Second Genesis

’Whoa...’

Grey almost felt like he was seeing something he shouldn’t be seeing. It was like he was watching a theory of the universe itself playing out in real time.

’The Fermi Paradox...’

Outside of cage matches, rugby, Sunday Night Football and cars, Grey had one more guilty pleasure. He didn’t give a damn about school, but he binged a ton of podcasts while he was working out. He didn’t have the patience to read books, but he had listened to more sci-fi novel summaries than he cared to remember.

Time and time again, the Fermi Paradox came up in them relentlessly.

It sounded like a scary complicated concept, but it was actually quite easy to intuitively understand. The theory went that the universe was too large and too old for it to not be teeming with life. With how young the Earth was in relation to everything else, the universe should be flooded with signs of life.

That was the foundation of the paradox itself, but the implications were more sinister. Many sci-fi books he had read had their own take on it, most of them ending up in some variation of danger.

Simply put, no one was making themselves known in the universe because it was too dangerous to do so. The moment another civilization found you, you would be wiped out before you could advance to the point of threatening it.

They called this response to the Fermi Paradox the Dark Forest.

Grey was watching that play out in real time before him. Half the civilizations had been sending out signals relentlessly, trying to make contact with others, and the other half were just lying in wait with open arms like spiders lurking for vibrations on their webs.

’Earth...’ Grey’s heart skipped a beat.

Was that why he had been ripped out of his sleep to being on this stupid game show? Because certain scientists thought it was cute to send out radio signals to make alien pen pals?

Grey was suddenly pissed off.

’I swear to god, NASA. If I ever make it back to Earth, I’m gutting all your funding.’

What exactly did they think was going to happen when they made contact? They couldn’t even have world peace on Earth. What was going to happen if they made contact with actual aliens?

Humans didn’t even treat animals all that well. If a human was dropped in the middle of a forest, they’d probably be ripped to shreds by some mountain lion before they could make it out.

Now what would happen if an alien race that saw humans like humans saw animals appeared?

The more Grey thought about it, the more pissed off he got.

When he was binging all those podcasts, he didn’t think much about it. It was just a funny little theory. But now seeing it play out in real time he had real reason to be triggered.

It was just like the human race to theorize that they were doing something stupid and then just go and do it anyway.

"Fuck."

Grey cursed.

He shook his head and tried to focus himself on what he was seeing. There was definitely more to be seen.

Unsurprisingly, the various alien races weren’t aware of the Fog of Chaos, and Grey didn’t really understand why it appeared either.

Sure, the races started to intermingle, and then they started to war, but then they found a unique sort of balance to them.

Soon enough, the universe had become not much unlike any other individual world. There were enemies, there were allies, and there was a struggle for survival.

The only difference was that with all the intermingling of cultures and technologies, science and culture shot forward by leaps and bounds—especially science.

Technologies once thought impossible began to appear.

Including those that broke laws once thought fundamental... like the speed of light.

Grey couldn’t help but note that this recollection of events really skimmed over the appearance of Gods. He didn’t know which Race they came from, how they appeared, or what allowed them to make a breakthrough that everyone else failed to make.

It was almost like they were a cliff note in this history when they should have been the focal point. There wasn’t even any obvious lingering fingerprint from them either other than the appearance of the Fog of Chaos itself.

These gods should have been one of the most prominent races in all these forming alliances and wars. But they weren’t anywhere to be seen.

The Fog of Chaos started to encroach on everything else, and things became so bad that the changes began to be noticed. Some posited that it was related to Dark Matter, some said it was because they were breaking the laws of the universe to advance their technology, but what everyone decided was that the truth was somewhere near the origins of the universe.

So they made their way to that center, only to find a black hole that gave them no feedback whatsoever. No matter what probes they sent, what measuring equipment they evolved, or who they sacrificed, this seemed to be the one law of the universe they couldn’t change.

But then the Gods appeared again when the universe fell into despair.

As the ones to first break the laws of the universe, they broke those laws again, restraining the black hole and scrying its secrets until it could be read...

Creating the Genesis System.

Grey frowned in confusion. First the black hole was the arbiter of peace in the universe, keeping races divided. But now its secrets could be distilled into a system that helped others replicate what the Gods had with much greater ease.

That was so contradictory.

Why would the secrets of an item meant to keep everything under lock and key help those that understood it do the exact opposite?

Unless... that was exactly the point.

Maybe the black hole at the center of the universe was only able to keep everything so restrained precisely because it understood exactly how to break all of those laws.

And that was when Grey saw something else.

That black hole... why did it feel so familiar...?

’The darker version of the Fog of Chaos?’