanity knew. Even their own bodies. Barely into the third millennium, had humans and machines begun to merge. It was small scale; an augmented eye or an artificial limb were often used to replace their damaged biological counterpart. The mind could adapt to being part machine with no problem.

The breakdown of society in 2016 did nothing to prevent human thought. Kindness and cruelty; hatred and love; logic and insanity; they all thrived in equal measure. Through this, humanity survived and rebuilt. New civilisations appeared. Old prejudices vanished, replaced with all new ones. The first coping mechanism when encountering people who are different is distrust, it would seem.

The appearance of individuals with what would have been described as superhuman abilities did not ravage our minds. However, it stretched credulity a little too far for some people and it is this turning point in history that is often cited as the beginning of humanity’s greatest struggle.

Many of these abilities outright defied established laws of physics and universal constants. Due to our imaginations and the 20th and21st Centuries’ comic book industries, we had come to almost desire superpowers. Seeing them in action, flying in the face of all our scientific progress, however, was not the same. Physicists went mad trying to explain how such things were possible, to no avail. Some people with abilities struggled under the weight of their own power and went mad. Fights began to resemble the comic books humanity was so enamoured with. Through all this, life went on as usual for the average person.

The revelation that time travel was possible and that there were other ‘universes’ besides our own was another scratch on humanity’s collective sanity. Often theorised, the confirmation of these two phenomena addled the minds of physicists further still. They began to hypothesise on the nature of reality and if it was, in fact, degrading at the base level. Studies were done on the very fabric of existence and an alarming discovery was made: the ‘Multiversal Fabric’ was finite and near depleted, causing ‘holes’ in the nature of reality itself.

Earth’s best and brightest toiled for years to reach a solution to the problem. Several entire timelines alternate to our own were outright destroyed by dismantling their Fabric. This bought existence some time. It ruined the conscience of those involved. No human had ever known what it was to have ended an estimated several sextillion sentient life forms. Psychologists struggled to describe just what happened to the people involved as nothing like it had ever been documented.

Extra-terrestrial attention fell upon Earth through this crisis, both positive and negative. Yet another pop-culture fixation come true, this led many to question their existence as ‘real’ as opposed to a ‘bargain-bin sci-fi novel.’ The Church of the Fourth Wall sprung up during this period and soon attracted millions. Their goal was to contact “The Writer” and understand their divine intentions.

Earth soon joined the millions of worlds in its galaxy and beyond in a universe-spanning political forum. The sudden shift from barely escaping our own orbit to exploring the universe in physics-defying technology was too much again for some to handle. Reports were abound over the following decades of Space Madness: the inability to cope with the sheer vastness of the universe. Many began to feel that we had not had enough time to adapt and our minds were completely unprepared for just how different our lives were to those of our grandparents. Evolution could not possible keep up.

In one hundred years we had gone from our first satellite launch to having three off-world colonies. Those who coped with the speed of the adjustment considered themselves prepared for anything the universe could throw at them, even if it was primarily subconscious bravado.

But no human could prepare for the events of May 23rd 2065. The day we discovered the Noosphere.