The age of the super-hero has all but passed.
In the course of more than two decades, their limitations were eventually revealed. Even with purer waters, clearer skies and renewed soil, the generations of prior neglect were difficult to overcome.
The planet itself was now pristine. Yet it wasn't enough.
The Gods had once again retreated to the glorious confines of Olympus, this time for good. They had experienced humanity's restlessness and dissatisfaction before, at the heights of prior civilizations such as Athens and Rome, finding themselves fading into oblivion in eras long ago. They departed before they were forced to go.
Even with all the dictators removed, the swords of several wars blunted, the overt sources of lies and deceit driven underground, Oculus could foresee that he and his fellow mortal heroes could not eradicate all of the baser urges of humankind.
After the plague had devastated the populations for so many endless months and was not yet finished, some source had to be blamed. Mercuria and her beloved companion finally moved on and back out into the stars from whence they arrived years before. The planetary Alliance--with the Rainbow Arc of Fire at its core--was now a part of history.
No matter how uniquely powerful, what does a team of almost boundless talent and insight do when fellow citizens willingly elect charlatans and knaves? When the lies the populations believe become persistent and outsized? When the structures and laws of governments and societies are themselves undemocratic, even moribund in a more modern age?
These are not children to be educated and carefully trained from birth to reject false narratives, to decisively cull the slivers of pure truth from out of so many waves of propaganda.
At what point does one find himself and herself fighting against so many forms of that basic of human need, freedom, and wonder how much fight is too much? That one cannot vaccinate the population against its own willfulness where "Give me liberty or give me death" has been a shining hallmark of progressiveness?
"...if I die before I wake..."
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