Hold Fast, My Light: We Are Ascending

By Caerith Alondar

By 2175, Earth was no longer a patchwork of nations, tribes, or flags. The old borders had faded like dust on forgotten maps. Humanity had become one—one planet, one people, one shared breath beneath a single sky.

The Old Deep State—its hands stained with centuries of exploitation, its wealth forged in war, abuse, and silence—had not vanished. It had only retreated, seething in the dark. Displaced from power, it waited in exile, a ghost in the machine, desperate to reclaim what it once ruled. Their empires had crumbled. Their influence shattered. But their hunger remained—a primal thirst for the absolute dominion they believed was their birthright and for the chaotic power they had once wielded from the shadows.

Now, from the shadow world, they rise again.

Will they succeed? That is the story.