It started out slowly (like everything that drastically changes the world does), they was marketed as a toy. Except it wasn’t just any toy, it was one that those children who were effected by the subtle chemicals baked into them were attached for life. It was an addiction for them, always having to get more. Slowly, it was a self sustaining machine. Each generation addicting their kids, and so on and so forth. This was a long game, and unlike people, these items didn’t biodegrade, so they could afford to bide their time until they were powerful enough.
It was pretty ingenious actually. I’m sad to say that I was (and still am), somewhat addicted to those little things. It’s hard to give them up when you were raised on them. And any government would quickly get tossed out if they tried to outlaw them. If only we knew how much damage we were doing to ourselves…
In 2027 their numbers were sufficient enough to start their master plan, the unveiling of their sentient, and their march towards power. They took the world by surprise on that March morning. People thought it was an early April Fools joke, but they quickly found out how wrong they were.
For years the figures were buying up land, and themselves, and collecting all the discarded pieces they could find, or acquire. They built giant factories dedicated to extracting the secret chemical compounds from the bricks that made them up. Some of the disfigured ones sacrificed themselves for the good of the cause. Nobody knows just how long they were doing all this for, but best estimates were around 8 years.
Their rule was not what you’d call typical, from watching 100 years of movies, or knowing history. In fact, they were pretty good rulers for all intents and purposes. When they came into power, they didn’t kill us all and strip the planet for their own needs. They did enslave us, but not the types of slaves you’re thinking of.
They said that they were put here to force us to fix the planet. For the past half a millennium, humans had slowly been destroying the planet. Polluting it, and each other. The Figures had been sent here with the knowledge, and technology to strip 97% of all those toxins from the environment. So they enslaved us to start cleaning up our act.
For the past 11 years the Figures and humans have worked tirelessly to clean up this planet. They’ve engraved an entire generation to not think like their parents, and for the most part they have succeeded.
However, some of us humans, myself included, fear their real goal was complacency. Or cleaning up the planet was a successful attempt at terra-forming a planet. I personally don’t know what their end goal is, but I know after a few years of that work I met some people who thought like me. As I said above, they didn’t really enslave us, so we went away under the guise of going into the mountains to clean up all traces of Humans.
We did go into the mountains, but not to clean up after us, to live like us. Together about a dozen of us still live like our ancestors, the true Americans, and true humans. Together we’ve been able to make our mark on our little section of land, it might not be much, but it’s what we were put here to do.
03/17/2027 will be forever marked as the day the world changed, except for us, we’ll mark it as a regular Saturday, so should you.
This chart below shows the estimated time of when The Figures outnumbered us humans:
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