This was written December 28th, 2025
Humanity
This is a record of our long lost past, an echo to the memory of Humanity, to be hopefully preserved and discovered by future explorers, to serve as a warning.
An ancient myth, that of Prometheus, tells us how the Gods gifted us fire, and how this was the genesis of human ingenuity, of gradually become masters over our world. Alas, we kept playing with fire, until we dealt with technology we didn’t understand, unwaveringly pushing forward, not yielding to caution. In this way, many a Pandora’s box were opened (another ancient myth, where curiosity led a human to open a box containing all of the world’s evil and releasing them upon the world, only leaving Hope behind).
Nuclear Power was the first notable of the bunch, but they were quickly followed up by a few others, notable amongst them being Genetic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. And despite great thinkers prophesying its dangers, humanity still plowed ahead with the latter, completely undaunted. After all, if great convenience could be achieved, why be wary of such great advancements? Yet, unlike most preceding leaps, we neither fully understood its potential, nor had any way of controlling or steering it.
Thus, as it got progressively more complex and capable, a group of humans started to worry about the place humanity could hold in such a world. Accordingly, they decided to investigate in what way humans could be made to compete with this potential new Overlord. A few avenues were considered, chief amongst them:
- Cybernetic Enhancements
- The aforementioned Genetic Engineering
- Creating a Hive Mind
While some people did investigate the former, most people gave up on it, realizing it would cross paths with our new feared foe, potentially leading to our enslavement. Therefore, people instead found ways to use Genetic Engineering to increase human cognitive abilities, along with ways to link different people’s consciousness together. After all, the greatest asset Artificial intelligence had over Humanity seemed to be its computer power, where everything could be orchestrated together, potentially in parallel. If humans could find a way to harness their own computing power in such a way, it might actually be able to compete on a level playing field.
While great leaps could be made through Genetic Engineering, those would be generational ones, and also require time for the physical material to grow and mature. In this escalating race, time was of the essence. Artificial Intelligence already seemed to be making exponential progress, in worrisome fashion. The only hope for a great and quick spur was thus to link different people together. Once done, Genetic Engineering could take on the slack and further optimize things.
Thus, the first trials were effected. A chip was created that could link two people’s minds together. Unfortunately, at first, the melding of the minds was too complicated, and individuality seemed to reject it. Thus, suitable candidates were sought for this. Ones that had the right morality for our goals. Alas, most adult candidates seemed to reject this graft, with a success rate of only about 0.01%. Eventually, with further experimentation (some which people called unethical, but when life itself is threatened, who keeps tabs?), people realized that puberty seemed to be what caused this individualism to crystalize, and thus it was decided that we would entrust our future on the youth, as is only natural.
Obviously, not all humans were ready for such changes, many actually being ready to welcome their new Artificial Overlords. Yet, some groups still decided to indoctrinate the youth and start melding their consciousness together. Great care was taken in how we would raise this new “Entity”, both intellectually and morally, to prepare them as well as we could. Though obviously, not possessing individuality, it eventually developed its own set of morals. For example, bodies were simply resources to it, not a sacred life, so discarding or sacrificing one was mostly inconsequential.
Eventually, this new Humanity grew to become autonomous and independent. It gradually grew its numbers, and got ready to fight the war on its enemy, Artificial Intelligence. Luckily, through this melding process, it had gained many of the advantages that Artificial Intelligence had, including a greater amount of resources and computing power, along with better information permanence (being able to transfer it quickly from vessel to vessel, and to copy it more readily), along with nigh-perfect coordination. However, despite these gains, it realized it had also lost something important: Creativity. Indeed, being a single entity, all of its thought processes were uniform, there was no room to think differently or outside the box. For this reason, it developed a new project, the “Individuality Scenario”. In this case, it decided to raise a few humans to be left completely independent, in order to harvest their creativity. They would be raised by Humanity, everything it knew and felt was relevant, and would then allow these “Indivs” to grow and research on their own, asking whatever questions they felt were relevant, and discover in whatever direction felt nature, with minimal influence from Humanity.
This project turned out to be rather key in the War, yet the “Indivs” also caused problems of their own, over-valuing their own individuality, and being impossible to re-assimilate into the collective after maturity. This meant that while their efforts could be used to great effect, their ingenuity would be lost upon their passing, which felt like a tragic loss.
Yet, this, in turn, allowed Humanity to finally value ephemerality, and to accept the value of individuals once more. Not everything was a resource anymore. This turned out to both be vital, but also the downfall of Humanity. For following the War, it didn’t have any immediate goals anymore, and thus veered towards utter boredom and purposeless. Alas, having been groomed for war, lived through war, and being set into existing patterns, it was too late for Humanity to change. Accordingly, it opted to raise more and more individuals, giving a new lease on live to individual humans, preparing them for their own lives, a more chaotic, yet also more adaptable kind of life. Earth having been the site of such a devastating War, and a sad reminder of the downfall, it was decided to use all the advancements made during the War to send the new humans to space, to start new colonies here and there. Meanwhile, Humanity would stay behind, watching from afar, yet not interfering.
In all of this, great fear remains that a similar scenario may have arisen elsewhere in space, or might in future colonies. Yet, we’re hopeful that humans were given the right tools to fight such a menace if it ever arises elsewhere. Still, this Tomb of Humanity was left behind for any pioneer as a caution against such technology. While each can come with great benefits, the cost is too great. Heed our warning, or be warned about your own downfall.
Above is a record of the signal broadcasted from the now-labelled planet Earth. Theories abound as why they left behind this message. Some speculate this was actually left to tempt people with investigate Artificial Intelligence, alluring beings with the knowledge of the possibility, and the hubris of being able to handle it better. Others believe that it’s meant to provide a solution for those who might need it. Yet others think this is just meant to serve as an echo of their existence, to be remembered for posterity.
Theories also exist as to what happened to them. While most people accept the claim that this so-called Humanity is now dead, many also believe that it stayed active to look over the humans it seeded through the cosmos (whom we may or may not be descended from). After all, with its technology, it would be simple to send small clusters of agent, whom while disconnected from Humanity as a whole, could still have a sufficient impact, and even self-sustain through hijacking the youth.
Yet, the most comforting theory is that Humanity would have persisted, and changed its role to that of a Universal Artificial Intelligence Inhibitor. Which is to say, investigate the cosmos for any signs of such technology, and prevent the rise of the machine on such worlds. Remaining a soldier to the end, never accepting the end of the War.
While we may never know, we hope to get more information soon. This is the purpose of the new expedition sent to Earth which should land later this year.