Synopsis
Book One: Invading The System
When the System came to Earth, technology failed, monsters appeared, and billions died as humans were inducted into the game-like physics the System enforced.
Unfortunately for the System, not all humans were on Earth. Some scattered postbiological individuals decided to push it back, and embarked on a decade-long crusade to eliminate the System from Earth.
Cato is just an ordinary postbiological citizen, disgusted enough by the System’s excesses to go through one of the portals on Earth and spread himself to the broader System just as Earth is completely freed. He has no magic, for the System can’t be destroyed from within, but he does have the technology and knowledge of a civilization that is reaching toward the second rank of the Kardashev scale. Cato may have to operate under the System’s limitations, but he certainly doesn’t have to play by its rules, and fully intends to remove the threat it offers.
“…furthermore, I maintain that the System must be destroyed.”
***
Book 2: Undermining the System
Spreading into the wider System, Cato is confronted with the full scope of his crusade. Tens of thousands of worlds or more, beings capable of destroying planets, and even stricter limitations on technology if he doesn’t want to show is hand early.
All he has are his two agents and a few dubious allies. If he were a being of flesh and blood, forced to go planet by planet in a slow march from one end of the System to the other, it would be the work of thousands or millions of years. But Cato is of Sol, a postbiological citizen with no such restrictions, and he can move in ways that no conventional human could.
The System may be immense, and the people within it have powers impossible to a technological civilization, but Cato has exponential growth.
***
Updates on Fridays, approximately 5000 words per chapter.
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Table of Contents
- 1Chapter 1 – System Invasion2024-11-13
- 2Chapter 2 — Dungeon Delve2024-11-13
- 3Chapter 3 – Caves and Ruins2024-11-13
- 4Chapter 4 – Under Land and Sea2024-11-13
- 5Chapter 5 – The Ascent2024-11-13
- 6Chapter 6 – Interregnum2024-11-13
- 7Chapter 7 – Revive2024-11-13
- 8Chapter 8 – Choices2024-11-13
- 9Chapter 9 — Back Down2024-11-13
- 10Chapter 10 — Complications2024-11-13
- 11Chapter 11 — A Summit2024-11-13
- 12Chapter 12 — Four Conversations2024-11-13
- 13Chapter 13 — New Game Plus2024-11-13
- 14Chapter 14 — Opponents2024-11-13
- 15Chapter 15 — High Ground2024-11-13
- 16Chapter 16 — Digital Life2024-11-13
- 17Chapter 17 — Divine Intervention2024-11-13
- 18Chapter 18 — Inflicted Wounds2024-11-13
- 19Chapter 19 — Plans Rarely Survive2024-11-13
- 20Chapter 20 — God-Poking Rounds2024-11-13
- 21Chapter 21 — System Crash2024-11-13
- 22Book One Epilogue2024-11-13
- 23Book Two, Chapter 1 — Orbital Insertion2024-11-13
- 24Chapter 2 — Redo From Start2024-11-13
- 25Chapter 3 — Unfortunate Encounters2024-11-13
- 26Chapter 4 — First Moves2024-11-13
- 27Chapter 5 — Getting Known2024-11-13
- 28Chapter 6 — Consequences of Getting Known2024-11-13
- 29Chapter 7 — Powerful People2024-11-13
- 30Chapter 8 — Diplomatic Tasks2024-11-13
- 31Chapter 9 — Meddling Gods2024-11-13
- 32Chapter 10 — Spreading Out2024-11-13
- 33Chapter 11 — Digging In2024-11-13
- 34Chapter 12 — Annexation2024-11-13
- 35Chapter 13 — Flashpoint2024-11-13
- 36Chapter 14 — Skirmish2024-11-13
- 37Chapter 15 — Escalation2024-11-13
- 38Chapter 16 — The Tipping Point2024-11-13
- 39Chapter 17 — Elsewhere2024-11-16