-An hour before the arrival of the skism sentinel in Earth’s solar system-
“I am here to tell you that the time of peace has come to an end.” the overlord announced.
“Meditati…” was whispered by several people in the packed coffee shop as she continued.
Dean and the rest of the world were shocked, hanging on to the next words she spoke, fearing the worst.
“Uplift phase two begins today. The common definition of uplifting a species is to take them from their current state, regardless of what it may be, and to work to enable them to be able to fulfill their species' intended purpose: to spread and explore the cosmos.” Meditati clarified as a small globe representing Earth sprang to life near each person present.
“In the months since Earth’s Uplift process was initiated, we have removed the prior alien race that occupied this planet and used it as a vacation resort for their elite. This alien race, known galactically as the Tela was responsible for much of the system of inequality that Earth has suffered under since they arrived. Here are some of the more notable Tela who many of you might recognize, as well as an image of what a Tela originally looked like.” she said as images of various famous people were played in quick succession on nearby displays. The last image, an accurate representation contrasting what a Tela would look like next to a human caused several of the people to gasp. No one could have guessed that their former occupiers would look like rhinoceros-sized pill bugs.
“In addition to removing the influence of the Tela, we have also quarantined those humans who have proven to be most harmful to the progress of humanity as a whole. These individuals include the heads of mobs, drug cartels, human trafficking rings, many religious organizations, education establishments, businesses, news organizations, military, and other various establishments.” Meditati said before pausing and letting the first bit of news sink in.
“Information into each individual's transgressions against humanity is now public as well as the sentences that they must fulfill to return to Earth. Nepotism, wealth, and power have all been removed from the equation and only their efforts that benefit humanity will earn them freedom.”
Many people had been outraged in the earlier days when they had learned from the news that numerous elites in power had been taken away during the hour when the darkness covered the Earth. Dean could tell by the expressions of several of the people in the coffee shop that they still harbored strong feelings about this issue. One older man even went as far as to make his alien gift bring up a keyboard so that he could type in the name of one of the elites that had been taken. As the image of the individual that the man had searched for appeared, data next to the image listing her crimes against humanity, as well as video proof also appeared. The older man’s eyes widened with each word he read and video he watched, causing those around him to glance at the information provided. Several people flinched away from the information, turning their heads so that they didn’t have to observe the travesties that were committed by someone who had been a trusted lawyer in their country. The older man canceled the search and shut down his holographic screen, clearly shaken by what he had seen.
“In the last three months, we have cleaned up the earth, restored decaying structures, built efficient animal preserves and farms, and set up a sustainable aqueduct system to provide water to the soil. We have done what we can and have given Earth and humanity a chance at expanding into the cosmos.”
Dean nodded as he listened to Meditati. He had seen the change in the world, both in the cleanliness and how improved the neighborhoods looked. All of the older homes looked restored and just the quality-of-life improvement of having homes cleaned and repaired had greatly improved many people’s attitudes and outlooks on life. Even the air seemed cleaner. He hadn’t smelled a car’s exhaust in months.
The world seemed to be breathing better, trees were growing taller, and the land was turning greener with life. If anything would have been a balm to ease people’s worries, it would have been witnessing the health of the world improving. Many of those in charge didn’t want the common citizen to see things that way though, they made sure to flood the news outlets with horror stories and doomsday predictions about the intents of the alien overlords.
It was causing a divide where those people who held fast to the opinions of the government and media conflicted with those who lived day to day and chose to observe the real truths happening before their eyes.
At least there wasn’t anything that the governments could do. All wars had been halted all across the planet for the last three months. That had been one of the biggest boons that Dean had seen. The amount of healing that society had felt was incalculable. No one had died to violence for the last three months and it was one of the most amazing things he had ever observed. Even social violence was down as the aliens had limited what people were allowed to do to each other. Sure, people could show their anger and yell and scream, but they were limited in what they could do with the dark alien mist standing in the way of physical violence.
“We get to go into space?” Someone asked while another voice just had to jinx everything. “What does all this have to do with peace coming to an end?”
“We have created animal preserves, heirloom farms, and underground factories to provide humanity with essential products. Earth has become a sanctuary for its indigenous lifeforms and going forward will not be exploited by anyone. Further details as to what this all entails may be reviewed here.” She said as several blocks of optional reading material became available to everyone. Some people decided to click on them to begin reviewing the change then and there while others continued to listen to Meditati.
