How Everything Changed

It all started at the turn of the century. It was the age of technology and perhaps more importantly the age of disaster. Over the centuries the human race had experienced a lot, but in this age it was different. People were more connected than anyone could have imagined and more divided than ever before. The great technological age also brought on an age of great war. During this it became evident that the number of births every year had begun to steadily decline. Few thought to question this, of those few even fewer thought to question the growing disparity between male and female births, and the ones who did were easily dismissed by the masses. It took decades of this decline for people to start really paying attention, and by then it was too late. Even though there were still women in this world they were horribly outnumbered, so much so that many wars erupted as a result. Nations crumbled, the structures and technologies that humanity had grown dependant on were destroyed, and finally when hope was all but lost a new pact was made. The remaining countries made an oath that for the first time in decades allowed the possibility to stabilize the population. As it all too often happens, however, it was then that tragedy struck once again. Only two years after the birthrate had begun to stabilize, another pandemic hit the world. It was unlike anything we had ever seen before. It spread around the world in just a few months infecting almost every female remaining in the world, so rapidly that no one knew what to do. Their only hope was that some women seemed to be immune as they alone showed no symptoms of this strange new disease. With so few women left in the world it was a simple matter to gather them all for testing. Women could try to resist, but they all knew well by now that doing so was futile. Over the preceding years the decline in the female population had led to a mass dehumanization and worship-like devotion of females around the world. Like birds in a cage they were well cared for, but never free to live as they pleased. Their entire lives were set for them the moment they were born. This was a necessary cruelty, as without doing so the future of the human race could not be ensured. Little did anyone know just how much this new development would change the future of the human race. As women were gathered into two groups (the healthy and the sick) the world watched, eager and scared. Reports came out every day about new women who had succumbed to the disease even as the world's top scientists tried and failed to find a cure to this strange disease. Soon the world had given up, that is until the unthinkable happened. Suddenly a small number of women began to improve with no explanation. The world breathed a sigh of relief. With this development the women who were never infected were free to go back to their normal lives, or more accurately free to go back to reproducing, and more than that they could do so and still have hope that there would be more women who would recover. Humanity could still be saved. Children once again began to be born and the world started to return to normal, or at least what had become normal. Now there was not only a list of deaths, but also a list of recoveries. By the time the virus disappeared it had infected all but fifty three women in the world and of those infected only twenty seven had survived. The survivors didn't come out unscathed, however. They all bore a sparkling, blue mark on their foreheads in the shape of a crescent moon and while now physically they were much weaker they had all developed some kind of powers. It was at this time that the world began to move from the age of technology to the age of magic. This magic was somewhat unpredictable and not only took time tofind a manner of wielding effectively ,but could vary significantly from person to person. Since only the women who had contracted the disease were able to wield this power, it also created a great divide among the women in the world. While all women were largely used as little more than human incubators, the ones with powers were treated significantly better, especially after it was discovered that the children born to these women were also able to wield the same powers. If it weren't for another glaring side effect it's possible that non magic women would have been eradicated, despite the obvious side effects doing so would have on the gene pool. You see, among the immune the ratio of males versus females born was still fairly even, however, recovered women gave birth to significantly more male offspring. It only took a few years for this disparity to be seen and as soon as it was suspected the laws that now governed the world changed to protect both groups, one for the greatest chance of survival and the other for the chance to wield powers that could change the fate of any country that obtained them.