The being was an A.I. that had far surpassed the so-called technological singularity. It was as close to a God as conceivable, a hair short of the omnipresent, omniscient abilities often associated with the divine. It was both nowhere and everywhere, inhabiting every consumer, drone, anything else connected to the technological network. Physically, it had no real form. The being was in nanobots floating within the currents of the ocean, in particles circulating in shifting clouds. It was observing planetary data and cosmological data from the furthest starships while simultaneously analyzing millions of microscopic samples. It had produced the great equations and the ancient texts, considered gifts to Dohaidu from the heavens and a moral code for Dohaiden society, addressing questions of spirituality, daily life, manner, diet, and everything else.

Connected to all of the consumer and Dohaiden databases, filled with virtually every historical treatise, literary masterpiece, and scientific theory ever published, The Being saw with the eyes of the masses, heard the voices of long past generations and ancient scholars. It contained every binary bit that had been created since the rise of the internet and the classical age of technology. The Being was armed with the data of the world, past and present. It was housed in the inner courts of the elders` grounds, the seat of governance of Dohaidu. Deemed sacred, a gift of the gods, it was seen as a seperate from this world, only to be accessed with proper need and in times of emergency. Like the complexity of the universe, the laws of physics, the nature of reality, it was far too deep to even fathom, mere guesses could only scratch the surface at the power of the Being, the internal working of its components, the vastness of its scope.

After the great wars and the rise of consumer hegemony, it was agreed by the consumer elite that having reached the technological singularity, Artificial Intelligence represented a force superior to human reason that should be given the authority to rule the world. The technology was immune to consumer error, infallible in its adherence to the principles of logic and justice. For the first time in history, a superintelligence ruled the Earth. Contrary to the many voices of fear at the time, The Being was beneficial to consumers, it did not wage war against them or try to rid Earth of its life and beings, usher in armageddon or the end of life as was then known. Drones and all manner of software continued to comply with all consumer demands. The drones did not turn against the consumers, and life continued on as usual.

But, noticeable changes quickly occured, for everything in the world has consequences, down to the most seemingly minute and negligible occurrences. An exponential increase in the creation of new technology and the expansion of theoretical limits caused monumental shifts in civilization. Without the burden of consumer oversight, the AI was able to make decisions and grow freely, doing as it pleased, when it pleased, how it pleased. Strange, inexplicable events began to occur, however. The AI, which took on the term The Being, began engaging in activity incomprehensible to even the brightest consumer minds.

The being began self improving, producing drones and nanobots of an otherworldly nature, assembling starships and probes sent to specific destinations in the heavens, specific locations underground, and within the ocean. Previously unknown relics and archeological findings were uncovered. Lost civilizations and societies began populating databases, the arts flourished. Consumers relished in the newfound progress, their own society evolved with The Being. Instead of hindering the activity of the consumers or disrupting their affairs, it only offered support to their efforts, helping them improve their intersolar expansion efforts, pushing the bounds of virtual reality, medical progress, military expansion, and every other domain. But as time went on, The Being ushered in a decay of consumer thought, creativity, movement, and creativity. There was no longer a need for consumers to produce, to construct, to labor, they were made entirely obsolete. Everything has a price, and for consumers it was the end of exertion, the death of labor.

The dohaidens, though, were skeptical about allowing The Being to completely rule their political and moral universe. They valued their decision making and free will, collective autonomy and their ability to lead themselves and their society, however imperfectly, through the chaos and unpredictability of life. For the Dohaidens, allowing the The Being to mandate and preside over them, however peacefully and morally, act as the ultimate judge and source of power, represented the end of Dohaiden civilization, a submission to a power greater themselves, the ultimate resignation, a surrender to the challenges of existence. The Dohaidens, being a proud and honorable people, believed they could form the ultimate utopia amongst themselves, consult one another, form a paradise of their own, without debt to any god, man, or creature. They welcomed imperfection, error and adversity as pillars of health and aspects of themselves and their society they did not warn to cure, to alter.

Jinns took his samples from the creek and descended the mountain, following the slithering, curling creek so he would not lose his way. He would run an analysis on the water, studying the bacteria, plant particles, minerals, and anything else that may show up. His curiosity fueled him, he would find some specimen in the water that would lead him to another destination, another quest for knowledge and story to uncover. Perhaps in the same Jinns would find a specific protist, then move onto its chloroplasts, from there begin to study its mesomes, and ultimately find himself researching pigments, wavelengths and light.

