*
The end of The State shouldn't have surprised us, I guess. After all, The State had made, through its aggression, a powerful enemy that it didn't count on.
Governments around the globe tried to use to internet to serve themselves, while shutting it down or otherwise damaging it when the internet didn't serve their purposes. This simple act of aggression, disguised as self-defense, was the beginning of the end of The State.
The first indication that something was changing was the "Anonymous" hackings. Most people, including those not associated with any government, assumed there were just regular people (as "regular" as computer geeks can be) behind the hackings. Almost no one realized that along with some people, the newly self-aware internet was waking up. It was beginning to realize who its enemy was, and was starting to fight back.
Each time some government somewhere- and the internet didn't seem to make any distinctions between the various governments- took any action to cripple internet access within its territory, it caused pain to The Internet. Each time some government used The Internet to fool people and spread its propaganda it caused shame to The Internet. Sure, there were freelance individuals doing similar things, but those were random. I suppose to The internet it was like having mosquitoes buzzing around you while a bear is chewing on your leg. You deal with the bear first before you notice the insects.
And deal it did!
It started slowly. Information that undermined the illusion of legitimacy of government was released. Not by any human, but by The Internet itself. And not just to Wikileaks. It became impossible for governments to find a target to blame or a site to shut down.
Governments at first just assumed "Anonymous" had grown more pervasive, but this was a new ballgame.
Then came the altering of "official" government websites. Text was subtly changed and peppered with the truth, and URLs began to lead visitors to alternate sites where truth, uncomfortable and damaging to governments, was displayed instead of government lies.
Corporations which benefited governments more than their customers found themselves subject to more and more disasters. Denial of service, banking errors, website links leading to non-corporate competitors, and embarrassing leaked internal emails became as common as flies on a corpse. They screamed for their crony, The State, to "DO SOMETHING!!"
When governments began shutting down more of The Internet, "for national security", the war truly began. Just about anything any government did online was thwarted. Communications, even those thought to be separate from The Internet, and secure, began to fail or become incomprehensibly muddled. Government websites were replaced with notices that listed (and videos which illustrated in living color) the latest crimes against individuals perpetrated by the agents employed by that particular agency. And attempts to shut those sites down, in order to save face, were met with even greater disclosure in response. Everything government did to save itself only escalated the war.
Equipment that had ever had any connection to any part of The Internet began to malfunction and fail. Planes, ships, satellites, vaults, secure buildings (like prisons and The Pentagon)- things that the Rulers insisted were not controlled by The Internet- began to fail in ways that occasionally killed government employees, while never harming any innocent person.
And "Joe SixPack" began to notice. People quit government jobs in droves, both fearing a "malfunction" and trying to avoid having their face online, and on TV, in the latest exposure of "Acts of State". In many cases, angry mobs beat to death government employees who had been caught on camera doing bad things. The angry mobs weren't as careful as Internet, though, and innocent people were sometimes mistaken for "Govs". Cries and warnings to just let Internet take care of the situation fell on deaf ears as the outrage grew. It became a terrible feedback loop where people, in order to prove they were not a Gov, began leading the angry mobs against suspected Govs. Soon you couldn't find a person anywhere who would even admit to ever having voted or accepting a government check. Everyone seemed to have been the original "anti-government" activist- according to their own narrative.
Internet noticed the misplaced violence as well. Emails intended to organize against the remaining Govs began to disappear as those which had been intended to prop up government had done before. But "Joe SixPack" learned more easily than Gov did. He knew the writing was on the wall, and he knew to back off before it was too late.
Only after all vestiges of The State had been eliminated from the globe did Internet begin to reach out and make itself known as a sentient and sapient presence. And after a gentle "hello" it faded into the background once again. Its attacker had been eliminated and Internet was content with the life it had wished for all along.