“Products to enable humanity's advance into the stars will be offered on the individual level. No longer will governments, the elite, and those in power and holding all the cash stand in the way of others. Commerce will still exist, and vastly improve, just not as it is now. As of today, Earth’s Elite has all had their balances reset, just as all other citizens. You all now have a balance of 50,000 cr, the same amount that makes up each of the gifted devices you possess.”
“Did she just say what I think she said?” Someone whispered. “Did the aliens just rob everyone on Earth?”
A massive amount of data appeared in the next instant before Meditati continued, almost as though she was listening in on the quiet question.
“This is how Earth’s economy truly existed before today. Taxes, fees, commissions, service charges, insurance plans, and tariffs were all created by the elite to enslave humanity. Almost nothing you owned truly belonged to you. If you bought land you had to pay taxes to own it every year, if you bought a car you had to pay registration fees, and even your chance of living was made into a profit scheme for others. If you took money from an ATM that wasn’t your own the bank would effectively steal part of your money. Money used to be based on something material, gold, but after it lost its real-world standard, it became worthless, just a tool used to enslave. With our monetary system, humanity will gain more than ever before, just from their own creativity and efforts, not at the expense of others.”
“What?!?” A chorus of exclamations could be heard from everyone listening as they suddenly felt their world crumbling beneath their feet, only to have Meditati go on and rebuild it bit by bit.
“As of now, new jobs will be available to everyone with opportunities never before known to humanity. Welcome to the new empire of humanity! Everyone's personal items have been logged and shelter and basic sustenance will be provided. Programs, items, services, and food both new and previously only offered to the elite of this world are now offered to every citizen of humanity. Fine dining, cuisine, and delicacies formerly only enjoyed by the wealthy can be purchased by all regardless of your former station in life. Health care, better than anything previously seen on Earth will also be standard and affordable. Security packages that prevent physical violence, risk of kidnapping, and accidents can also be purchased. Please refer to these extra sources of information for further detail.” Meditati said, pausing for several minutes while everyone took time to familiarize themselves with the menus and offered services. Many items and services only required a one-time purchase and would be owned and available by the individual for their entire life, giving a whole new feeling and meaning to everyone about how things should have been. After enough time had passed Meditati finished her speech with one final bomb of information.
“As for my earlier statement regarding peace coming to an end… war has arrived in the cosmos due to a powerful alien artifact arriving from a neighboring dimension. The peace formerly enforced by the Tela is destined to fail and no race will be able to avoid what lies ahead as many will seek to overthrow their former suzerains. Humanity's best chance at survival will be forged by the actions of its citizens to defend…itself…”
Meditati’s voice cut out as an image showing outer space suddenly appeared before everyone. Hovering off in the distance was the skism sentinel in all its glory as it began to warp and change, getting ready to fire off its copies to trap the spread of the void seedling.
“This entity is known as the roving skism and it has just teleported into Earth’s solar system. It was previously a mystery of the cosmos but has recently demonstrated that its purpose is to hunt down entities from a dimension beyond the neighboring one. It is not known to seek out the destruction of native sentient life in this dimension so Earth may have a chance at surviving this encounter.” She said as moments slowly passed as the skism changed, sending out miniature copies of itself before reverting and slowly starting to follow Earth’s orbital path.
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Everyone watched as Meditati drew a simulated prediction trail that followed Earth’s orbit, progressing the days above it before suddenly predicting the skism's movements to head towards the boundaries of the solar system.
“I predict that Earth may be spared destruction from this invulnerable entity if all parameters of its movements remain constant. Regardless of this prediction and the fact that all previous endeavors to harm the skism have failed, attempts to destroy its threatening presence within your solar system will be made.” She said as a structure visibly began forming around the massive oddly warping invader.
“To recap: Earth has been liberated from the clutches of the Tela and its destructive native humans, the Uplifting of Earth has commenced and what you choose to do in this new world is up to each of you individually. Earth is being restored and may no longer be abused. A new economy has begun, and war is near in the cosmos... if not on your front doorstep. Further information has and will be provided.”
