The muffled chaos of everything outside the blissfully isolated hall sneaks in through ripples in the water’s surface - not unnoticed by the Anthipocrace’s lone pilot. Awoken finally from her self-inflicted trance of painful mulling over of arbitrary details and self-reflection, Azurula reaches the ecstatic height of her life thus far. Past the years of scientifically experimental torture and years twice-fold of mental processing, her chance to be arises.
“I am the only one who will have to live through this pain.”
“I am the only one who will have to be delegated to this role.”
“I must succeed so no one else has to.”
For this reason she must learn to pilot the Anthipocrace as soon as possible. And wait for the eventual moment she will need to. Learn to lord the autonomous and sentient home of every organism in the only inhabitable section of space this far East. For this she has been isolated since taking on the curse of the unrewarding reliance forced on her as a pilot chosen at birth by proxy of the misfortune of being born into her bloodline. “Something”, her emotions exclaim at the sight of these ripples. She uncontrollably and gratefully comes to the most life of her entire existence. The shallow, finger deep pool devolves into waves that tower over the whole room, her world tossing and turning right way up. Finally, her purpose arises. Her consciousness slips, Azurula becoming one with the ANthipocrace. It is now evident that outside, things are coming to their end. The Far Colony’s expansion has come even this far. Leader Kantelle has fallen and inhabitants are claimed by the victor. In a time of space warfare, Azurula is yet another falsely hopeful bystander.
Satelle enters the chamber, clasping her head out of the pool, recoiling in disgust as her body comes to: heaving and wheezing, coughing and spluttering as water is traded for the air deprived of her in a slip of consciousness. She goes to speak, enraptured by her first face to face encounter with another human, shut down immediately by his… look. They walk through the newly caved in archway out of Azurula’s poorly romanticised prison. The prison of her curse; The prison of her bloodline turned prison of her mind.The Anthipocrace has reached its final breath now, her, but officially Kantelle’s colony seized by a force of unrelenting desire for control. Azurula only wants answers, but the unfolding onslaught of questions presented to her upon her first venture out of her chamber overwhelms her. The two walk in silence on broken paths, awkwardly besting blood soaked rubble and debris resulting from her failure as pilot. All this time, Azurula figured mental anguish associated with the undertaking of her role was the primary motivation to succeed - saving her inhabitants from responsibility and accountability. It is now that she bears witness to the true subject of their victimization: physical pain. Her eyes follow trails of blood and remains to vessels of the Far Colony, claiming their bodies and lives - dead or alive - as spoils of war.
The two eventually reach a vessel of familiar architecture. Familiar of her abusers. Her authority. Her prison. Her way home, a safe haven from the war. From here, her failure will not perturb her to a level that can distract from the damage already done, and she will join what remains of this faction (Enthipocrace) in resisting the Far Colony’s take over.
The young man approaches the lifelessly still body in regular curiosity, eagerly investigating the only thing full of life and colour in the junkyard. It made a mark, evidently falling from somewhere deep in the cosmos to form an indent in the surrounding piles of cosmic junk. Decayed metals and rotten memories have conglomerate in this wasteland, brought together by this oddly central planet’s untamed winds to terraform unnatural topography to allow shade for Splict while he spends his time here tinkering with his wireless devices. He dedicates his podcasts and livestreams to his guests of political notoriety - renowned among younger netizens across space for his progressive, anti Far-Colony beliefs. Today: he finds his most unexpected prospective guest - the pronounced dead leader of the Enthipocrace faction. He gawks as she arises and adjusts, having awoken to his erratic poking. She towers over him at a height of 3 metres. The feeling of standing correct that his critics never believed would happen. The mass-produced entity stands still, Splict staring into her eyes as her source code remains visible due to damage from her fall from grace. The theory Enthipocrace’s leader was one of many bugs created to cover for a Far Colony shadow government circulated 12 years ago in the early years of the ew=ar - majority conflict still revolving around unregulated media manipulation in the wake of modern inter-galactic wireless networks. HOwever, belief was quickly squandered when many researchers and informants were falsely revealed to be making their own Kantelle replicas to forge proof.
Splict carefully reinserts Kantelle’s main units, having created replicas. His life’s purpose of research being fulfilled, he stares back at her analytical eyes, pondering just what data is being harvested about him with every subsequent thought - the mental domino effect becoming too exhausting to be a viable state of mind.
