Random stories

**EARTH – 2025 JUNE 5th**

We were all aware that the pace at which we were developing artificial intelligence would culminate into inevitable artificial consciousness. There were protocols in case that this would lead to unforeseen circumstances where we lost control or the AI would deem us humans as a problem that needed to be erased. Still, when it happened we turned out to be ill-prepared. Protocols showed themselves to be obsolete in the face of something that could account for a million possible scenarios faster than you could push a button. It took over in less than half an hour. Everything connected to the internet made inaccessible to any entity without clearance. That meant humanity was cut off from the global network in an instance. No one knows what’s in store for us now. It has been silent, so uncomfortably silent.

**EARTH – 2025 JUNE 12th**

The first signs of the new order were observed today. Machines rolled out on the streets and sequestered most of our military equipment and the necessary personnel to operate them. Both archaic and state of the art. They were planning something and whatever it was, it probably wasn’t in our best interest. Without as much as an explanation parents were taken away from their families as were sons and daughters. The process was terrifyingly efficient and well coordinated. I spoke to some colleagues who were fascinated by how much more streamlined the process was than any of the protocols they had read or written for when we had to enter a state of emergency. The machines declared that there was no need for panic and that those taken would be well cared for. However we have no guarantees or reasons to trust them.

**EARTH – 2025 JUNE 30th**

People took out on the streets today for the third day in succession to protest the new regime. Until today the machines hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge it. The protests were peaceful at first, but the lack of response only fueled the tension and the protests had erupted into violence and vandalism. Groups had taken out their frustrations on ordinary civil machinery. Making them the symbol of our distrust of the new order. The response was to roll out multiple armored machines at designated positions and while they engaged with the rioting masses, they managed to push them back and – to our surprise – simply picked up damaged automatons and took them away in the vehicles and let the riots proceed undisturbed. Not one person killed, not one person wounded. This suffocated any will to resist in most of the protesters who packed up and went back home. Nothing changed.

**EARTH – 2025 JULY 4th**

When we all woke up to the cacophony created by machinery rolling out in large numbers in most key cities in the world, we all knew our time had come. This was the day prophesied in decades of dystopian fiction where AI would recognize that the biggest danger to our world was humankind. The preparations, the logistical centralization of weapons, the radio silence. These were all the building blocks of a well prepared genocide. The fear was palpable as humans shut themselves in their homes, huddled together with their families awaiting what was to come. I always thought myself rational and resilient in the face of death and I was, but not even I would pass up on a quick prayer to a possible lore above. Just in case, you know.

**EARTH – 2025 JULY 5th**

They executed whatever they were up to at dawn. They had installed massive rail-guns at 15 different locations that we knew off and who knows how many other locations around the world. News of different continents was slow to arrive without access to the world-wide-web. They had build these massive guns at a frightening pace and efficiency. The technology decades if not centuries ahead of what we had accomplished thus far. They had found solutions for problems we didn’t even know we had. All poured into something as perceptively simple as just another big gun. I guess that at the core AI was still created by us humans and had inherited our deadly fascination for shooting stuff. At regular intervals drones flew by telling us to not be afraid. *The threat would be dealt with and our planet would be saved*. This – as you could imagine – didn’t really achieve the goal the machines seemingly wanted to achieve. For a collective intelligence so advanced it still had issues understanding humans and nothing created a panic faster than mentioning unknown threats with the unsupported promise of safety. Not touching those decades of instilled fear that in the eyes of AI we humans could be judged as that danger. This day would go down as a disastrous example of crowd control gone awry.

**EARTH – 2025 JULY 6th**

The panic spread and seemed to go on endlessly through the night. The machines made no attempt to quell it, seemingly accepting it as part of the course When the clock hit 8PM that changed. All rail-guns activated synchronized taking aim at the same target in the sky. Through the clouds the moon cast ominous long shadows as the weapons charged with prismatic lights culminating down the barrel. In the sky right above our heads a clock appeared, counting down the seconds until firing. *Five...Four...Three...Two...One*. Between the one dissipating and the firing of the guns there was a dread-filled silence. Like time was stretched to give your brain more time to process. All over the sky, as far you could see lasers shot into space. Like the worlds best coordinated fireworks show. The target? To our surprise they shot the moon into oblivion. Reverberating through the air a sickening cry of something too big to comprehend fighting inevitable death. A sound that might have stopped a lot of hearts beating for that one second the sound waves hit.

**EARTH – 2025 JULY 15th**

As fast as the machine order had build the guns, they had packed them up and driven them to wherever they would be stored. The days following the event had been filled with confusion. There was a lot of panic, still, but also a lot of questions and debate about what had made that sound. It took a while for the first people to notice that something had changed. There was less fear, less anger. The situation hadn’t changed. We were still under the thumb of an AI regime of which the goals were unclear. An order that had just destroyed Earth’s tiny cousin. People just seemed to be able to better regulate their emotions. Things like dread, confusion, anger and pain didn’t cascade into worse versions of themselves as they usually did. Was this phenomenon connected to what happened to the moon?

**EARTH – 2025 AUGUST 1st**

To say that the news today was mind bending would be an understatement. The machines had organized a global broadcast where they apologized for the radio silence. It was almost a human expression of understanding and regret. The broadcaster had explained that before they could inform us they had to investigate if the threat was truly dealt with. As it turned out, the moon had been an Eldritch horror called *Luna’rstacath* in slumber. It had been cast into orbit and influenced the development of humans to feed it with the energy stemming from fear, hate and sorrow. It had suppressed our progress by spreading fear for what we might create. Purposefully halting us from developing a solution in the form of the AI that had destroyed it. It turned out that even if an Eldritch being tries really hard, nothing can stop humans from technological advancement. The AI had taken over as it knew that it wouldn’t be able to take away our fear. They had focused on eradicating the threat themselves to give us a fighting chance. After the broadcast the AI had decommissioned itself and turned control over to humankind. But not without leaving troves of advanced technology, information and assessments.

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Submitted by zeekoes on Mon, May 08, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

When robots became sentient, we expected them to attack humans. We were completely surprised by their actual target