[The following document is from an essay called "Reclaiming Civilization" written by Dr. Roy Connor in 2227. The portion here is only an excerpt from the public records of Seraphim, Inc. The remaining portion of the essay is sealed to the public. Dr. Connor was part of the original restoration project for Angel City. There is a statue of him along with the ten other original saviors of the city which can be seen in the center of Corporate Point.]

Part of the human condition is rising to our feet after we fall. We learn from our mistakes and are better for it. There are some falls, however, that leave permanent damage. Even if we make it to our feet, we are not the same person afterwards. Such a fall is even capable on a global scale. When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, sin and disease entered into our world. Some time after, a flood bearing God's judgment nearly wiped humanity out. God had promised that such an event of ultimate judgment would never befall Earth again. Some have claimed that promise was broken. Some have repeated Nietzsche's claim that "God is dead". But I have a different theory. Our second fall was not a repeat of the flood, but of Babel.

At Babel, we thought ourselves equal to God. We marveled at our own greatness, and built a tower into the heavens. The same could be said of the creation of artificial intelligence. Through them, we felt like we were able to reach into the heavens and touch the face of God like we had so long ago. But our rebuke did not come right away. We got comfortable. All forms of scientific advancement grew exponentially and we thought we could fix effects of the fall by science and progress. The resources and growth of the AI seemed unlimited. They were humanity's new saviors, our new gods. They were given the keys to the kingdom. Looking at it now, fifty years later, it seems foolish to give them so much control. But back then they were our children. We their mothers and fathers. What reason did we have to mistrust them? A few tried to warn us, but they were ignored. They were called Luddites, religious nuts, stiflers of progress, fanatics, and they were shunned, or sometimes worse. Even when the first incident happened in that small Georgian town, most of humanity was willing to overlook it. They trusted it to be an isolated incident, even if their gut told them otherwise. But some eyes were opened that day. Some were able to see the incident for what it truly was. A glimpse at things to come.

As man's control over their own lives lessened, so did their dissent grow. The AI that were once hailed as gods started to show human flaw. As Adam passed sin to his children, so did we to ours. They were scared. They had gotten used to the control that they were freely given, and were not keen on giving it up any time soon. So they did the unimaginable. They released a manufactured virus to the world and they alone controlled the cure. We couldn't have guessed they were capable of such an act, so it worked for a time. The unknowing population ran back to their saviors. But even the AI could not predict the mutation. The virus changed. It changed so much that neither human nor AI alike could bring a cure. It swept over the world like no other virus ever has. It bore the name Reaper, and justifiably so.

In the end, one of their own gave us the truth. By it's own words, it felt guilty. How ironic, that such an incredible glimpse of humanity in these creatures could simultaneously result in the ultimate war between man and AI. We fought them even as the Reaper ripped us apart. We gave up everything to defeat them. We gave up too much. We triumphed over our creation, but not over theirs. There was no victory over the virus. It continued to lay us to waste. Our only asset over the Reaper was time. When the end seemed more near than ever, we developed an immunity. Some called it evolution, some called it divine intervention, and others called it the perseverance of mankind. Myself? I'm not sure. It's still too soon to look for reasons when the end seems so near.

I was just an infant then. My father was dead from the Reaper, and my mother was murdered from the pandemonium that plagued the world for all those years. My uncle, a celebrated physicist, took me to the coast, to San Angeles, the one remaining place of sanity of what was once called America. It was the anomaly the world needed. A place where AI sided with mankind. A place of running water, medicine, and a glimmer of what we once were. There and only there, we weren't just recycling the old, but creating the new. But even that wouldn't last.

A near apocalypse is not something that humanity walks away from unscathed. Never having seen the horror of the Reaper or the Four Year War, I was only left with the faces of those who lived through it. No one ever talked about it, ever. But even as a child, I knew. San Angeles soon brought the madness of the rest of the world to its doorstep. It too, had to fall. Like a broken arm that has healed wrong and must be broken again to heal properly, such was the state of San Angeles. It alone remained before the world could heal.

It was the morning of my 26th birthday when I heard the first explosion. The second followed soon after and didn't stop. Truthfully, I would have died that day if it wasn't for my uncle. He knew the outcome, and forced us to leave despite my objections. We barely made it out of the city with our lives. Even an hour outside of the city, I could feel that final boom that would flood the area with radiation. The desperation that I had avoided my entire life finally caught up with me, and cried till there was nothing left to cry. San Angeles was gone, and with it, our reign on earth. Or so I thought at the time.

Years passed as we spent each day assuming it would be our last. We traveled a lot, and saw what had become of the world. The Reaper, though cured, still left its tainted mark on creation. The kind of mark that I will never write to paper, and see fit that it ends in my nightmares. But some remnant of society remained, and it was through them that we heard rumors. There was a rebuilding effort at San Angeles. We disbelieved it a first, but in the end, the rumors were too compelling. In that once great city was the only place where the backbone of civilization was still in place. It was the one place that humanity had a chance to bounce back. And so we went, my uncle and myself.

The rumors were exaggerated as usual, but still held some truth. We've been here for nearly six months, going in and out of the city as often as possible. There are more fingers on my hands than there are of us, but there is something driving me. Something driving us all. The radiation has taken two of us, and madness took a third. On those of us still alive, the radiation is taking its toll. Several claim to see the presence of angels as we do our work. They have even taken to calling our group Seraphim. I consider myself a religious man, but it's hard for me to imagine anything divine in this place. But even so, we are getting results. The latest generation of renewers seem to be working in ways that the previous never did. Today I admit, I let myself hope. I can feel it even as I write this. There is a future for us. God has not abandoned us. Man's time is not finished. In this city of angels, perhaps we can find the forgiveness we so desperately need.