Over time the denials of churches and governments became pro forma, their systematic search for legitimacy on the face of chronic disasters as open a secret as the end of things both slow and all at once (most or all?, only them or also us? - those were the last remaining questions). Although they still raised an indignant voice, and made one of their extraordinarily rare joint statements, when it came to claims of the assassination of those future prophets and saints they could not recruit for the true cause.

If this called forth divine wrath and punishment, the latter was lost against the background of everything already falling apart. But there were no miraculous new technologies, and whatever perished of the planet remained dead.