Chapter 97: The Proposal
“You will all die.” The goddess ominously declared as she scanned the onlookers from behind her runed blindfold.
After a tense moment of silence that permeated the island, Coop laughed out loud. The shock of the whole situation threw him off kilter. His outburst earned another glare from the beautiful goddess as she clenched her jaw while her nostrils flared, but he wasn’t the only one to react in a way she didn’t expect. All of the pirates had immediately laughed as well, led by Captain Kayla’s unabashed amusement at the sinister proclamation. Even the more disciplined phantoms from the army couldn’t control their mirth.
There weren’t many people left in Ghost Reef after the siege event, but most of them were still ghosts that had already died previously. The phantoms, understandably, had a weird view on death. For the rest, immortality hadn’t been anything but a passing fantasy a few months prior to the apocalypse, and after it became a real thing, dying seemed to have become even more likely instead of something they had grown beyond.
The goddess looked like she felt left out of an inside joke, so Coop volunteered an idea while he remained suspended in the energy bubble. “Maybe you should give us that introduction after all.”
She looked up at the sky in exasperated contemplation before she said anything. “I can only keep mana suspended for a short period, so I don’t have time to follow the approved presentation.” She pursed her lips before making her decision. “I’ll use my own judgment, but don’t blame me if your existence ends up consumed by the machine.”
Coop would have shrugged if he could. “Say what you need to say.”
“Of course I’d find a vexatious planet.” She grumbled as she arrived at a verdict. She pulled a small red disc from the air with a flip of her fingers, like she was doing a magic trick. With a dismissive wave of her other hand, Coop fell out of the mana bubble and landed in the wet sand of the beach. She flung the disc to him with a flick of her wrist.
She pointed at Coop. “Take that and form a faction. Any territory controlled by the faction established by the Purification Chip will be free from the judgment of mana. It will push an update, just like when a settlement upgrade occurs. When a faction claims territory, a similar update is sent through the territory.”
Coop looked at the object in the palm of his hand, eyes buried beneath furrowed brows. “Huh?” He grunted. She’d lost him when she directed him to form a faction.
She ignored his confusion and pressed on. “Mana is a weapon from the first iteration. By the second it was fundamental to the universe after bonding with all matter on a subatomic level. On this eleventh iteration, it is omnipresent. Its purpose was to limit threats to the creator species by crippling technological growth in potential rival civilizations and otherwise terraforming for their future benefit.”
Coop glanced around with wide eyes as everyone that was conscious listened with rapt attention. He hoped they were understanding better than he was.
The goddess continued. “The assimilation period is a trial. If a planet is determined to have exceeded a certain threshold of technological advancement, mana will hijack the assimilation, bypassing the system restrictions to enact the Eradication Protocol. Sentient life will be cleansed, and the planet will be conserved for the creators. They are extinct, as far as we know, so in practice, that just means the assimilation will fail and the planet will be relegated to the uninhabited.”