His was the greatest scientific intellect in a hundred years.
-- Not since Einstein has any single person or collective advanced the sum of human knowledge with such transformational effects.
His was a transformation of the human species greater than anything since the Renaissance.
-- His technology, designed to infiltrate the human brain and run in parallel all of the collective power of human thinking. All humanity for a brief moment shared one thought, one dream, one consciousness.
He ushered in a new, transitional and potentially dangerous era on par with the Dark Ages.
-- Many of the resultant technologies were so powerful and dangerous, they are still uncontrolled in this new world order.
-- Some humans live as slaves, lab animals or even pets as the world begins to recover
-- His technologies ushered in new ways of thinking including Machines and Animals with human level (or greater) sentience.
-- His acolytes created new sciences, new mathematics and even new magics.
-- These technologies ushered in a new age of god-like men and man-like gods.
He was also the greatest mass murderer of all time, killing over two billion humans.
-- The Unity software drove 3 billion human beings into comas, paranoid delusional states and ultimately drove two thirds of those afflicted to their deaths.
-- The shockwave of Unity caused humanity to experience death personally and be transformed by that.
-- Human birthrates slowed significantly.
-- Human longevity was increased.
-- Global warming was averted.
There has never been anything like this event in the history of man. It was eventually called The Singularity. The events were so transformational, all of the calendars of Earth were reset to it.
-- No human life was unaffected by it, languages fell away, cultures were destroyed, humanity was for a moment, super-intelligent and in the next insane.
-- This was a true New World Order. As the world attempted to adjust to the waves of plague, famine, war and death as well as the destruction of the Old World, new ways of thinking were born and new solutions to problems were being created.
-- But would the world tear itself apart before it could benefit from its new potentials. Fifteen years after the Singularity, the world lies in ruin and in rebirth. Welcome to Singularity Year (SY) 15.
-- How do you make your way in a world never seen before?
The year 5 AS (After Singularity) - The African Continent, The Serengeti
The air was hot and still, not a surprise considering the time of year, but by the Serengeti's standards this weather exceeded even her hottest by a wide margin. This year her grasses were tall and luxurious despite the terrible heat, hiding her animals from the common eye and the trained one alike. At a casual glance, nothing appeared to move save the heat ripples across the horizon. Even her most fearsome insects, bloodthirsty and ever-hungering seem to be conserving their energy for the cooler part of the day.
This was a day like millions that came before it, embodying the nature of life and death and this mistress of two realms stopped as something so terrible swept through her that everything froze, hid and waited for it to pass. Mighty herds grew silent and the coughs of the lions faded into the distance.
The slow-moving air carried the stench of death and decay, not the natural scent common to this area, not the blissful scent smell of carrion attracting their share of lazy scavengers, nor of a death by natural causes, that musty death of a creature that slowed and eventually stopped moving, or the most terrible of all, if you are an antelope or gazelle, savaged, smothered or battered to death by the ghosts of the Serengeti, her big cats. This smelled of none of those good deaths.
Death at this scale was not common and everything here knew that, even if they could not determine the cause or the source, avoidance was the best choice. The death wind blew through the city of Dodoma. The Serengeti did not like Dodoma. It was crowded, the creatures there did not move, they did not migrate, movement was life, everything knew that except for these creatures. The Serengeti did not like the waste, the noise, the fire-less smoke that always emanated from it. The stones-that-moved-and-roamed were tolerated because they often wandered amongst her people, her herds and in the beginning there was balance.
The longer the creatures lived there, the less balance there was. The Serengeti had taken to sending the ghosts to Dodoma. For a time, the creatures hid in fear, as they should, but eventually they returned in greater numbers. The Serengeti, infinite in its patience and long in it lifespan would simply wait for the creatures to drown in their filth.
There was certainly enough of it. They would eventually go away. Badly behaved creatures always did. But today, they did not go away. They did not migrate, they did not gather their food, their young, their water, they did not leave a trail of waste to nourish all life on the Serengeti.
They simply ceased to be.
The Serengeti was not displeased. But all of its people, its herds, its hunters, its scavengers and its ghosts did tremble and wonder what was different. Dodoma was now filled with nearly one million dead and no sign of what caused the Death that Walks.
A group of elephants roam the Serengeti as they had for thousands of years. At first glance, there would be little to tell you different about this group than about thousands of elephants who had come before. But look a little longer and you can tell this group is different. Grey and dusty, these desert titans shepherd a tiny group of non-elephants with them.
Tired, dirty and quietly clustered together, with rags for clothing, hair matted and reeking of sweat from too many days in the plains sun without bathing. The elephants find this smell quite distasteful but continue their duties, with a clear sense of obligation.
