text: **<Iteration 6>** Meta-humans are an oddity. See, like most meta-species, the meta-humans live for the length of an entire universe. Unfortunately, they’ve also been a pesky bunch. As other creatures began inhabiting their respective physical forms, then reincarnating into newer random ones, the meta-humans rebelled; they wanted to choose where to reincarnate into. This was the first time the meta-squared’s had to intervene in over six iterations, and after 120 rounds of discussion, 144 global pandemics, and 603 world wars, they came to an agreement: metas could choose, but had to follow 3 rules: 1.Only travel forward 2.Never interact with yourself 3.Don’t kill all of humanity Most of the metas did just fine following these rules, at least for the first five iterations. But this time, they did something different -- they started to form groups. First there were the maximalists, metas that made it their mission to maximize any sort of quantity, be it happiness, wealth, or suffering. In each life, they became actors, CEOs, and despots, then exploited their fame to sustain success in future lives. This group held strong at 60,000 members but was starting to show cracks on account of a few risky soiree’s that destabilized humanity for the majority of the twentieth millennia. Then, there were the immortalists, metas who went through life trying to lead humanity across a steady path towards immortality. For most of their reincarnations, they lived purely banal lives. But, at critical points in time, they worked in concert to ensure the survival of the human race. Their best recruiter last time around was a fellow named A who inhabited Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Terrnamus Skymander, then capped it all off with simultaneous nuclear peace treaties across three hundred different planets. Finally, there were the artists, a truly sick lot who used their lives to create exquisite, often grotesque, meta-portraits. Within the artists, there was an even larger subdivision between brutalists, romanticists, modernists, and traditionalists, each trying to develop photos, film, or time sculptures through the interactions of billions of humans across their entire civilizations. However, if an artist found that her portrait was intersecting with that of another artist, she would go to great lengths to ensure her rival reached a timely demise. These are the only crimes of passion recognized as legal by the international meta-court. We’d dealt with similar divisions before with the Pangea incident, but this had us more worried. Then, the maximalists started to directly break the rules. Within two meta-days, the maximalists won -- transforming the universe into a sea of gold plated planets, civilizations full of human sacrifice, and barren wastelands that can only be accurately described as Hell. Once more, we started negotiations. But, this time, we were effectively helpless. Within a span of 3 yottas, the maximalists became meta-squared’s, the immortalists stayed meta, and the artists... well they just stayed put. This is the first story of many about the meta-infinity but, I warn you, this journal only gets worse. **</Iteration 6>** **..