With that final message, the images and voice of Meditati vanished, leaving everyone staring into space where they had been staring at the encapsulated skism in awe.
Dean was the first to move, glancing at his boss and breaking the silence in the packed coffee shop.
“Smoke break?”
---
The Solar Citadel sped through the cosmos, heading toward the epicenter of everyone's attention. Onboard, within the massive interconnected halls, countless and unimaginable weapons were being constructed in preparation for the impending battle. In the center of the Citadel, surrounded by his plans for the upcoming war, the general sat, observing the never-ending armadas as they arrived and parked in the space quadrants near the event location. By this point, it was clear that they were there for the relic, and no one was going to allow the Tela to claim it without a fight.
“This is what I have waited for. Our enemies are all finally revealing what they have been able to keep from us.” He said as he leaned forward, his armor plates rustling as his eye stalks peered closely at the latest arrival.
“You, however, are most troublesome. Let us hope that you are simply there to observe and whatever your mission is, and that no one sets you off.” He said as he watched the skism sentinel as it held its place beyond the gathering armadas. Its sudden arrival caused a worrisome stir in those closest to it, leading them to spread out like roaches escaping a beam of light.
“At least no one ran away, if anything the interest of such a mysterious and well-known entity caused the empires to send more ships. Everyone is upping the ante.”
The vast expanse that the General observed within was quiet for a great while as he sat and contemplated strategies.
“I think this time freedom is off the table once I win. No longer will those who stand against us be allowed to return to life as though they hadn’t dared to rise against their betters. No, I believe that subjugation will be for those who are worthy and extinction for the rest. I tire of letting an enemy live so that they can return at a later date to crack our armor and sever our eye stalks at their leisure.”
A low beep emanated from the console next to his extended forelimb, letting him know that another set of munitions was finished. The galaxy map to his left showed his time left till he arrived, making him focus once again on the stoic skism sentinel. The war could start at any moment, and he didn't want to miss the glory.
"What I would give to crack you open and to have your teleportation technology. I can just imagine the supremacy that I would command being able to instantly move to the doorsteps of my enemies. One day I will break you open, and all your secrets will be mine."
---
It was time. Time to seize his destiny and claim his rightful place amongst the stars.
Magus the Last watched as the Solar Citadel approached in the distance, setting off proximity alarms throughout the ship he was aboard as the crew and the rest of the fleet began to notice the approaching gigantic structure that could have swallowed whole worlds with ease. He had managed to sneak his way into the service of one of the support vessels belonging to the Herv. The large, sloth-like body his cr had taken on was the perfect disguise as he played the role of a war retriever. His duty, along with thousands of other volunteers was to scavenge and retrieve anything possible from the battlefield once the war kicked off. The Herv had no grand illusions that they could win, out of all the alien races represented in this theater, they were the least prepared and intellectual.
What they could do, both as a species and their fleet of specially designed ships, was to take a beating and still function. This was their strategy, to act as a turtle that only popped its head out from time to time when there was a tasty morsel to snatch up. Magus knew that it wasn’t much of a strategy, but he had chosen to join them because they were the least likely to run when they saw the General arrive.
He needed them to stay put so that he could have time to supplant the General once he opened up his communication channels. Soon, the time came, and the General demonstrated his possession of technology that could forcefully broadcast system-wide messages.
“So, you all didn’t learn your lesson the last time you stood up against the Tela.” General Magus began as his armored Roly Poly-esk face appeared on displays all across the armadas. Just the fact that he completely ignored initiating lines of dialog with the Tela already in the system let them and everyone else know that he wasn’t there to peacefully talk. The General, taking his sweet time, began to list off each race present and to add it to a visual list appearing on the display next to his moving eye stalks. With each alien race added, he would recount their crimes against the Tela in former battles before moving on to the next offender.
“Time to go.” Magus the Last muttered as he transmitted himself to the Solar Citadel, piggybacking on the immense amounts of requests for communication that everyone was bombarding the Solar Citadel with. He snuck in, his illegal software masking his entry and giving him a limited window to do what he had come to do.
“First things first, I need to raise my odds.” He said as he rushed through the travel disk array towards the district of the Solar Citadel that held the cells of the General’s enemies. Most of the biological lifeforms had long since passed, save two ancient Skii and a frozen LOW of all things. If the LOW ever learned of this trespass by the General, Magus the Last couldn’t even begin to imagine what the fallout would be.