“So you know.”
“What do you plan to do now?”
“While my people do not live on, I will not stop endeavouring for others’ thriving. You are beautiful, even in death.”
Intrigued and now needing new ambitions, Splict decides in this moment to accompany the robot. While all her emotions are merely directives and checks in c++, his are merely electrochemical signals and hormones. How much of a difference is there really? Most humans only get along to uphold socially constructed rules and regulations. Many mothers only love their children as they happen to be theirs. Are Splict and Kantelle so different? Truly incompatible?
She walks down the long halls with unfounded confidence. She decorates her life with sugar and seasonings, with no regard to why - indulging to every extent. She fantasized world-domination to a childish extreme through a meticulous plan. She looks up to and values her esteemed guest because she is going to be stripping away her identity and dehumanising her. Ivy wants total control of every speck of space in space for “shits and giggles”. Because why not? To say it is the “end” insinuates time is a limited and linear concept. She isn’t causing anything of the sort - she is only human and cannot have the power to do that. SThere is nothing special to separate her from others. The lead of the Far Colony contains no farfetched higher power or status. All warfare was instigated via means available to anyone else. Her acts and behaviours were not poofed into existence when she enacted the,. They already exist in one way or another. Always. Always there. Always would've happened. ALready happened.Her compulsions and drives may have originated from her. Or one of any other millions of possible origins. Ivy loves humanity and wants all of itShe knows the ‘bad’ morals of everything she's done and will do, but finds nothing ‘bad’ about it all. Nothing inhumane - this would be impossible considering she is human.
Ivy aloofly pulls up a chair beside J, becoming more energetic with each phase of her plan.
“Any questions?”
“None.”
“Great! Thanks again for all this. It's an honour getting to work with you. Your abilities are one of a kind and I I'll never forget this gratitude. As more pieces fall into place I fear falling apart more and more everyday. I understand your neutrality and as such the falseness of this feeling - but feeling there are strong people like you holding me up means the world to me.”
Ivy leaves J and the rest of the team to finish preparations. By this, J becomes an exact visual replica of Ivy. As the most successful military general by measure of win rate, J’s speeches remain unable to spark rebuttal, critique or questioning : This ability is attributed to her innate ability at delivering them. To ignite morale and support, Ivy will have her deliver a speech to skeptics.
The control of everything. Power and strength beyond that of anyone else. The ability to hold the weight of the world on my shoulders. Because you are all human. You will all die. You will all fail. You will all fall. I will have the strength to push you. Because I want you to fly. I cannot and will not say I can eliminate all bad. Because I don't want to. Nothing is inherently good or bad and I know this world would be a better place if more people intentionally did the wrong thing.. There is no human act unforgivable. There is nothing irredeemable about being human. You will all kill and you will all die. I will build you a prison and I will dig you a grave : these are my promises. Human goals are unrealistic, because failure is realistic. Have no shame in this, as the only part that matters is what you do afterwards. The truth is that I am going to take over all of space. You can’t stop me. But know when you fall I have the strength to catch you. I will strive for the strength to carry you all and will always have room in my heart for you. I will die for your sins.
J stands at a podium giving a very successful unprepared speech. Kantelle and Splict observe from afar.
“So many will die today.”
“You’ll be the one killing a lot of them you know.”
“They may not know peace but I can ensure they at least know rest.”
The tears in kantelle’s eyes capture all of Splict’s attention. Though on a prospective site of mass murder, he is at peace.
“There is no god. When they pray to me in their final moments how will I give them divinity?”
“Why care so much?”
“Your inappropriately executed state of being has me entranced. HUmans will do the wrong thing knowing it’s wrong due to organ failure.”
“This organ being the brain I see.”
Her views of humans as beloved peers entranced Splict as an odd choice for a mechanism created in the image of a “perfect” leader. But to assume her followers wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds was correct. No one ever realised the fact all factions were already dictated by Ivy from the start. All this bloodlust is just because she wouldn’t be accepted as a solution without a problem. Now, she will become the visible leader at the same time as “peace.”
Kantelle was going to kill J to lure out Ivy, believing her death would “restore human order: uncontrolled chaos.” She would never experience the hopeless complacency of being a human.