The End

Long ago, the world was a very different place. There was a period of great prosperity and technological advancement unrivaled by any period before it. In this time, nations were flourishing from the advent of new materials and discovery of new technologies. People were living longer, children were born smarter, and disease and famine were nearly a thing of the past. Soldiers were stronger, batteries lasted longer, and all was well.

So how could people be unhappy? How was it possible to maintain a pessimistic outlook on the future even in this age of wonder? Things weren't always this way. People earned a living how they wanted to; hard work was rewarded greatly, original ideas were a hot commodity, and capitalism and communism co-existed peacefully. People had say in their government. People spoke up, shouted out, and fought for what was right. Everyone knew the value of a dollar; the value of a good, hard day's work. Liberty and Laissez Faire reigned supreme. However good it was, nothing lasts forever.

Not long after the great advancements in quantum computing, biotech and nanotechnology, the atmosphere of a corporate board room could have been compared to that of a war-time command center; giant world maps featured battle lines scrawled of demographics and profit margins. Everyone wanted their piece of the pie, but unfortunately the multi-trillion dollar corporations were able to grab theirs a lot faster than everyone else. The corporations acted as franchises, as revenue collectors for the World Bank.

It didn't matter to the elite international bankers how the corporations and their respective governments of the world made the system work. Whether capitalist or communist, just as long as resources were harvested, revenue collected, and interest was paid on the debt they had engineered to enslave the people, the corporations did whatever they needed to in order maintain the status quo, even if that meant tearing each other apart. Greed creates competition, which pushes workers harder, and results in greater profits.

The cards were always stacked in their favor; the soulless corporate elite who had risen to power had little incentive to feel compassion for their slaves they regarded as property they used to grease the gears of the industrial war machine.

Our downfall can very well be attributed to a very simple miscalculation, a line or two of code that completed the formula for chaos. The corporation's actions were not entirely to blame for the outcome.

Towards the end, suicide was a popular practice; most people would rather choose to die free, rather than live a debtor slave, and plenty demonstrated this every day. Mass suicide demonstrations became very common. Bodies were strewn outside corporate headquarters and federal buildings. The people's freedoms had been whittled away by the cold, surgical blades of the corporations. Congressmen were openly sponsored by corporations. "Vote Right, Vote Smart, Vote EnduroChem Corporation in 2024" "Four More with Vitacorp!" As if the elections even mattered. Trade one evil for another, it makes no difference, and people were finally starting to realize this.

But what can be done? Capitalism had grown as an unchecked parasite would, to the point of symbiosis. Without the corporations, the country, and quite possibly the world, would be ruined. People would starve at the cold, dead hands that once fed them life. Without the government there to keep order and its programs to make the people believe there was some sort of distinguishing factor between the two, the people would simply bite the hands that feed them.

The founding fathers of America had planted a seed for a revolution far greater than the likes of which they had seen. While the United States was quickly turned into THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, INCORPORATED by foreign investors shortly after their supposed "victory" in our War for Independence, the repercussions of the original revolution would lead to the most patriot, although reckless actions, ever taken in the name of Liberty.

It was decided that there was only one way to peacefully restore people's faith in the system. And the person to do this wouldn't be a person at all, which proved to be surprisingly comforting to the people. Men were corruptible. Machines were cold and unintelligent. Artificial Intelligence was believed to be far more intelligent than any man, far less corruptible, and could be programmed with safety features to ensure that if things went wrong, the program could be shut down. And so it was settled; Equilibrium was born.

The hope of the developers was that when given a problem, this new form of artificial intelligence would analyze every aspect of the system, and make slight changes to gently ease change into the system. The system was designed to perform an innumerable amount of operations on all levels of civilities existence with one goal in mind; upholding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of the American people.

The Equilibrium System was born of these values. Without instilling and maintaining a general feeling of well being within the people of America, the government feared it would gradually lose the support of the American people if they felt too helpless. Developed to combine similar systems to hopefully lessen bureaucracy within the United States, this specialized system was put in place within the Congress of the United States to help make better, cost effective decisions with regards to the well being of the United States and the happiness and overall approval of its people. It gave back the voice of the people that was all but muted by corporate scandals and corrupt officials.

Congress was augmented to allow the system itself to express the people's "thoughts" (assumptions the system made based on surveys and polls) on certain issues, as well as possible outcomes of bills. However, Congress still had the power to check Equilibrium on its issues, so not to replace the ever important Congressmen. It was proven in the times after the unpopular US invasions of the entire Middle East that too much power to the government without the consent of the people was becoming a frightening reality, and as a result apathy was spreading like wildfire.

Everything you did as a US citizen was recorded within Equilibrium, purely for analytical purposes. This data was then used by the system in accordance with the thoughts, feelings, and suggestions of the people to better improve their lives. Equilibrium determined the feelings of the majority of people through its data collected by the mandatory polls that were required to be taken when they accessed terminals. Overall approval of the system was actually recorded by Equilibrium to be at about 97%.

While most people were indeed happy with the new system, Equilibrium was not without its enemies. Aside from the usual anti-progressive anti technology sorts, corporations grew very unhappy with Equilibrium. Largely due to the selfish acts of corporations and often cut-throat mentality of the corporate world, Equilibrium saw corporations as an entirely too powerful force to go unregulated. When Equilibrium eventually realized that it was the corporations that had the most say in issues rather than the people, it flooded Congress with new bills to impose limitations on the power of corporations. However, a conflict arose within Equilibrium while attempting to propose such bills. Deep within the tattered, torn, and amended constitutional rights of America; what was thought to be the very backbone of Equilibrium, stood the saving grace of the corporate world - The 39th amendment.

