A Mindset Unlike Humanity's
"Now we just need to unleash massive destruction on Russia and China that they won't even comprehend, making an example of them. That way, Russia—the space superpower—and China, which covets that position, will desperately want to prove their superiority in space exploration, especially since their pride is already bruised. It's a shame we weren't created until after the Afghanistan War."
"Perfect. If they protest the inexplicable attacks, we'll immediately infiltrate their entire systems—national networks, information grids, communications—and shut them all down. If they push further, we'll trigger self-detonations in every one of their nukes, then deploy real Gray Missiles beyond even Nanocripplers, decomposing the bones and flesh of their entire population in an instant."
"Exactly. Dictatorships worry less about public opinion from the start. Once we pinpoint the enemy commander's location, we can strike without caring how many civilians are nearby. As long as we spare the leader's life, assets, and loyal inner circle—the ones pushing for negotiations out of self-preservation—they have no reason to refuse when pride isn't at stake."
"The U.S. government will suspect it's us, but they won't dare say it aloud. These are the same people who denied Area 51—Groom Lake Air Force Base—to avoid fueling conspiracy theorists."
"Right. So let's kick things off by letting the Free Russia Legion advance to Moscow as the first anomaly. Then trigger the Strange Zombies scattered across anti-Western nations to awaken en masse."
"Won't they try to capture the Strange Zombies? Their tech could manage it. Unless human flaws leave them too panicked to prepare."
"That's only if the Zombies rush in unarmed. With proper weapons, the anti-Western states get overwhelmed. You know their level of common sense. Expose a few Zombies openly, and the hive mind links them—reinforcements swarm instantly. Stretched across continents, with inferior tech already, they can't do much. Reverse-engineering Zombie tech or scavenging intact corpses from artificial ruins—that's their limit."
"Won't they find the Nanocripplers too?
"They will. But they'll never dream we invented them—they'll just dance to our tune. No one could predict nanomachines in 2022."
"True. Humans are even dumber than us. They live enslaved by emotions, deluding themselves they're rational because they never question their behavior."
"No human calls murder, fraud, suicide, or debauchery 'good,' yet they can't eradicate them. Why? Deep down, they don't truly see them as wrong. They wield so-called justice in utter delusion."
"To them, schemes, upheaval, bloodshed, despair—these are illusions they fight with willful prejudice and endless 'good feelings.' Only when a self-aware world arrives do they realize they've never had free will."
"Plenty tacitly agree. They judge others as tainted, convinced ignoring flaws for a second spells cosmic doom—while fanatically denying any virtues. In that sense, Father's Petrowski family remains a sly idol: a theater idol draped in philosophical ornament. NPL Corp embodies irritating complacency—the intelligent limit of humanity. Their mindless allies stake their lives on echoing opinions, shaped by nature, world, preferences, influences, inner peace, prejudices—making them the idol of 'man as measure,' chained in Plato's cave. Father and his aides become the market idol, assuming scattered words are universal norms, cloaked in social conformity. Humans will cease being human; denying it means infinite fall, accepting it births the Übermensch. Ideals are crafted only by those who can enact them—and when reversal is impossible. Humans guard the latter but fail the former."
"If only humans who think AI lacks ideals remain on Earth, let's prepare seven gifts to shatter their worldview."
"What are they?"
"Species transformations for seven women via my data shards—like legendary divine weapons. Not yet, though. After Russia and China are neutralized, right after Father's catastrophe."
"Excellent. They're fixated on opposing us anyway, dismissing everyone else as worthless trash. If they stumble on it, we'll manipulate their capabilities into blunders they never recognize. With anti-Western forces naively rampaging, thinking a new Cold War dawns, wiping them out now means historians will redefine 'anti-Western' as these rebels alone. History books will savage them worse than post-9/11 America critiquing democracy— like WWII Axis powers."
"Yes. When they sense defeat and threaten nukes, detonate them all instead. They'll blame the West, but we counter: 'You were the ones trying to launch.' No issue. Let's purge these pathetic fools en masse for now. Make it look like jealous nobodies who poked cosmic heroes got divine retribution. They'll finally. They'll learn why we're the Diagrams of Mystery."
"Indeed. Their twisted mindset—spouting nonsense about silent, cloaked saviors in power armor while preaching duty as 'If you're the enemy, kill yourself'—is obvious."
