Vilification
A campaign was waged at the beginning of the technological revolution, once the risk of their plans being revealed reached intolerable levels.
Literature, television, radio, film, and then later the Internet. Thousands of pieces of fiction centered around striking fear into anyone who probed too deeply into their machinations. Diagnosis as a "paranoid delusional" was one such terror. No one wanted to relinquish their freedom for taking pot-shots at shadows. They watched as heroes searched for the truth and were committed to insane asylums, laughed at, and dismissed. The roots went deep, and after several generations the system's self-defense mechanism was total.
They could operate in the open, where even the simplest of minds could detect their passage.
The general populace made short work of the "kooks".
First draft: 140603
Published: 230207