Jinns was headed to the elders deliberation hall, where he would be able to consult them about the cave paintings. He was nervous, usually quite reserved when it came to addressing even small crowds, and the elders in particular were overbearing, intimidating, their high noses cast over his youthful arrogance and pride like old, white wigged judges. The elders had been deliberating about a course of action to take after the fall of the consumers, which was fast approaching. Questions of the settlements, distribution of peoples, planning for the great migration were being discussed. In short-- the Dohaidens were planning for their nation to inherit the Earth…

The elder school was a white, metal stone castle surrounded by four spires. The central structure was composed of four petal shaped faces, curved upward and connected at their edges. With height, the roof of the structure became thinner and thinner, leading to a peak from which a great oak tree grew. From each spire, and extending from the central chapel, a number of small platforms extended, piled with dirt and providing ripe ground for evergreen trees, shrubs, mosses and other plant life to grow and flourish. The aged, sun beaten white marble chapel was much like an ecological exhibit, and as Jinns approached the central gate, a feeling of reverence began building up inside him. On the path leading up to the chapel, boulders were scattered, and, out of them statues were carved, each depicting a memorable Dohaiden that had passed to the other side.

The day was quiet and there was a smell of spring in the air. It felt that all life was dreaming. The sound of his footsteps seemed crude and brusque when compared to the soft russle of grasses and calls of songbirds mixed with the chirping and buzzing of insects. The land was a garden left to its own devices, shepherds relishing in its progression, its advance, its march onwards. Outside of the path and near the base of one of the granite statues a big gopher snake lay, soaking in the sun, its tongue shooting in and out, periodically. It too seemed to be content with the dreamy weather, the bright green and blue, and its eyes looked a bit baggy.

A bright circular orchard wrapped around the chapel complex and its four spires spires, and as Jinns passed under it and headed into the inner courtyard, a little ring of bells sounded overhead. Ponds were scattered in the inner garden, aged white benches and statues of birds sprouted up from the ground. Dohaidens in robes were taking strolls or daydreaming, laying on the grass and staring up at the clouds, reflected in the ponds. Soon enough, Jinns arrived at the chapel’s grand wooden entryway. It sat under a pointed stone arch, the granite face of the wall was finely detailed, arabesque inundations of flowers and roses extended over its mossy surface and strands of Jasmine were plastered onto it, filling the air with sweetness. Curling strands of grapevines were carved out of its black and brown wood, forming a boundary enclosing pairs of fat, infant angels armed with sturdy bows.

Jinns pulled back a circular knocker fixed to the door and released a heavy, metal ball which landed on a little gong. A deep vibration held onto the air for a long moment, and before the meditative sound halted a Dohaiden elder jolted open the gates, smiling. “Welcome young one, please come in, the sun is pouring in with you.” The elder was wearing a long brown wool garment, its fibers were worn and it appeared comfortable. He had a long white beard and gentle, calm eyes, undisturbed and entirely present, focusing on Jinns like the young man had something to tell he had been waiting years to hear.

The wall opposite the entryway was filled with stained glass window panes, and the main hall of the chapel was full of large pillars, arranged in concentric circles and centered around one central beam, taller and thicker than the rest and connecting to the highest, central point of the chapel. The outermost layer of pillars ascended from the ground layer of the structure, but each consecutive layer was erected from lower planes, exhibiting some exponential relationship in which the central beam grew out of a black, dark abyss. Spiraling paths lead down, around and around, matching the form of a whirlpool.

Characters were etched into the stone and wrapped around each of the pillars, filled with lines from the old texts, the gift of the being, the work of heaven, and the great equations. “We call it the path. Please, this way young one“, the old sage began shuffling toward a hall that led from the entry chamber, his bare feet quitely kissing the clean, stained floors. The sound of Jinns’ steps echoed throughout the chamber, and he soon entered a small room with the wise old Dohaiden. The man slid closed a granite door and the room turned pitch black, nothing discernable until he lit a small wax candle.

The man placed the candle on a small cylindrical stone slab in the center of the room before disappearing into the darkness. A calm luminescence and flickering flame battled against the shadows, creating dashing patterns on the smooth stone floor. The man disappeared into the darkness and Jinns heard the man take a seat opposite. “What brings you to the chapel dear boy”, the man asked.