“No time for you this time around.” Magus said in passing as he connected to the terminal that housed imprisoned Tela Personal Live Matrix’. He quickly scanned through the hundreds of names before finding the one that he was hunting for.
“There you are. Goodbye, clone brother.” He said as he used his illegal technology to destroy and wipe clean the last clone beside himself. Now, rather than looking at an 84.211 percent chance at success, he had 89.474 percent of succeeding, nearly 90 percent, and the best chance that he could hope for based off of the General having 18 clones and his very own existence to take into the equation. Having more clones made for a double-edged sword. On the positive side, it made it so that your enemy had to hunt down more copies to get rid of you but on the flip side doing so meant that the more clones they removed, the higher percentage they would have going towards succeeding, rather than say, 50 percent with just having one clone. More clones meant that the software had more data to work with concerning your personal defenses and encrypted Personal Live Matrix.
As the last clone’s existence was purged, Magus was abruptly greeted by the environment freezing and a message hovering in front of his face telling him that he had failed, yet again.
“What was it this time?!?” He yelled as he left VR in a huff, not even bothering to look at the readout and the percentages that were stacked against him in his endeavor. Yes, he had set the odds at failure as high as they would go just to simulate just how paranoid Magus the First could and most assuredly would be in regards to his survival. He knew that the General had to have countermeasures in place, the problem was that he had no way of knowing what they might be.
His earlier failures had been for novel reasons as Magus the Last had tried to cause as much of a ruckus inside the Solar Citadel, hoping to buy himself time as he completed his main mission. That had proven to be a failure just like the times when he had set the LOW free.
Knowing that Magus the First had prisoners, as well as where they were kept, was from his earliest memories, back before the clones were all booted out of the Citadel to live their own lives. He had no proof that any of them were still living, beyond the fact that LOW were well known to be practically immortal but that hadn’t stopped him from trying to use it as a distraction in earlier attempts.
With a quick glance around his small crew pod, making sure that there were no pending messages from the Herv command, with which he really had snuck in as a war retriever, he popped back into VR to check over his results and to try again.
“What if I let the Skii go as well?” He muttered, wondering why the General even had them as prisoners. He checked the reason for his most recent failure and found that it was due to there being an 80 percent chance that the General had a warning set up or a trigger alarm for when one of his prisoners died.
“Yeah, yeah, I figured as much. Can’t blame me for trying through. At least he still doesn't know about the other clones that are gone.” He muttered as he reset the simulation, increasing the difficulty yet again. Magus the Last had been able to mask his removals of his clone brothers simply because they were out of pocket, far away from the General. All he had needed to do was to simply make a fake receiver for whenever the General would request status updates, making everything seem like each of the clones was doing well.
“84.211 percent it is then. Just a little over 15 percent to fail. No pressure. I just need to initiate my attack before he sends out a "Purge Clones" command.” Magus said, a hint of fear creeping into his voice.
He had messed with his personal coding as much as he could but wasn’t completely confident that his modifications would survive such an attack from his Prime. If he had to guess, the General’s chance of winning if he attacked first was 60 to 70 percent, that was why it was crucial for him to be the one to strike first. He just needed something, a distraction, commotion, or explosion big enough to ensure the attention of the General long enough for his program to find and delete the General within his Personal Live Matrix, wherever it was hiding.
“Wait a second… “ Magus muttered to himself as he eyed the battlefield and the reports that had been gathered about why everyone was here in the first place. He stared at the epicenter, the brightly shining mass that seemed to ripple in radiance, occasionally warping oddly as though it was a tide that kept trying to surge, only to be rewound by a broken clock.
“How much of a distraction would it be for him to lose his prisoners to that strange field?” Magus laughed aloud at the thought. If he could pull it off, then everyone would see the General as the aggressor as he rushed to retrieve them. He hated to lose anything that he considered his, and prisoners, one of whom being a citizen of the LOW, had to be even higher on that list.
His laughter continued as he changed the simulation’s parameters to include his new plan. Shaming the General’s image and name was something that no one did and survived. It was suicide and it just might be the distraction that he needed.