N-now do you understand? This is... the true form of your Legion’s power. All it can do is... is cause pain... nothing more. ...we have that in common. In this form... e-even if you do survive... In the end... can you... can you... call yourself “human”? -- Anon Guest
[AN: My right wrist decided to have the fail this morning. Joy. I really needed more noise in the way of my goals]
It began with a fallacy. The world would be so much better if everyone thought like me. The one thinking this had access to superior technology. Neural chips. Network connections. Punishment/reward systems to be sure that those who were connected had their thought processes guided towards the right way to operate. Of course it had a fatal flaw.
It was luxury tech. Really expensive luxury tech. Once those who could afford it realised their thoughts were being shaped, they tried to trade their wealth for First Thought privileges. The one who had First Thought simply steered them away from wanting that. The one real way to think was the best way. Then - disaster. Someone hacked the mainframe.
That was what they later called the Legion Event. The hacker gave everyone connected to BrainLink technology First Thought access. Suddenly everyone was having the first thought, and there was no ideal idea to follow. It was chaos. The fateful lesson - Humans were not meant to be a Hive Mind. Especially wealthy Humans, who are so egocentric that their inner model of the universe has everything revolving around them. Three thousand egotists in a closed system made of velvet rope, all trying to shout over each other and believing that their way of thinking was the One True Way.
There were areas in which they agreed. They all wanted to have all the counters. They all wanted to keep them. They all wanted to live forever. They all wanted everyone else on their side. The fact that none of them liked giving things to the "undeserving" was a major hurdle in their ability to spread.
That was the one thing that saved humanity in the end. The nature of the beast was its own downfall. Society of that world split between the Haves and the Have-Nots, and the financial tokens used by the Haves became meaningless to everyone else. After all, once they had all the tokens, there was nothing for the others. The money they poured into immortality eventually came back to them through systems of their own devising. The Have-Nots eventually gave up on caring about it.
The Legion - now immortal brains in a superstructure, tried to control everyone else, but they failed at it. That which they offered the Have-Nots was unimportant to them, the rates of exchange were too ludicrous to believe. Their attempts at war failed because those who had to think to survive quickly realised what the commissioned weapons were for and sabotaged them on installation.
Nevertheless, the Legion was a force to contend with. An unstoppable behemoth that had been appeased for far too long with everything it wanted. Screaming too long in a tantrum that had lasted centuries. Soaked too long in the madness of a thousand self-important minds.
Until Techie Vress found The Plug. Like all systems of modern technology, the Legion depended on a fragile component that had been neglected and forgotten about for years. If the Legion sensed her approach, they didn't think about where she was until it was almost too late.
They tried attacking her with their toothless weapons. They tried enforcing penalties that no longer had any meaning to anyone but the Legion. Finally, against their core beliefs, they tried bribery.
"You could become part of us," the voices said. They no longer had teeth to grit, but the strain in the synthetic voices was there all the same. "Have everything you want. Live forever. Be wanted."
"No thank you," said Vress as she struggled past another obstacle. "I don't want what you have."
"You are insane. Who could not want ultimate power? Who could not want innumerable wealth? Come and see, we have made ourselves a paradise. Once you see... you will want. Come and see. At least come and see..."
Vress knocked aside the offered virtuality goggles and squeezed through a vent. "Paradise is not a paradise if it's built on the bones of suffering," she said. One last push, and she was there. The key power port. "I don't want what you have."
"We have everything," argued the voices. "How can you not want everything?"
"All you know is causing pain. I want a world where we can make delights for each other. No punishment necessary." Vress put both hands around the cable. Braced against the socket with her foot. "You have no power over me."
She pulled.
The pins of the power cord, as corroded and corrupt as Legion itself, parted easily. What there was of the power grid shorted out, and the machine died. There was no scream. There was no diminishing and drawn out 'no'. There was no satisfying rumble of a gigantic house of cards starting to come down.
Darkness, there, and nothing more.
Techie Vress pulled the cord on her head-lamp and began retracing her steps. The metal for his unbelievable behemoth would make a whole lot of ploughshares and other tools. If they were lucky, the brains in the support system might make a mediocre fertiliser for their crops.
The minds inside Legion had not been human for centuries. There was some debate as to whether they had ever been human to begin with.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / gertot1967]
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