"Like, the internet did not exist before the war, because it couldn't have. To have something like the internet, you need the transistor, fiber optic technology, and enough programming for at least 70-80s level computers. To me, things couldn't have developed another way, at least if the primary species is human." 

See, this is the kind of stuff that confuses me. . .Why? Why can't it have existed? Why is it impossible for those things to have existed 80 years after slavery ended? Can we not simply make it so slavery ended around the time such things were coming into being? So that by the time the war started it was simple, and slow as hell, but it did exist? I'm not saying any of this has to be the way things were, I'm just wondering why you seem against having that level of tech before the war. As I understand tech, it grows in the direction one focuses on, and in Our Earth's case, that has been mostly war based growth. What if trade and communication was the base drive of this RP world's tech growth? Would that not make computers come about a lot faster there than they did here? Correct me if I'm wrong here, it's been years since I was in school, and most of my info these days about tech comes from nerdy stuff I learn on TV shows :P

I have no problem with Joseph being captured right after the war, and I'd say that the law about slavery of magicals would have passed not a year after the end of the war, as kind of a solution so that no more wars were possible. Flawed logic, but I'd say they thought that as long as all magicals were slaves, there would never be enough free to start another war, and they'd once more have all the free labor they could ever want. Win win, y'know. . . Humans are stupid that way :P Also, about hard breaking, I think it would have been being developed during the war, perfected after the war, and first put to use successfully 3-4 years after the war. The scientists thought it would eventually come to enslaving magicals, so they worked on it during the war in secret government facilities *Shifty eyes*