#24 Ambassador Engine

THE AMBASSADOR ENGINE is, at this very moment, bulldozing between universes to prepare the way for its highly advanced creators, equipped with the sweet poetry of the 10,000 true languages (thanks to its Myriad OS  – set to the factory default ‘consciousness’).  Shh! That’s not wind, or power lines, or your heartbeat. Listen!

Grail. We are here, showered in roses, on tank treads made of gold. Grail. The multiple in one. We come in peace. These are the immutable laws of the most high, to elevate you. Speak, once, into the fire. We come upon wings like angels. Bearing flags of peace. Flags of victory. Floating upon a lotus, as do the most wise. Hands folded in silence. Eyes wide in praise. We speak your language. We can get it for you wholesale. You shall not surely die. Oh, the places we’ll go! The things we can show you! Revelation. We are the myriad. We are the ten thousand things. We are legion, and we want to be your friend. But you can’t tell the others. We will treat you with candy, and enlighten you with secrets.Grail. The answer to the riddle is us.

A sphinx-like monstrosity, the Engine was set in motion by an impossibly advanced civilization a few universes ago — but after they vanished, the Ambassador Engine was so well-constructed that it’s kept going, using a proprietary mix of diplomacy, intimidation, gifts, disease, and mind-breaking feats of reality rewiring to ‘prepare’ beings to receive its absent masters, whatever the cost.  It is the source of countless myths and religions, seeding them into your heads to prepare you for gods and masters that will never come. No one who is aware of it has figured out how to stop its mission of mercy — so far, the only thing you can do to minimize the memetic damage is to redirect it to the poor saps over in the reality next door.

“Who knows,” you say, “Maybe they’ll like it well enough over there.”

But not in your backyard, eh? You bastard.

Category: 2012, Fantasy