The Watchers
Everyone on this planet is watched at all times.
The Watchers are mostly invisible to us, but they see us and know everything about us.
Most people know next to nothing about the true history of humanity.
There are two main groups among the Watchers: one group wishes to see humanity progress spiritually; the other wants to hold us down. Throughout the ages, these two groups were seen as gods, giants, fairies, angels and demons, extraterrestrials, etc.
The Watchers could also be classified as system administrative staff, entities that have backdoor access to our reality.
Religious and political leaders on this planet are the keepers of belief systems that create the backbone of our societies. They keep most people running in circles with material scarcity, guilt, and conflicts to make sure they are too busy to look inside for answers.
Within the collective human consciousness, there are deep-seated impulses that materialize into different belief systems, which further crystallize into religious groups and secret societies. Because the impulses they grew out of are conflicted, these groups wage war on one another as they vie for power over human souls.
War turns everyone who joins one of these groups into soldiers. Soldiers kill, and wars leave little space for moral qualms. As soon as you pick a side, you let the other side define you by becoming the opposite of it. Once both sides go to extremes in what they believe, they leave the middle path to individuals who can find their way through the minefields.