The Cold War of Silence

The Cold War of Silence is a result of the world's main superpowers--China, The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, North Korea, and various other nations--coming to a standoff as a result of the revelation of knowledge relating to the Silent. Specifically, that the Silent are slavemasters of the human race, preventing them from reaching godhood (see Godhood, disambiguation). 
Certain world leaders are intent on releasing this knowledge to the public in early 2022, because the 16 (those with special abilities) are become famous, and the information will be revealed anyway. Others, however, are intent on trying to keep it secret and so either capture or destroy the 16. The reason this creates tension is because, if humanity understands their ability to reach godhood "in theory" (see Godhood, disambiguation), the world powers would be upset. There are also other parties who claim to know that the Silent are going to reveal themselves soon and cause chaos, possibly attempting to destroy the human race, and any of these parties who are connected to the world powers warn that if they reveal the Silent, they'll be damned.
So, the resulting tension between the nations that want to destroy or neutralize the 16, those that want to reveal the nature of the Silent and godhood,--and everything in between--results in a nuclear standoff that is essentially a World War III waiting to happen. There are battles, covert missions, and other political actions taken. But before World War III takes place, the Silent reveal themselves. 
The Silent are personified energies that resemble sentient beings, but are in fact nonsentient (See The Silent, disambiguation). Because the 16 are being revealed to the world, which the Silent presume is the work of the "higher power" above them, the Silent worry that their place of power is threatened. Their original contract with humanity in the beginning was to offer them godhood if they took the right steps. In exchange, humanity gave up their communication with the power above the Silent, presumed to be their creator. This creator offered them many things, but not godhood. 
Once a human reaches godhood, they can change the laws of the universe, and so by nature, leave the contract their in with the Silent. The Silent made it impossible to reach godhood, as the steps are impossible. They, or it, never expected even one of the now 16 to exist. So in response to this dilemma, the solution is for the Silent to present itself--with another contract.
Because The Silent are nonsentient, they do make decisions. When the human race accepted the first contract, there were thiry-seven people on planet earth. Basically, the time it took humanity to reach this number is the length of time it took the Silent to reach them. The concept of how the contract was made is a bit strange, so here is a basic explanation:
The Silent represent the absence of all things. In the present world in the FOG Universe, one could think of things such as the following: darkness, the absence of light; cold, the absence of heat; depression, the absence of another emotion with greater energy; sickness, the absence of health; death, the absence of life. This applies to every corner of the universe, even a person's soul, which is an element which is canon in the FOG universe. Each human was born with a free will to accept or deny any of these things. By accepting one, the other couldn't also be accepted. For example, a human could not accept light into their eyes to see and also the Silence of darkness at the same time, because they don't mix. Before the Silent arrived on earth, there wasn't a choice, and humans couldn't use their free will for anything. When the Silent came, their presence was noticed by all, and very apparent, and each person began accepting different parts one by one. By doing this, they were exercising their free will, and they could do this freely. For example, one could close their eye lids to reject light. It would seem that the concept of personifying darkness, etc. to describe something as simple as someone closing their eyes is an overcomplication, but it's just how the FOG universe is structured. Another way to explain this fact is describing what happened when someone closed their eyes before the Silent arrived. There was no darkness (or Darkness). When someone closed their eyelids before, light went through them as if nothing was there. There was an omnipresence of light. This physically makes no sense. But again, the laws of the FOG universe dictate that physics, energy, etc. interact with the Silent in a meta-law sort of way, in that all natural laws are below the interactions of the Silent with the physical and nonphysical world.
There is a natural normalcy of existence, called "Normal," which describes a proper balance of Silents and the opposite of whatever that Silent is. Humankind was actually given the liberty to change even this, so that, for example, Darkness could be accepted as normal and good if every single human accepted it. It not every human, at least those confined to a specific group; separate groups who acknowledged their differences in accepting or not accepting specific parts of the universe as "ok" or not lived separately. However a contract can only be reached if every human accepts a specific tenant of said contract. Before the first contract, Knowledge was a Silent One. Understand also, that a Silent can be accepted in part. So some of Knowledge could be accepted by an individual, rather than all (obviously, accepting all knowledge would create omniscience, and accepting part is self-explanatory).
It turns out that many humans accepted a lot of the Knowledge, and basically found out that their "Creator," the one above them, had more power than they did. They unanimously decided they wanted that power, and so accepted all of the Silents, attempting to gain all power necessary to have all knowledge of everything in the universe. They were more than capable of this; however, by nature, the Silents are a dichotomy when places next to their opposite instances, and they cannot exist one and the same at the same time. Due to this, by accepting every Silent, each individual made their own judgements as to which Silent was better to accept or not, and in what ratios. These differences didn't divide them, as they were smart enough to see that differences were alright among themselves, but they had separate experiences. They began making their own paradigms, and formed groups with others who had similar enough ideals. Still, they were at peace, because they understood all things, and peace was always the better option. However, here is where the Contract finally comes in.