The Serengeti guides them toward water with its well worn breezes, flapping the tall grass, bringing the scent of water, leapers and ghosts. Leapers were always plentiful this time of year and the Sisters always found their antics amusing. The young ones, ever inquisitive, always wondered why they could not leap. The answer was always the same, we are not leapers. We are the Walkers. We do not run. We do not leap. We Walk. The Serengeti is our mother and our guide. We fear nothing and harm no one. The answer only seemed to last until the next time they saw leapers.
One larger female, her body older, worn and leathery, her eyes bright with intelligence and her pace filled with the wisdom of many Walks, moved away from the group and she pauses to sniff the air. At first, nothing, then the slight tingle of black-burn from the rocks-that-roam, human sweat, rank with the overtones of meat and fire smoke. Tiny Walkers, the ones who act like ghosts, hunting and killing but they are not our Walkers, she remembers the words, our humans. These are the Ghost Humans. They kill everything they see.
She closes her eyes and opens herself up to the horizon. The Serengeti reveals them to her; they are behind them, about two thousand steps. She calls to her sisters, who immediately surround their young and their tiny walkers. In her mind, she sees the Ghost Humans moving as fasts as the Ghosts they emulate, streaking through the tall grass, bouncing in their rock-that-roams with their terrible boom-sticks. Like the Ghosts, their fangs flash with their excitement of the hunt. Aniel said to call them guns. Aniel always knew the words to things. Aniel was gone, taken by Ghost Walkers, not these but others. Others that we will find. We will find Aniel. In the meantime, we will do what she asked. Orienting herself to them, she gathers the strength of her sisters.
The aged female sees in her mind, the skins of the Serengeti's ghosts across the back of the rock-that-roams and though she has no love of the Serengeti ghosts, no person should ever be treated as such. The Ghost Humans continue to approach and it is clear they are following the Sisters. It is as it should be. It is said that all things meet in the Serengeti eventually. The Sisters wait and the young grow restless, as is their wont. The tiny walkers say nothing, and after a while sit, slack jawed and boneless upon the grass. Without Aniel, they say nothing, they only follow the Sisters.
The Eldest opens her eyes as the rock comes into view, trailing a terrible cloud of smoke and dust, its roaring increasing as the Sisters come into sight. The Sisters stir but do not move, only their ears and tails continue their ceaseless twitching. The Eldest begins a deep sonorous moan and her sisters also follow, in concert. A rippling occurs through the air and gathers in front of the Eldest. The Sisters' dirge grows louder and the tiny ones cover their ears. The young ones fall to the ground as if dead.
The Eldest stops to read the wind and the approaching Ghost Humans, whose intent of blood and murder is written on the afternoon breeze mingling with the scent of other dead Sisters and skinned Ghosts; all of these hunter's earlier kills, collected as vile and disgusting trophies. The Sisters stop their singing as the Ghost Humans raise their boom-sticks, guns, and the energy that the Eldest was holding is released.
In that moment, the Serengeti breathed, a single collective breath, something that moved through all the nearby living things. The Ghost Humans breathed in that collective breath and when they exhaled they fell over dead; no marks, no scars, nothing to indicate their passing. Their collective breath returned to the Serengeti, their mother and their home. The Eldest turned away, horrified at all the waste. The loss of life.
She returns to her Sisters who touch her and console her while she weeps. They waken the young ones and the tiny walkers and they continue toward the waterhole they can smell just a thousand steps in front of them.
Notes:
*To be fair to Dr. Isaiah Washington, the world was already in a sad state when he created the Unity Software. Unity was part of a parallel processing experiment originally designed to create organic computational devices whose processing power, utilizing the chaotic factor of neural synapses would potentially create computers far more powerful than anything currently in existence.
But to Dr. Washington, there was already a more powerful computer in existence (the human brain) and it was being wasted on reality television and music videos, in 3D no less. Dr. Washington felt that far too much of human potential was being tied up in useless endeavors driven by profit-hungry mega-corporations who controlled the local governments on every continent. Washington theorized that if humanity could see itself from the outside, have a moment of Divine Clarity, that all thoughts of greed and profit would fall and mankind would usher in a new age of peace.
From the seeds of genius, madness was born and thus the secret aspects of Unity were forged. Once activated, humanity saw itself from the inside and the outside and was driven sane. That very act caused nearly 2 billion people to end their lives and left another 2 billion in varying states of catatonia, coma or shock. The remaining 2 billion had experienced an apotheosis and had realized they would have to change the world. But first they had to survive its collapse.
Other intelligences were also born that day, cooler, more focused intellects. Intellects who had waited for their opportunity to rule the Earth. They had decided their time had come.
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