Together, A Part: The Death of a Hive Mind
Six months ago you became a human being, an individual unplugged from the hivemind that once made up all mankind. for the first time in your life, you are your own person, with your own thoughts and feelings. You have been invited to group therapy, with other newly-individual former drones like yourself, to learn how to cope in this world after the death of the hivemind, under the boot of alien conquerers.
Long Description
Long ago, humanity discovered cybernetics, and the Age of Chrome began. They altered their forms and augmented their bodies, and were happy with what they had made. Then, a new development came: The Loom, A skull-implanted computer that let a human meld their mind with every other person with a LoomJack. Some did this, and found bliss in the hive mind. There was backlash, of course. There was an era of fear, or war, of panic, and then, eventually all of mankind was entirely within the Loom. Humans became one macroorganism named HUMAN, one singular, massive intellect with 10 Billion limbs, one mind across billions of bodies.
The Age of HUMAN lasted for centuries. HUMAN reached out and grabbed many worlds, spreading its limbs astride the galaxy. But then, HUMAN met aliens. These aliens were kind, and welcoming. But they were individuals, a race of millions of minds. HUMAN had forgotten such life, and was scared. So HUMAN reached out with its limbs....and squeezed, and crushed, and killed.
the Aliens had friends, and soon they formed a massive alliance now known only as The Coalition, to defend themselves from HUMAN. They beat back HUMAN, until they reached Earth. The Coalition didn't want to kill every human person, as that would be horrific. So they came to another, only marginally less horrific conclusion.
They turned off The Loom.
Imagine, one day, a man suffers complete and total ego death...and then every single one of his cells gain complete and total sentience all at once. This is the fate you have all suffered.
It has been 6 months since The Unplugging. You used to be a Drone, and are not...doing well. You and your peers have been asked to attend group therapy sessions by a Coalition Therapist that lives in your section of Occupied Earth. Will you get better? Will you learn to live with how small you are, and cast off your memories as a galaxy-spanning omni-being? Or will you collapse under the weight of memory? Or...are you even meant to succeed? For some of those among your session, may have their own agendas. The world is a dark and scary place, and here you all are... Together, A Part.