Chapter Eight (1/2)

It always happens.

Things go well. Beings think they are the one on top and it will never change. The status quo is how the universe was always meant to be and so it will always be that way. That the apex species will always be apex.

But it always happens.

The strongest military always believe that they will always be strongest. The fastest ship will always be the fastest. The most powerful weapon will always remain the most powerful.

And still it happens.

The smartest and wisest believe that they've learned and discovered all there is to discover and so they are the authority on everything.

And then it happens.

It's a law of the universe.

It always happens.

Most species never get to understand this law before this law destroys them.

It was a law humans had learned early.

”If it can go wrong, it will go wrong, and it can always be worse.”

The humans knew this.

They taught it to one another before they even built their first cities.

They taught it to the Mantid Hive Queens.

They taught it to my people, the Treana'ad.

They taught it to one another again and again and again.

Nobody had taught it to the Unified Civilizations Council in centuries, perhaps eons.

And so it happened.

Not that the Unified Councils understood when it started to happen.

No. They didn't understand it, but they knew who they wanted to blame.

Which meant it happened.

And it got worse.

Gather close this document, which bears silent witness to not only what happened, but why.

--N'klik'kik O'Malley- Treana'ad Historian, 3241 HPD (Human Post-Diaspora)

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Daxin was born before scarcity had been defeated. His brain was perfectly healthy yet it did not operate the same as others. That had been unacceptable and his brain was altered so that his thoughts were acceptable. He earned a meager wage doing a job that a robot could not do without being more expensive than paying Daxin to do the work. This altered his thoughts back to what they had been, only he was older now, and wiser.

When war came, Daxin signed up voluntarily, unlike the majority of his people.

They died when the planet was glassed.

Daxin did not. Daxin was busy killing. Not because he enjoyed it but because it did not bother him.

And he was good at it.

Better than the machines.

Afterwards, Daxin returned to society and society told him that he did not think right.

That was fine. Daxin did not care. He just wanted left alone.

But more wars took place.

For Daxin, the problem with war wasn't the killing, is that he wasn't left alone. If he joined, he had to be part of a society. If he did not join then someone else wanted to bother him with the business end of a plasma rifle.

And he just wanted to be left alone.

During one of the wars Daxin volunteered to undergo process to turn him into a complete full conversion cyborg. That cut away everything but his brain, his eyes, his lower jaw, and his face. It was then he met Fido.

After the war, he just wanted left alone.

Clinically immortal, he found himself drifting further and further from the rest of humanity. Not that he hated them, not that he looked down on them, not that he disliked them.

He just wanted left alone.

He couldn't remember when he had left his face behind during an upgrade.

The call of exploration had consumed him after the Treana'ad War. Fido liked exploring what was called ”The Long Dark” with Daxin. Fido felt bad for his part in the Rigel Saurian War. Fido liked being with Daxin, Daxin made him feel like a goodboi not a warboi.

For the most part, Daxin avoided all but the AI run stations. He would report interesting things to the Federation, then the Combine, then the Republic, and now the Confederacy. His body, the best he could afford, had been built in the great nano-forges of Mercury-Sol. He was at home in vacuum or the harshest environment. He made sure Fido was as strong and fast and tough as he was.

Because Daxin liked Fido.

//fido like daxin//

Daxin was disappointed that beyond the Long Dark there were more people. Well, Daxin figured they'd be people, because he wanted to be left alone and people never did leave him alone. So he turned back into the Long Dark and began drifting from system to system, looking for anything interesting.

Daxin enjoyed watching a flower open for the first time with a nano-probe. He got a thrill down his chassis watching the sun rise and small animals wake up with optical scanners. It made the few inches remaining of his spinal cord tingle to see small cubs and chicks blink into the light.