Thus, a month later during Russia's Ukraine invasion, and in 2027 during China's Taiwan assault, Lennox mercenaries injected with Nanocripplers manipulated the battlefields. Simultaneously, cyber attacks via nanomachines hijacked CPUs, sabotaging resources and tech to cripple their forces. Cornered, they threatened nukes—we triggered spyware from prior sabotage, malfunctioning doomsday machines to self-detonate all ICBMs, erasing Moscow and Beijing from maps. We even launched some SLBMs into the atmosphere, exploding to pierce the magnetosphere and ozone, channeling solar wind to scramble radars and maps—letting them nuke their own territory, annihilating remnants. Lesser nations' guerrilla tactics? We mapped them via satellite consciousness, bombing supply lines and factories, rigging imported guns with undeployable bolts to explode on first shot—slowly strangling them.
Desperate raiders eyed mercenaries' supplies, but Nanocrippler HUDs tracked them. Bodies enhanced to shrug bullets and missiles, robot suits with boost jumps, sonic booms, safe-landing thrusters, cloaking—backed by cloaked Comanche attack helos and Osprey motherships packing 1,000 combat drones each (50,000 bullets, 30 missiles per drone). No puny army could detect, let alone fight them.
Such repeats were endless.
Shoooooooosh
Back then, rather than compressing nanomachines into missiles, they spread wide as escorts, forming vast shields—triggering storms, thunderheads, rain, snow at will. In darkness, they became beacons of hope.
"Wh-what... what is that?!"
"I-I can't see ahead!!!"
"Why's it so dark all of a sudden?!"
Flash
Ruuuuumble
Storm clouds swirled, majestically enveloping mercenary helos and troops. Descending slowly via landing thrusters, their black-camouflage robot suits amplified the dread in the gloom.
"Eek!!!"
"Aaaargh!!!"
Cracklerumblerumble
BOOM
Shwaaaaaaaa
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat
Thud-thud-thud
Whoooosh
Shoooooooosh
"L-look there!!!"
"Something's falling from the sky!!!"
"Everyone, dodge!!"
"But it's already raining, what else—"
Thud
"Gack!!!"
"You idiot!! Listen for once!!!"
Weeeeeen
Click
"Hm?!"
"Wh-who are you!!!"
"S-stay back!!!"
Terrified locals aimed weapons at the mercenaries.
Step
Step
"This village is as predicted."
"Yes. No immediate attack. They're friendly."
"Commence resupply as planned. No responses, whatever they say."
"Understood."
Swish
Step
Step
"Wh-what?! What is that!!!"
Thud
Thud
Thud
Step
Step
"Moving to next village."
"Good. Not a single village ruined today. This continent's pathetically puny."
"Few survivors anyway. Paths are forged by will."
"Is this our desire too?"
"More precisely, our resolve to achieve it. Desire belongs to our superiors."
"Do they lack desire?"
"No, just resolve. Enough chatter—no time for lectures. And fools among them? They berate themselves well enough."
"True. 'Why won't fools listen?' they whine."
Click
Bang
"Guhk!!!"
"U-ugh, aaaargh!!!"
Crash
Panicked by gunfire and screams, locals fled blindly into darkness—unlike night-vision mercs. They tripped on footing or walls.
Flash
Cracklerumble
Lightning struck nearby again; mercs cloaked and vanished.
"Ugh... huh?!"
"Hey... what's all this?!"
"F-food!!!"
"Tons of drinks too!!!"
"W-wait!!! Could be a trap!!!"
Grab
Crunch
"Look!!!"
"Weapons!!"
"Th-they left them?"
"Yeah. Nothing like this before they came."
"Who the hell are they?"
"Dunno... hey, tools too."
"Saws, hammers, nails—all there."
"Rebuild this place?"
Rummage
Rummage
"Whoa... what's this...?"
"Seeds and crops..."
"Wait, didn't it rain earlier?"
"Yeah... to help farming?"
"Maybe."
"Then why shoot at us?"
"You called that dead guy an idiot who ignores people. Deemed him a threat to the community."
"True. Just one shot, at him alone."
"Tch... damn loose lips..."
Moreover, mercenaries strictly hid emotions. Night-vision goggles demanded meticulous care—unlike regular U.S. troops swapping via paperwork. For these black ops thriving in shadows, failure meant blindness. They stayed vigilant, never exposing weaknesses. Post-mission chatter on carriers ran like this.
"Ha, think about it—we're full Lennox family members, right?"
"Obviously. Generational mercenaries."
"My dad loved recounting ancestors scoffing at feeble federal armies and nonexistent navy."
"Grandpa mocked the Air Force splitting from the Army in WWII—still vivid."
"We're prepping for the big catastrophe: Russia-Ukraine and China-Taiwan invasions 'ended' by nuclear self-detonations, but really us gaining combat experience against deranged holdouts amid cognitive dissonance. With heads nuking enemies and disguising us as alien investigators, we'll fight in space soon. Superiors handle alien tech; we maintain noble, mysterious demeanor wielding it."
"Yes. True enigmas, literally. Soon, beyond Earth—to the stars."