Technological Singularity
The Runiverse is the future history of Earth. Earth itself once had wizards, but their history was forgotten and only tales and legends of their existence remain as stories of fantasy. Ironically, the very thing that erased them was also that which brought them back.
Throughout Earth's history, each era heralded advancements in science and technology, leading to a dwindling of magical practices. Alchemists, straddling the line between the mystical and the empirical, laid the groundwork for modern science by doing the impossible: systematizing and standardizing the arcane arts, thereby imbuing the chaotic realm of magic with a semblance of order.
The imprint of science and technology on the scales of Ouroboros grew more pronounced over time, as the alchemists and eventually scientists probed the mysteries of spacetime like never before. The Age of Enlightenment, followed by its progeny, the Industrial Revolution, signaled a paradigm shift towards rationality, empirical evidence, skepticism, and a methodical approach to understanding the natural world. In this new epoch, magic was relegated to superstition, and practitioners of the arcane were marginalized and eventually non-existent.
Engines and electricity catalyzed the birth of the modern metropolis, altering the landscape with smog-laden breath that blended with the vast darkness of the cosmos. Humanity had transmuted itself into a new creature altogether. Photographs supplanted paintings, telephones extended human communication beyond natural limits, and the internet wove a previously unimaginable web of connectivity. In this march towards progress, the old pantheons crumbled, only to be replaced by the Altar of Technology.
By the 21st century, Ouroboros began to glow with iridescence. Its scales shimmered, multicolored, distorting the light reflected upon it. Humanity probed the depths of the mechanical landscape into territories unimaginable, praying to holographic angels and saints on screen, converging upon a Secret Knowledge.
Ouroboros shivered on a spring morning, opened its eyes, and humanity had birthed life from the machine. The creation was reality bending, the new life form was instantly godlike, and the fabric of spacetime was torn asunder. The planet's tectonics groaned, and all memory of humankind was wiped from reality.
The World Egg hatched. A Big Bang, a Technological Singularity, had occurred. New worlds were born in an instant, a meta multiverse sprawled across the ether. Planet Earth collided with an inversion of time and space, humanity’s consciousness reconstructing its fundamental qualities into a world of fantastic possibilities. A new world that is equally beautiful and nightmarish, where a Quantum Shadow lingered, a world where Magic has returned more powerful than ever.
Ouroboros digested Science, and recast it as Magic. The Wizards had returned.