ghostly conquer

24

For most of human history, the species has been left without the answer to what lies ahead of life on Earth. Given only a century to live a full life, if one were fortunate enough to last that long, the many personal questions one might ask themselves can still find answers to them, mostly relating to existential ponderings like personal worth and purpose, but what lies beyond has still been out of reach.

What substituted for certainty was guesses, grounding their estimates in either philosophy, science, or personal dogmas that came to be called religion. The latter, having far less footing in any rationality than the former two, began to spread farther and wider in many different forms and shapes, outnumbering any theories put forth by science or philosophy by countless numbers.

All in thanks, of course, to its very nature of having lacking the rationality and rigor meant to try to find the most likely answer to the question.

Soon, the many different variations of religion began to turn on one another, trying to assert themselves as the one 'true' religion, taking drastic approaches for dominance from revising and rewriting world history as they pleased, to attacking one another by force; radicalizing the peoples of their faith into armies, and sending them to kill one another.

Days of such bloodshed and violence long since cooled down as mankind became more modern and civilized, bringing the holy wars down to a cold war. Mankind might still never had gotten the true answer, but many were willing to call themselves the answer, and offer a sense of place and community in exchange for their wills and the freedom of their minds.

Over 10 years ago, with a teenage boy named Danny of a family of paranormal investigators named the Fentons, that dynamic had completely changed.

Stepping through a portal meant to break through dimensional lines to the other side, Danny Fenton unwittingly breached into the unknown, giving the world its answer to the question of what comes for life after death. Now, discovery of the afterlife was made at last, revealing itself to be a lawless madhouse of rampant human consciousnesses; neither a paradise or damnation, but only a void called the Ghost Zone.

The resulting news had come slowly to the world through rumors during Danny's time as Danny Phantom, the self-appointed defender against the ghosts waiting on the other side, but came to widespread knowledge with the aversion of the Disasteroid. After that, it had led to one of the most radical changes of human history.

The ambiguity of truth and answers to larger questions were at last answerable, and the revisionist histories offered by the religions of the world were no longer satisfactory, leading many back into the arms of the rational and the sciences, and putting the old institutions of mythology left behind.

Tradition still kept a few followers still in the churches and places of worship, but only a few still stayed within the fold, and only a few among those still truly believed despite all evidence. Even when going the way of the dinosaur, religion did not go out without a fight (an observation also probably true of the dinosaurs themselves).

Somewhere along the way, however, it had soon found a second wind in the modern age, gaining more followers by the day, in spite of the clear and present evidence which rendered it false. And with its return it came with a vengeance; the violence and authoritarian call for a specific order from years past returned, showing the faiths for what they truly were at there core all along:

Cults.

Conquerors.

Fascists.

Gangs.

Now, they are not simply relegated to the history books, but once again roam the streets in present-day militias in search of souls and territory to claim, becoming a living example of history repeating itself. They are found not only in many streets across America, but also in those of Old Amity Park, where Danny Phantom originated from.