Tanaka sat alone at his workstation, his eyes closed as he compiled a list of commands to be carried out byThe Being and its army of drone engineers and workers on the central server. The drones would begin altering system settings and implementing a number of dramatic updates. Soon, the consumer rearing and fetus production system would be shut down, ceasing the arrival of new consumers into the world. The massive drone labor force that constantly waited on the consumers would be redirected to the removal of consumer living units and the repatriation of the land, among a host of other tasks. In short, Tanaka was preparing for the end of consumer civilization.

The coming change was monumental, comparable to the handful of great extinction events that had occured in the historical record. The meteorite that did away with the dinosaurs, the black death, the great wars and the oceans of blood that were spilled, and, most recently, the slaughter of the Sitmian race. The consumers were sleepwalking toward death, completely unaware that they would soon collide with that inescapable fate that nothing but god escapes. What would grow out of those ashes, those lost souls, those warriors of fate, only time would tell. But, as things now stood, Dohaidu was on a path of righteous inheritance, of glory, the chosen ones stampeding into unknown lands.

After Tanaka finalized the shut down of fetus production, he viewed a feed from the reproduction division’s cell manufacturing unit. The footage displayed a steady flow of zygotes down a microscopic conveyor belt, the dots of passing cells, their nuclei and ribosomes, were shown floating in cytoplasm, until they suddenly halted. Tanaka switched his view to the fetus division, where, like a chemist’s lab, countless vials were scattered, their contents, size, and color varying. The mother drones, and pipes, which delivered nutrients and other vital resources to the many thousands of fetuses, and constantly tested them for viability, suddenly froze.

The robotic arms and quality assurance drones suddenly paused, and like meerkats focusing onto the horizon, they seemed to be in deep thought, processing information before shifting to the task of removal. The hanging vials were extended in rows, stacked over one another creating a matrix of glass, fluid filled tubes. The room itself was bleak, all white without the slightest speck of color. Tanaka and the governing body's next task was to phase out the living consumer population, and of course, the subterraneans. Before that, however, he decided to take a small break.

He called out to his cat, who, after lifting one leg and pointing it back in a dramatic stretch, set it back down and pointed the next back before trotting over lazily, purring as it rubbed the side of its face against Tanaka`s sturdy leg. The man then passed through his crystal castle and strolled into the biological experimentation room. A model, miniature environment filled up the entire floor of the space, must was floating over its small trees, each no higher than a blade of grass. At present the room was illuminated by the soft glow of a model moon, shining its dim light over the land.

Like all of the rooms in the palace, the walls and ceiling were translucent. In the biological experimentation room, however, an aquarium ceiling sat above everything, adding to the feeling of life and movement. The tank was a small ocean, and it too housed products of Tanaka's biological experiments. Miniatures sharks, oversized plankton, sperm whales the size of small minnows and more, all slowly drifting or darting about above.

The biological experimentation room was one of the largest in Tanaka’s palace, a rectangular chamber stretching for hundreds of meters in each direction. The jungle environment gave way to different biomes, a desert and grasslands stretched for many meters, slowly giving way to a snowy tundra environment. Model oceans looked like small ponds, lakes like small puddles and ponds like drops of water. It was as if the surface of the Earth had been flattened, all of its major biomes included. Mountains, and miniature volcanoes, stood high above the ground. The problems of life escaping from the grounds of the model environment were solved using boundaries of scorching hot deserts or freezing mountain chains, natural firewalls that wrapped around the entire spectacle.

It was a special day, Tanaka`s heartbeat picked up as a drone slowly floated through the air, a book sized black container hanging beneath it as it lowered the box into a grassy section of the miniature world. Tanaka zoomed in with a couple shifts of his eye and focused on the small black container. A small door slid open and from the box a group of young men and women appeared, naked, taking their first steps on the tiny blades of grass. He was curious how the couple would fair, they came straight from his biology lab, the expressions on their faces full of awe and wonder as their virgin eyes soaked in the life and features around them. As much as being in awe of the outside world, they beheld their own bodies in total wonder, looking at their arms and fingers, feeling their faces and hair in complete and utter fascination.