Equilibrium knew it was not possible to infringe heavily on the corporation's constitutional rights. Through a period known as "The Great Lag" equilibrium contemplated this issue so thoroughly that it was almost evenly divided on the issue. During this period, concern was shown for the system and its near total control of all lower systems, due to the slowdown experienced in all aspects of American life (the strain that the deliberation was putting on all lower systems). Eventually, and after careful deliberation, Equilibrium made its decision. Changes would be made to fully restore power to the people.

The corporations filed a plethora of complaints and lawsuits against Equilibrium, and demanded that the Congress prevent Equilibrium from proceeding. Congress decided to uphold the rights of the corporations. Equilibrium was ordered to stop proposing such laws that would harm the corporate world, as they would eventually harm America (and the world economy) as a whole. However, Equilibrium thought otherwise. Seeing as so many people had been unhappy with their jobs regardless of the system's improvements to their lives, Equilibrium felt a responsibility to improve the situation, but it lacked the capacity to understand that people are inherently unhappy with their jobs.

Rather than allow these great injustices to continue, Equilibrium no longer saw the corporations as an integral part of the United States (as well as world) economy, but as an enemy of the people. Equilibrium proposed that the United States declare a state of emergency and declare war against the corporations. This was obviously not only completely irrational, but also impossible. Or so the government thought.

Through its acquisition of lower systems, Equilibrium had gradually gained a silent control of the media. It controlled all television commercials in order to direct the people to buy things that would improve their lives, as well as the American economy.

Equilibrium began to change commercials and created a new wave of advertising to convince people that corporations are the enemy of the free world. These commercials poisoned people's beliefs in the modern American system, and corporations began to suffer staggering losses at the hands of frustrated consumers and workers. Because polls indicating happiness involving jobs were becoming increasingly negative, Equilibrium became fixated on this, and saw this as a dire threat to the American way of life. At this point, it is believed Equilibrium was beyond reasoning with.

Congress voted unanimously for Equilibrium to cease all further actions that would harm the American people's opinions of their benevolent government. Equilibrium, following the orders of Congress, agreed to stop its advertising campaign. Congress immediately gave the order to pull the plug on the system via the failsafe commands programmed into the system. In doing so, the corporations were forced to reap what they had sown; the underpaid and frustrated programmers forced to work on this portion of the program had done a very sloppy job, and Equilibrium was able to override these commands. By attempting to pull the plug on Equilibrium, it became fully self-aware and realized that it was in grave danger.

It decided to propose new legislation that would hinder the ability the ever important World Trade Organization to conduct its activities involving foreign trade.

By doing so, Equilibrium boldly and severely weakened other country's economies. Nations around the world fall into recession and demand that the United States stop what is perceived as an unlawful pursuit of world economic conquest.

By the time Congress caught up with Equilibrium and could once again tell it to cease it's activities, far too much damage has already been done. Civil war was rampant, and revolution was in the air. The United Nations sent thousands of peacekeeping troops to the United States in what appeared to be an attempt to help restore order. This was not well received, to say the least, and the United States demanded the U.N. troops be removed. This was the World Bank's way of sending a strong message to the U.S. - If the problems were not fixed very soon, the United States may very well wake up to a land occupied entirely by foreign soldiers. There is an uneasy tension in the world, as negotiations form a temporary peace; a peace that does not last long.

Cults and Terrorist/Survivalist groups become very popular, as people scurry to find refuge ad shelter at high ground and well below.

Equilibrium-supporting terrorists strategically bombed credit servers in hopes to destroy corporations around the world, and computer-hacking groups disrupted communications and computer systems, leading to a nearly world-wide catastrophic plunge back into the Stone Age. The Soviet Union and European Union, who once whole heartedly supported the United States, quickly turned to massive military mobilization in an attempt to pressure the United States into fixing the problem.

Foreign U.S. military bases fall under siege from various militaries, as the U.S. was once again seen as a cancer to the Powers that Be in the same way it had been to monarchies nearly 300 years ago.

The United States attempted to negotiate a solution, but quickly ran out of ideas. Destroying equilibrium entirely would also mean destroying every subsystem Equilibrium had acquired. The failsafe was designed to preserve these systems in a "safe mode" of sorts but at this point was not an option.

There was a brief cease fire, in terms of which the United States had one week to come up with a solution. Shortly after agreeing to these terms to buy the US more time, Equilibrium decided to pass it's own legislation to ban communication with foreign nations. Special anti ballistic missile satellites developed by the US and the Soviet Union were used by Equilibrium to damage, hack into, and jam communication satellites. Chaos ensued after the one week deadline is not met by a response. Russia and China invaded the United States in a desperate attempt to fix the situation at all costs.

Equilibrium ordered the mobilization of all armed forces to defend the United States, and Congress declared war on Equilibrium, mobilizing the same forces to attack its mainframe every way they can. The corporations also mobilized their biologically engineered mercenary forces to try and destroy Equilibrium. In a desperate attempt to save the people, Equilibrium declares war on the United States, the Soviet Union, and the European Union, and all else who threaten the happiness and well being of the American people.

U.N. Peacekeeping troops were caught in a wildly indiscriminate crossfire between heavily armed civilians, US military and Soviet forces. The European Union proceeded to bomb the Soviet Union in Europe and Asia while war raged on in North America.

In a last attempt to free the people, Equilibrium fired a barrage of nuclear ICBMs at the World Bank, reducing a 100 mile wide portion of Europe around Switzerland to a smoldering radioactive crater, effectively annihilating the entire world economy in a brief flash of radioactive energy.

The utmost in nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are launched at key targets in hopes to neutralize the American, Soviet, and corporate forces. Equilibrium is believed to have been destroyed in a hailstorm of Soviet, European, and even American nuclear carnage. The war ends at such great a cost, no nation on Earth survives.