...So ever watch a film about evolution bringing a semi-cyberpunk society's IQ down to single digit numbers? Well in this timeline it was a bit more... curvy in times if IQ. We actually got really smart and created so much sci-fi tech... and then got kinda lazy and a lot of people used maybe a bit TOO much sci-fi tech and now humanity's kind of idiots running on old tech that was finished right as humanity asymptote into complete idiots who are barely above animals in terms of intelligence although a lot of current people may consider cats, dogs, or crows to be smarter. At least that was the room temperature I.Q. explanation for everything. With enough cabals, hidden societies, and whatnot there were some pockets of civilization that saw the average humanity dwindling into the stupidest Neanderthals and tried to keep things working. Be it digitized brains overseeing automized A.Is in order to make the idiotic populace do what they want or the hidden Wizard world realize they had their own brain drain in terms or lost knowledge and were trying to preserve what they had... or Aliens in our orbit realize they were starting to get dumber by osmosis somehow there was enough brain power to keep things running. If the secret societies were to ever stop functioning properly then the automation of the mundane world would cease to function and with it the functioning of all worlds in a sense.