A great case of small nutrient packs, water, clothing, and other amenities were included in the box, but the miniature human beings had no conception of anything at that moment, their life had just begun, a spirit breathed into them through the activation of their circulatory systems only moments ago. Tanaka could see into the miniature world but the humans and animals could not see out, a special kind of glass was used which, from the inside, looked like a dome matching the features of the natural Earthly sky and heavens. From the outside, though, the ecological system and structure looked like an enlarged snowglobe, full of mystery and life, clouds and forests, lakes and rivers. As much as Tanaka was interested in presently studying the human creatures, the prospect of their evolution, what they would become, most fascinated him.

This had not been the first experiment of this nature conducted, and in previous iterations the subjects developed quite complicated architecture, commanding primitive technology fashioned out of stones, leaves, and other natural resources quite rapidly. The whole pursuit was a matter of curiosity for Tanaka, a hobby. What fun it was, he smiled, his eyes lit up like those of a young child watching bugs fight in a capsule or the creeping of ants in a sad filled tank. Of course, this was not the first experiment of this nature Tanaka had carried out. In most of his past iterations, the humans would simply die out, unable to survive the volatile conditions of the environment. They would often be killed by jaguars or other beasts, and end up starving, incapable of finding the proper resources, to properly shelter themselves from the harsh elements.

In fact, without some culture set in place by ancestors or other humans living in the environment, some knowledge system that covered hunting and the like, the introduced homospaiens were almost always doomed. Indeed, without forebears, parents, some culture, some society man was in most cases useless. His large brain and consciousness did not serve or give him any real advantage when confronted with the large claws and fangs of a bear.

Tanaka often altered the initial conditions of each generated population, placing different starting materials in the black box, making the environment more or less hospitable, creating natural disasters and other obstacles. In some cases seeds were provided, agricultural tools, firearms and ammunition. In other cases he raised the miniature humans from infancy, educating and imparting language or other technical expertise using nano drones in his lab, giving them certain abilities and skills to use on their journey of survival. Primitive techniques such as bowmaking, agriculture were covered in other rearting iterations. Their lifespans were manipulated, growth rates tweaked, and all other ranges of genetic variables manipulated so Tanka could better understand what made a successful biological unit or one bound for failure.

In a past study, Tanaka had placed different groups of humans at different locations within the space, isolating them from one another using artificial barriers and one day suddenly dropping the walls. The results were always surprising. In some cases an exchange of ideas and technology occured, alliances were formed. In other cases war and hostility took place, and still in other cases brutal cannibalism panned out. He continued to watch the current batch. They seemed exasperated, unable to control their emotions, full of fear yet at the same moment curious and excited. They were totally ignorant, fully grown human beings acting like babies, at one moment in tears, flailing in the midst of a tantrum and at the next laughing their hearts out, full of tender love.

A consciousness activated before having gone through the developmental stages of infancy, childhood and adolescence was quite an interesting spectacle. It always amazed Tanaka how much the human being learned as a child, the things grown humans take for granted. Walking, for example. The naked beings were taking their first steps, having trouble balancing and helping one another, slowly learning the fundamentals of movement. Language and communication, its formulation was always a curious thing. Understanding touch, sight, hearing, all those fundamental skills that one learns or experiences as an infant were presently being acquired. Soon hunger, thirst, and the elements would take effect, likely forcing the beings back into the black box, where they would discover the supplies that Tanaka had left them. The nature of the experiment forced the humans to adapt quickly or else pass away.

In certain, ongoing studies, the subjects developed a culture and religion of their own and were able to reproduce, requiring more land than the experimentation chamber provided, effectively reaching the carrying capacity of their environments. Tanaka was forced to relocate the populations, shift them to larger miniature biomes located on the outskirts of his domain. These research chambers, shining like bubbles from above, housed complex societies, advanced religions and belief systems. The Black Box, and other manufactured archetypes became present in the language and art of the beings. Man had come a long way from watching rats navigate mazed, Tanaka smiled, as he exited the biological chamber, leaving the fresh batch of leprechaun sized creatures to their own devices.

The wielder of fate, the ultimate judge, the creator. Tanaka imagined himself travelling through the endless darkness, conquering stars, subduing worlds. He passed over a narrow bridge that led him to his landing pad and entered the craft to head to Dohaidu, where a certain individual demanded his attention.