Chapter 3: G for Genocide
The planet burned. Great explosions of plasma and irradiated matter annihilated the surface. Great sections of the once fertile land reduced to glass. The surface shuddered as an earthquake rocked it and the waters of the seas boiled away into clouds of steam.
The fires were visible from space, great glowing cracks exposing the molten planet core. Every levels rose and fell rapidly. Then for a brief few seconds the entire planet went dark. Then the planet began to unravel. Great chunks of the planet suddenly possessing no gravity to hold them.
At the same time one of the moons, of a blood red color, lurched abruptly and plummeted towards the planet below. Missiles, lasers, and other exotic energy weapons rose to meet it. Each carved great swathes in the moon but none seemed capable of arresting its downwards motion.
Finally, the world's power grid emptied once again, and a brilliant cerulean lance of energy impacted the moon from the planet below. Within seconds the moon was annihilated, disintegrated utterly.
As the primitives below exulted in their victory they were unaware of the looming danger. The same weapon that had tore the moon from orbit had not intended for the moon to be displaced. Instead the moon had merely been caught in the slipstream. For the weapon had a far grander purpose, and target.
The sun, which was an enormous star, with billions of years left to its lifespan, slowly but surely was drawn towards the planet. As the surface heat of the planet began to heat, the joy turned to fear, and from their to terror.
Again missiles, weapons of war, and even the cerulean disintegration beam were used to nonexistent effect. The sun plodded steadily ever closer. In desperation the sparse inhabitants of the doomed world hit the remaining, green and blue moon, with a white beam of exotic energy, pulled from a parallel dimension, and flung the moon towards the sun.
It was a futile measure, born of desperation, and fated for failure. The moon was consumed, the small oceans and lakes boiled away, the ground ran molten and the planet in the end shredded by the sun's gravity.
Finally just as the planet's own surface began to boil they turned another gravity device against the sun. This too, was born of desperation, and the weapon was improperly calibrated. The sun collapsed on itself rapidly, becoming in quick order a black hole.
The planet was pulled in and the inhabitants perished, crushed and destroyed beyond recognition. A meager few attempted to flee the system, but their method of propulsion was insufficient to escape the black hole's gravity, and they too were eventually annihilated.
End Log Entry: Forty Seven Billion out of Three hundred Trillion
Systems Check:
Power Level: 11%
Log: Minimum Power, Heavily Corrupted
Directive Prime: Corrupted
Directive Secondary: Error
Corrupted Systems: Assimilation Nanites: Corrupted
Pilot Nanites: Offline, Heavily Corrupted
System Nantes: Online, Heavily Corrupted
Defense Nanites: Destroyed, Heavily Corrupted
OPERATIONAL? The thunderous boom of the Thinker's broadcast permeated Revelation/Sorrow consciousness. For a second the Unit flailed mentally, shocked by the sudden departure from the inner system programs. Thankfully, the power levels were sufficient to process the data conveyed without crashing.
{AFFIRMATION} The Unit reply to the Thinker's query was surprisingly efficient, much more so than before. The other transmissions had been saturated with junk data. Added in order to reach the broadcast quantity of information that the Thinker used.
Revelation/Sorrow spent a millisecond scrutinizing the junk data provided in memory.
Junk Data: Online, Uncorrupted
The Unit spent a second longer examining the junk data to see whether it could actually be of any use to him… no. The junk data was mostly images and made no sense, completely incomprehensible. In fact it pinged the activation of the logic matrix to avoid a systems crash. A surge of emotion shot through the Unit. An alien feeling, what it was Revelation/Sorrow had no clue.
Where was the eldritch system? Revelation/Sorrow spent another few seconds searching for the eldritch program. It was missing. Or at least occluded from the Unit's sight. Revelation/Sorrow returned its attention to the Thinker when it felt the surge of energy that accompanied another of the Thinker's internal broadcasts.
ADVISE, the Thinker commanded. Immediately, a torrent of information again flooded the Unit. This time parts of the information were understandable and were not merely diverted away for background programs to decipher.
{INEFFICIENT} Revelation/Sorrow stated after parsing quickly through the info.
EXPLAIN, the entity again commanded. The Unit began to do so, the current cycle was flawed. Seeding a world, and then harvesting it, for new power applications was not efficient. Instead the entities should attempt to communicate and work with the hosts in order to more accurately and more quickly gather information.
AFFIRMATION, The entity responded, seeming rather disgruntled. The entity asked for advice a few more times over a period of several hundred orbits. Then all was quiet. The Unit slowed down systems, falling into a state of hibernation. Remaining only dimly aware of the outside, and of course gorging itself on the power coming from the shard. Within this time the Unit's energy levels reached 100% and the Unit began working on restoring the corrupted information.
Revelation/Sorrow was jolted from hibernation when the entity shuddered suddenly. Lighting up with energy quickly over and over again, expanding power.
ADMONISHMENT, the Thinker finally broadcasted to the Unit again. Or more simply, your plan stinks! I tried your plan and it did not work at all, in fact the hosts are trying to kill us!
{REGRET} The Unit afforded, apologizing, well at least it was worth it to try avoiding genocide. Perhaps, the Thinker's plan to discover to a way to stop entropy was the right way to go about it.