The future source mages were a godsend for the people of Springfield, Kansas
after it was sucked into the Deathfall portal, and dropped on Durus. Without
these special children, the entire town would have been lost in under a
month, with only a few people surviving. It was no surprise, then, that the
children were extremely popular amongst the townsfolk. They all disagreed on
how to divvy up resources, and what rules to institute, but one thing they
could agree on was that the kids were amazing, and ought to be revered.
Still, many did not believe the Baby Barrier they used to keep the monsters
out was a sustainable solution. While everyone protected the children at all
costs, even beyond their respective families, there were still some
limitations to their lives. They had to live on the perimeter of the
habitable zone, and while travel within and without the zone was
possible—and quite necessary when journeying out to gather water—for the
most part, they had to stay put. If they were free to roam around wherever
they wanted, a monster could slip through, and attack someone before others
could get to them to help. No, it was too dangerous to break the front line,
even for a few hours. When one needed to leave, the rest always had to pick
up the slack, and the coordination alone was taxing for all those assigned
to the team. Of course, when they were babies, this was fine. They weren’t
going anywhere anyway, and their parents fully understood the danger. As
these children grew up, however, they started making their own decisions.
And as they grew even older, they started feeling rebellious, as children
always do. While still in single digits, the town could keep them in line,
but that wouldn’t necessarily be true once they became preteens, and it
would only get worse as time went on. Obviously, the best way to avoid the
unsavory disciplining they worried would come from this was to make the
children no longer necessary. That way, they could live their lives however
they wanted, and not concern themselves with protecting the town border,
unless they happened to decide to train with the general border security
team. Fortunately for them, their best scientist was dedicating all of her
time towards making this a reality.
In a couple of years, Hogarth Pudeyonavic was ready to deploy her own border
protection solution. They could erect towers around the perimeter, which
would mimic the repulsive power that the source mage children somehow
exhibited naturally. It was not without its engineering issues, however.
Some of the town was powered with geothermal energy when it was on Earth,
and while experts were eventually able to recreate this situation on Durus,
capacity was limited, so everyone had to conserve. They probably would have
been okay using fossil fuels, even though Earth was trying to lose its
dependency on such things, but no one knew how to do it, or what kind of
geological resources the planet held, so that didn’t really matter. With no
sun to power solar cells, their only other option was water power, directly
from Watershed, which meant that they would need to build a dam. It didn’t
have to be a particularly fancy dam, at least not at first, but it was going
to take some effort. They spent years laboring on this, even before Hogarth
showed up. The Baby Barrier was later cut in half—which forced the habitable
zone to shrink with it—so some of the future source mages could protect the
workers at Watershed. People had to be trained to construct all the
necessary infrastructure. Luckily, everyone wanted this, so it wasn’t like
there was some kind of internal disagreement about the project as a whole.
They did disagree, however, with what to do with their newfound source of
energy. Some just wanted to use it for the town itself, while others wanted
to build Hogarth’s towers. The former was composed predominantly of people
who almost worshiped the special children, and saw them as their saviors.
The latter camp loved the children as well, but saw the Baby Barrier as more
of a burden for them, and less of a boon for Springfield. By 2025 the dam
was ready to start generating energy, and they had not come to a consensus.
They did come up with a compromise, though. Those who wanted to live inside
the Baby Barrier would be able to do so. Those who wanted to live inside the
tower perimeter would be able to do that instead. They sliced the town in
half, and lived on opposite sides, with a no man’s land in between them. The
two towns were separated not only by geography, but also systems of
leadership. Springfield formed the basis for a new society, which would
ultimately be called the Mage Protectorate. The second town fell under its
governance as well, but enjoyed a level of independence seen in most
distinct municipalities. They called it Splitsville, at first as a joke, but
then it stuck.
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