In the years leading up to the Great Divestiture, the Rendering concentrated their attention on their competitors, which meant that the unified Pans could collaborate for years to accomplish their purposes. Both groups held significant wealth, both groups considered themselves more enlightened than the general population, and both groups considered their position the morally noble position. The Pans, though, set up plans within plans to counteract any technological advantages.

One man, Carlo Portovila, even adopted the tactics of his rivals, investing in significant neurological modification for the purposes of battling in enemy leagues. With all of the major players inhabiting the same social circles and events, and with political power envious of whatever funds they could garner, Portovila managed to infiltrate both the governmental and non-governmental power structures. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the Pans blackmailed the Rendering to restrict technology to the domes.

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Portovila utilized his neurological advantages and well-paid organization to plant subversive technology within the computers that managed the domes. It broke down any self-governance that men established, resulting in chaos and mayhem that incited the utter destruction of near a quarter of the domes from within themselves. The Intelligence became not only a medium for managing humanity but also for controlling it, hoping eventually to eradicate it. In the end, it wasn’t issues within the domes that rendered them untenable. In the end, it was the ideology of one man – with his few compatriots – that subjugated humanity to the point that they were hardly recognizable from their historical selves. Portovila planted a covert command in the computers that set up a self-limiting paradigm to suppress the advancement of humanity. In fact, he used the Rendering’s transhuman technology against their precious humans to make sure that humanity could not escape the bounds set up by the agreement.

The Rendering had believed their technology would outlast and supersede the Pans’ skittishness. The Panterrestrials used technology against them to ensure that never happened.

Spanner Kinmuto, “The Intra-Divestiture Era,” Civilization’s Demise.