Prologue: First contact with Concilium Unity, inner Orion Arm, 2219 years after Barrier destroyed
"What does 'machine beyond existence' mean? How did you find this?"
The Concilium Giheh'tokoz-192 filled the Hopeful Wing's bridge with tall crystal shadows even as a holo feed.
Giheh'tokoz-192 flashed it-their glassy lens. "Our pre-stellar cultures used DT to travel the past, even act there to explore new histories. With what they learnt, we perfected our society. Yet our number-map told of time and reality shaped into unknowable tools. We called it the Error in The Void and other names."
Humans and Monsters stared back, knowing not what played between the alien's 192 SOULs.
"Is the translate-log working?"
"Accuracy at 98.37%. So yes."
Xenobiologist Ryujen Fangmoon hissed green fire and raised her 5 tails. A skull-fox Monster like her usually did her job calmly, but time and reality engineering was far from any civ she knew. Hell, not even the grand Soulmakers were quite close.
Ryujen reached a paw to the starry black, towards the Concilium Unity. The holo popped up their 57 systems with spiral cities and stellar DT arrays, nothing on the level of what she'd just heard. "So who's this Void-Glitch? Did your Oracles trace it to any creators?"
"It doesn't exist, yet it lives. They sought to science their way out of consequence, and won. The Makers surpassed existence to become greater." The holo blew into a rainbow cloud of images and texts as it read the Unity's data flood: Makers merging with their own creation. A machine designing itself ever smarter. A point at inner Norma Arm.
Scout-Leader Yusupjan Fong opened that coordinate. Nullity's Gate, a 700 mile cube of black nothing against starry pink nebulae. "When we found the Gate 38 years ago it sent us a clearly artificial message." He ran a list of prime numbers ending in the hundreds. "This Voidglitch might be who made the Gate and sent us this."
Tiny vid-drones silently turned to Yusupjan, all this live on the CLOUD.
Ryujen: "Do you know what the Gate's made of?"
Yusupjan: "Our scanners found no trace of any known matter, energy, magic, or DT. Readings zero. Maybe our ship-minds are right that the Gate really is made of nothing. We tried to build a study ring around it but the funding dried up."
Giheh'tokoz-192 stretched out glassy rock-cutting claws: "The very machine-flesh of the Outer One. The Gate links many timelines, all that ever was or could be."
Outside, study ships and war cruisers moved for the ready.
Yusupjan: "So this Gate thing can destroy all timelines at once?"
Giheh'tokoz-192: "If the Void-Father chooses, yes. But I-We 192 fear not, for there is no hope to fear such a fate."
Ryujen swiped up the Hopeful Wing's ship-mind, a kindly patient circle-ring like most other machine SOULs. "Verify."
The Hopeful Wing ran all data in nanoseconds. "This 'Voidglitch Singularity' is most likely a hoax to impede the Unity's rivals."
Leaders looked at each other as the CLOUD started trending #VoidglitchHoax and #UnityLies.
Hopeful Wing: "Engineering time is impossible or beyond all known science. Time and reality are base constants, so one cannot transcend existence. It seems possible for a machine to design itself better, though we don't know who these Makers would be."
Someone played back the Hopeful Wing's words to the Unity. Giheh'tokoz-192 leaned back as if half its SOULs feared greatly. "We thought the same until it showed otherwise. I-We have told you the truth as the Oracles know."
"But you all speak of what cannot be." barked a diplomat. Part of Ryujen insisted such things were possible. With limited data even AI made mistakes. And AI tended to what was safest with what it knew, not what just might be.
Admiral Breadbird: "Maybe we should safe-demo a planet breaker in deep space and see if they still want to fight us with their lies."
Scientists, diplomats, and military experts looked at each other.
Ren-Z04: "26.4%: Unity Mind-Senate willing to risk entire Concilium race for goal. Deterrence unknown."
Diego al-Youssef of the Ethics Panel blinked his holo ID. "20 years ago we had a Reset Expedition to play out other timelines. Most humans, like me, for DT reasons. Since we lost half and returned a third of them crazy, should we pay that price again?"
Giheh'tokoz-192 folded it-their claws. "Go as our oracle-paths, and you'll find numbers, maybe more than we've found. I-We all think you'd find it worth every life."
Admiral Breadbird: "Iffy claim. The board shall vote on their reliability."
Frisk the Fallen Human rested after History Club, glancing at the first contact stream from the CLOUD she now lived in.
She sprawled on the gray mansion's carpet, hearing Asgore snip flowers downstairs while Toriel coded a pie into existence. Her friends, long dead like her, sucking on all this fake, fake data.
This wasn't what she'd worked for.
2219 years ago she fell down Mt. Ebbot and met the Monster people trapped under the Barrier. She'd felt sorry for them and sought to free them. With kindness she'd befriended them all and set up events that broke the Barrier and set Monsters free. With the Surface finally in reach, Monsters enjoyed their new lives and reunited with humans. She'd felt happy for them, humans and Monsters at peace. She'd never thought they'd both invent stuff, remake distant worlds, and maybe kill or be killed on a cosmic scale. This was all her mistake, and she'd have to clean it up.
The contact stream closed on a dry note; the alien's stupid story wasn't worth making war over. She checked the Gov portal: files the aliens had sent during contact.
Papyrus: "I could cook spaghetti and rocks for the aliens. They'd love our culinary spin."
Frisk: "Sorry I killed you all those times." that puzzled him long enough.
As a red SOUL she'd knifed past Gaster Blasters, tasted rich gooey pie, hugged Asriel before leaving him to die, all many times. Yet she'd never before stayed after their perfect ending to see how hugely imperfect it turned out.
Frisk cringed to think about all these people today who invented and killed for a future that would never come. Her mistakes they all were, yet they seemed too vibrant and hopeful to just go away as they'd have to.
She cupped a gold spark of real DT in virtual hands. She'd leave this ugly future behind, then return where she'd left with answers the science team dared not look for. She pulled more DT from the CLOUD, and her spark blazed like a stellar core.
Frisk blinked up at far sunlight as cloying yellow flowers stained her stripe clothes. She strained her child body, too heavy after centuries in the CLOUD, breathing the cold air of rock and flower. Start familiar before going further back, she decided. No CLOUD to get magic from, but she didn't need any. She swung a rough twig, dodged, imagined slashing a Monster but then sparing it. She still knew this body well. She went to that stony Gothic arch. Her friends could live here in peace, a perfect day forever. But they liked tech too much and thought those unsafe stars held their good future. She'd have to force her gift on them, show them all how good it was.
"Howdy. It's me, your best friend." Flowey's mean smile warmed Frisk's heart.
Frisk pointed her twig at Flowey. "Where I'm from, there's no Barrier. Humans and Monsters travel the stars together and meet new people. Maybe you'll join us there too, who knows?"
Flowey frowned. "I don't know what I'm hearing, but I still have to try and kill you." Sharp white seeds clattered above Flowey.
Frisk tossed the twig away and let the seeds fly in on her. "Some things never change. Until they do."