text: “Hey, I’ve found a planet over here. I think we should take a look.” “Yeah? Which system?” “Sol 456. Milky Way. 70% water cover, carbon-based life, and incredibly rich in minerals. We give this to Corporate and that’s a nice little bonus right there.” “Go for it. The atmosphere will have to be drained, as they’ve fucked it up pretty bad, but most of the good stuff’s in the core anyway.” “Damn. There’s a message on the planet’s file: WARNING: PLANET EXEMPT FROM HARVESTING - EXPERIMENT ONGOING. CURRENT RUNTIME: 350,000 YEARS. EXPECTED COMPLETION: 6043. WARNING: DESTRUCTION OF THIS PLANET WILL RESULT IN LEGAL ACTION.” “Fucking scientists. Why do they get their hands on all the good ones?” “I know. The experiment is actually pretty interesting, though. According to the papers, the evolution of the dominant species was manipulated by fungus to spread their own spores.” “As if. So they’re like high-functioning carrier bees?” “Kind of. Except their functionality is off the charts. They’ve developed the bulk of their technology by utilising the thermodynamics of atoms. Nothing new there. But they’ve taken it to the extreme. Imagine bipedal apes, essentially smashing things together until something works, but have still managed to actually leave their planet.” “No shit. That’s a shame. Corporate usually pays extra for advanced conscious beings.” “That’s the thing. Says here psychologists are studying them too. They’re not technically conscious. They just think they are.” “Wait. Does thinking you’re conscious not make you conscious?” “That’s what they say. They’re like little self-aware robots, operating under the false assumption that they are able to act rationally. They believe they have free will, and yet every decision they make is completely deterministic and predictable.” “And how do we know that our decisions aren’t?” “Very funny. Anyway, I just thought it was worth noting. What do you want to do about it, then? Move on, or shall we pull one over on ‘em?” “That is a big bonus we’d be missing out on.” “Yeah. They are quite violent. I’m sure they could be convinced to war with each other, given a little nudge.” “And how might we do that? ” “Sow discord between them. They already have an advanced communications system, so that makes the job much easier. They call it the internet. It melds all their minds together to form a cohesive network, so if we tap into that we can make them think whatever we want.” “Would the research corporations find out?” “According to the records, they only visit every 5,000 years or so. Last time they built pyramids - concealed monitoring devices, I think - so the planet’s absence will likely go unnoticed for a while. We’d be long gone.” “Perfect. Sounds like you’ve done this before.” “Oh yeah. Why’d you think I was 5th in the employee rankings last year? For my honesty and integrity? All Corporate care about are the numbers.” “Ha! You’re not wrong. I’ll let you take the lead then, as you clearly know what you’re doing. How’d you wanna start off?” “We’ll spread disinformation. Create an ideological battle, and force them to choose sides through social pressure. They’ll be at each other like frenzied rabbits. In a few decades only dust will remain. We’ll pick up the loot, along with a fat check at the end of the year.” “Amen to that, brother.