The tale by William Rookwood

Transcript: Our story begins, as these stories often do, with a young, up-and-coming politician. He's a deeply religious man and a member of the Conservative party. He's completely single-minded and has no regard for the political process. The more power he attains, the more obvious his zealotry and the more aggressive his supporters become. Eventually, his party launches a special project in the name of "national security". At first, it's believed to be a search for biological weapons and is pursued without regard to its cost. However, the true goal of this project is power. Complete and total hegemonic domination. The project, however, ends violently, but the efforts of those involved are not in vain, for a new ability to wage war is born from the blood of one of the victims. Imagine a virus, the most terrifying virus you can, and then imagine that you and you alone have the cure, but if your ultimate goal is power, how best to use such a weapon? It's at this point in our story that along comes a spider. He's a man seemingly without a conscience, for whom the ends always justify the means, and it is he who suggests that their target should not be an enemy of the country but rather the country itself. Three targets are chosen to maximize the effect of the attack: a school, a tube station and a water treatment plant. Several hundred die within the first few weeks. Fueled by the media, fear and panic spread quickly, fracturing and dividing the country until, at last, the true goal comes into view. Before the St Mary's crisis, no-one would have predicted the results of the election that year, no-one. And then, not long after the election, lo and behold a miracle. Some believe it was the work of God himself, but it was a pharmaceutical company controlled by certain party members that made them all obscenely rich. A year later, several extremists are tried, found guilty and executed while a memorial is built to canonize their victims. But the end result, the true genius of the plan was the fear. Fear became the ultimate tool of this government, and through it, our politician was ultimately appointed to the newly created position of High Chancellor. The rest, as they say, is history.