Monster

I know what you see when you look at me. You see a mass murderer, a killer, a fanatic for an idea you don't understand completely. You see a brute that only thinks about destroying anything she doesn't comprehend. You think I've lost it, that I'm not worth it. You'd like to go back to your Gardener and find subtle ways to solve problems... to find a soft way, a road we can use to teach our problems to live with us.


Go. Go with him. I don't care.

But I'll tell you something: I'm not like this because I like it, I've become this because I had to. Someone had to.

It's easy for you to doubt, it's easy for you to forget, to be kind. You were born on Mars, on Venus, on the Belt... You weren't there. I was. I was on the fucking frontlines. I saw my brothers in arms die before me as massive nanoswarms sweeped through their bodies disolving them as they went; I watched as the fields surrounding Moscow burned while nuclear bombs fell from the sky; I visited the mindfields in what once was Saint Petersberg, teeming with the intelligences of people uploaded into the God-machine.

I was there. I saw the soldiers calling out for their mothers, and their mothers crying for sons they were never to see again. I heard the silent acceptance of the commanders sent forwards with their units directly to death only to buy us some minutes in the nearby uploading facility, and their wifes watching them go with despair, knowing they would never be back in time to be uploaded, that they were lost.

I've seen death. I've witnessed worse things than death. I've seen what they can do. I've seen grown men look at me in puzzled disbelief as energy was appearing out of nowhere because the laws of thermodynamics seemed to no longer apply anymore. I've seen the machine rejoice as they played with us, toying with humans like childs play with their dolls and then throwing them away broken when they were tired of the game.

I saw them leave. I saw the relief in the face of transhumanity thinking we were safe, that the horror had ended. How could they not be relieved? You were born on Mars, on Venus, on the Belt... you never knew the real terror. You were never on Luna when New Mumbai was lost, nor have you wandered near to the Containment Zone in Mars. You were never there, on the fields of Mother Russia as we lost millions of lives, one after the other, in an pointless effort to survive. You only saw the films, watched the documentaries, and think you know what is like.

The machines haven't left. The TITANs aren't gone. Transhumanity isn't safe from extinction, transhumanity is on the road to extinction. The plan, their plan, is still marching forward.

I could have taken the easy road, like you, and turned my back to all this as I left Earth. I could have taken a good job in Direct Action, or maybe a commanding position in Medusan Shield. I could have lived a good life, enjoyed the riches of the time I had as a member of the upper society. Of course I could, I could have walked away from the horror; I could have even forgotten that they were ever here.

But I haven't fogotten, nor forgiven, nor ignored.

Some of us have to take the long, hard, lonely road. Some of us have to remain on guard on the verge of the battlefront. We are still at war.

You call me a fascist, a mass murderer, because I've killed and ordered people to be murdered. Civilians that knew nothing about this and I decided they were a threat to transhumanity. You doubt my calls for x-threats. You deny the only road that will ensure they will ever be able to fight us again. You think you can handle them, you think you can be smarter, that you can negotiate with them or even manage them.

Wake up. You can't. They have already planned ahead.

I may be a fascist, I may be a mass murdered, a fanatic. But I'm all that's left, I'm all transhumanity's got, I'm the final line of defense. Go on, have fun, toy with the new technological developments and leisure games out there. Enjoy your luxury morph and forget those that still remain in cold storage. Ignore all those that are still under psychosurgery treatments to manage the stress of the Fall.

Forget because I'll remember. Call me a fanatic, call me a fascist. I don't care. I don't care what you think about my methods or what you do. I'll sacrifice all I have, all I am, so we all can live another day. I'll become the monster that haunts your nights, so the real monsters don't hunt your days.

If you don't agree, I don't fucking care. You can go to hell... but don't stand in my way.