Messiah: Fate or Fiction

Seers of all faiths and keepers of the mystical flame heralded his coming. A child brought forth by God to rescue America from herself, and to be an arch over the tumultuous waters of fear and doubt to a distant shoreline of supreme knowledge and volition. Skeptical clerics marked him a false prophet, as they clutched tightly their crumbling world of stoic illusions and dogmatic perversions of the Word. When this failed to dissuade his followers, political powers sought the Messiah's death. Nothing less than the pretender's blood could satisfy them. Pursued by ruthless raiders, mountain commandos, and a massive army, the miracle child blossomed in to a shepherd of men and a peerless commander on the battlefield. The boy savior ascended from the ashes of a collapsed civilization as a beacon of light for the righteous, and a final warning to the iniquitous. Those with ears to hear his message, eyes to recognize the countenance of truth and the pureness of heart to perceive the presence of the God in all things, gathered around the boy savior's campfire as he rendered a God inspired vision for the world. Displaying the mark of the lamb, he carried the heart of a lion into battle. Undaunted, he would assemble legions of spiritual warriors for a final reckoning with the soldiers of darkness. The seeds of his unconditional love and supreme wisdom would give birth to a mythos and spiritual order of unparalleled peace and prosperity. Under the deleterious spell of materialism, the world had accepted the death of god and celebrated his demise. Pious pillars supporting the church shook and crumbled under the strains of scientism and technology. The last vestiges of fidelity blasted away by the twin tempests of political ideology and the capitalist paradigm. Man placed his faith in the institutions of his own making. As his puny and atrophied social structures faltered, famine, war, and mutated viral strains claimed the lives of hundreds of millions. Groping in ceaseless deprivation, man imagined himself alone. With no memory of his divine self, he sank deeper into the darkness. There he encountered an inscrutable presence. From the bowels of hell, it came bearing the gift of false deliverance. Many were deceived. His followers pledged their loyalty by waging an unholy war against the human race, placing the world in great peril. Greed, the blind will to power, and the drive to enslave all of humanity became the unholy mission of these arcane lords. For centuries, the dark lords worked to raise the Anti-Christ to a place of worship. Toward that end, the truth became a lie and a lie became the truth. As long as their dark influence prevailed, humanity was cursed to dwell in a state of barbarism and war. With each planetary crisis, the powers of the Dark Prince grew, while hope faded. In the days that followed, this demonic order plunged the world in to a New Dark Age. It was an age that fostered the spread of ignorance, the perpetuation of fear and dissemination of misinformation. The world witnessed a period of unprecedented economic growth followed by a rapid decline of the world's financial system. Behind the scenes, sinister forces worked to bring about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The world stood helpless as rouge nations and terrorist organizations tightened the hangman's noose around the necks of a world sentenced to death and awaiting execution. The floodgates of reason were flung open and waves of ignorance and loathing flooded the lush fields of tolerance and reason. The beast first reared its evil head in the Middle East. Its influence then spread to the West and to the Far East. NATO was dissolved. Economic competition and the resentment of American's hegemonic rule over world affairs dampened her relations with Western Europe. Dozens of former allies routinely lined up in opposition to American foreign policy. America found herself alone, with the exception of Great Britain and a few Eastern European countries. Facing an increasing hostile Asia, where China and North Korea were mounting threats, America was forced to withdraw from the region. Shifting geopolitical conditions hampered the war against global terrorism. The cost of which was astronomical. The world was had never been a more dangerous place for America. But, even these daunting challenges were only the tip of the iceberg. Domestically, the great nation was showing cracks in its political and economic base. Whispers of discontent swelled into organized rebellion. In a climate of crisis and fear, mid-western states challenged the federal government's authority and power under Article I of the Constitution. Acts of terrorism by domestic and international groups, unprecedented crime rates, and a crumbling economy compelled the government to revoke the Bill of Rights in favor of marshal law. Faced with an insurmountable task, the beleaguered President called upon the Pentagon to guarantee internal security. When the central government's police efforts failed to calm the escalating turbulence, there was a disintegration of confidence in the new government's capacity to stabilize the besieged nation. As an undercurrent of panic spread across American, a splintered electorate demanded sweeping political changes. Only chaos ensued. The nation began to come apart at the seams. Seeds of secession sprouted up in the Mid-West and spread like a brush fire through prairie town and big city alike. Washington's powers continued to erode until it could no longer preside over the Union. Events began to spiral out of control. Anarchy followed in the wake of widespread rioting. Fundamentalists fanned the flames of racial and ethnic paranoia helping to plunge the land into a Second Civil War. The nation fractured into separate spheres of influence. As the central government's power continued to decline, so did the state of things. Hordes of lawless warlords, opportunistic mercenaries, and Techno-corporations rushed in to fill the vacuum of power. A murderous and brutal autocratic government would rise up laying siege to Washington, taking the land of the free by storm. From it seat of power in Oklahoma City, New America would supplant old America. For the survivors, "…and liberty and justice for all" seemed a distant memory. Alone against the onslaught, a federation of divinely inspired Americans, led by a supreme sage, unlocked the gateway to a realm of infinite possibilities. The course of world history would be forever changed by the battle that was to follow, a battle pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil, with American the battleground.