How Demons Would Run The World

So, I've been bouncing around an idea for an original work. Basically, it's a future dystopian novel with a twist: The dystopia is in fact run by demons, and enforced by other supernatural creatures. Think XCOM 2, but replace the aliens with the supernatural. A good concept, but it gets problematic in the nitty-gritty, due to the planned mechanics of the demons themselves:

• Demons do not generally directly influence the world. Instead, they get into people's heads and seduce and trick them into doing their bidding. If a demon makes a physical manifestation, something big is about to go down.
• Everything the demons do furthers their own ends. They're basically intelligent parasites, and use humanity's suffering as a source of food. Anything that diminishes human suffering is directly counter to their goals. In other words, they want to use mankind as a Cosmic Plaything.
• Most importantly, demons do not make themselves known to humankind at large. If people knew their leaders were being influenced by supernatural entities, and that the Fair Folk were being used as a secret police, of course they'd rebel!

So the question is, what would a world run by these types of demons look like? Thanks in advance!

Sounds like an interesting concept. For a few ideas:

• Permanent economical crysis due to the demons attempting to bring the entire system down, rather than the system being weighed down due to human stupidity and mistakes.
• Huge level of distrust between nations. Pretty much a permanent cold war, with society relegated to doing nothing but betting on who'll press the big red button first.^note Though I suppose the demons would rather the button wasn't pressed. It's a fine balance they have to achieve.
• Wars and civil wars raging non-stop between smaller countries, with many war crimes and atrocities commited and waves of refugees flowing out of affected areas. Demons could flare up societal fears to amp up hatred and distrust between refugees and locals, raising the tensions and potential for violence.
• Political instability; the leaders work only for themselves, there's a scandal every other day, parties fling s**t at each other at any opportunity. On the common man's side, riots.
• An overabundance of shooty people - school shootings, mad bombers, terrorist attacks, asssassination attempts.
• Corporations slowly strangling life out of populace and not caring about presenting a good public image to the populace; people will still buy them, because there's no-one else to buy from.
• Hopelessness in cinema and culture. You can't even go and see some blockbuster to relax, because all they play are heartwrenching dramas with bad endings. They call it "life-like".

Basically a world where nothing is certain, you can lose your job - or your country, or your life - anytime, threat of nuclear annihilation is hanging over everyone's heads like Damocles' sword and you can't or don't want to trust your own neighbors.

edited 1st Mar '16 8:31:57 AM by Kakai

Funny that you should have this idea, because The Bible implies that the world is the way it is because the Devil and his demons are the ones running it in a manner very similar to what you describe. So in that case a world run by demons would look like our world. The only thing is that the demons can only manipulate human thinking and behavior and cannot physically manifest themselves or affect the physical world all that much.

Now if your demons could physically manifest at will, the world would probably look very similar to the world of Berserk. In other words, much, much worse.

edited 19th Mar '16 11:47:00 AM by shiro_okami