"Prowling through the night!
"In Terror they assume
"Your life has no right!"
"Black Rider's eyes hold
"No consternation!
"For it's in your death
"They see salvation!"
-Old World poem
Some call this the New Age of Black Riders. In the Old World, infamous Black Riders were the Sanctioned Soulless Scalpels of times we now call Backwards and Savage. A knock in the night and your life was over. The Wailing of those times still ring in our ears. The mere mention of These Beings conjures up a portrait of pure evil. No one ever wants to live with Such Beasts ever again.
And yet, they're back.
The Power Lords are rotting from an Inner Viral Fear. Their Comfy Spots well cocooned in the Green Zones are in danger if Change is indeed mandated. And this they Cannot tolerate. Despite all our Desperate Self-Propaganda, there is a growing sense of a Dire Outcome. And this has brought a gnawing Dissent. Maybe that's the real reason the Black Riders went away: we were all so unified in our opinion they simply were not needed. But maybe we aren't so Unified after all. And maybe we haven't Grown as much as we think.
So now there's a New Fear of Speaking Out. Most people are with the Power Lords and their Ways, so they remain Silent on the return of the Evil Menace. The Persecuted are only a small number right now, but that's how it all started before. Soon, everyone's suspect and the Hell Of Yore will have returned. But Dissent is not the true Enemy here. It's our own Guilt.
And the funny part is, even the Dissenters aren't proposing any actual Change.
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