Wow, that twist at the end is really, really dumb… So it’s aliens, again.
It’s aliens looking for a new alien-Jesus by purging other civilizations, because why exactly? Because they were bored. Their effective omnipotence bored them so much, they went out to find somebody who could do things they can’t so they could worship them… Yeah, makes sense, 'cause aliens or whatever. Oh, almost forgot: What they are doing also conditionally turns people into invisible aether beings that can’t be hurt by the people who haven’t turned into invisible aether beings. No idea why that’s a part of it, because that detail really has no relevance whatsoever in the story, and it doesn’t really fit into the narrative as a whole either, but it’s there anyways, 'cause I guess aliens again.
Considering this is a translation, I don’t wanna shoot the messenger. The translation seems solid as far as I can tell.
One thing though: The article states the first reported case was in 2030, yet further down it states cases are estimated to exceed 700 mil by 2021. I’m assuming that was a mistake.
Now to the article itself: Safe for the horrible ending it was somewhat interesting to read (although I can’t understand how somebody requested a translation of this, as they presumably read this dreck before they did so).
The narrative suffers from a weird combination of overly simplistic and overly convoluted concepts. It also introduces a huge amount of expositional lore not in any way relevant to its content; it’s there exclusively for justifying its own framing device, only makes the whole thing more convoluted, when a narrative-equivalent framing device that doesn’t require massive justification (like an ordinary diary, electronic or not) would achieve the same thing. Lastly, not a fan of the interlacing of monologue/dialogue into the article body, especially not before the article’s introduction, but this one’s just my preference.
To keep my sanity after reading a unique and creative twist such as "aliens!", I had to write a short dialogue of how these aliens could have come up with this totally rational scheme. It’s not relevant, but it’s there anyways. The story was ok with including irrelevant garbage, so I thought my comment should as well.
Read at your own risk.
Alien Idiot A: You know, being basically omnipotent is boring as hell.
Alien idiot B: Yeah, I’m so fucking bored!
Idiot B: Y’know what would be great way to pass some time? How about we become some genocidal religious zealots?
Idiot A: Yeah, that’d be awesome, but I don’t wanna worship something from a glorified fairytale. And it’s kinda hard trying to worship something that’s less-or-equally omnipotent than we are.
Idiot B: I’ve got it! We start systematically purging arbitrary civilizations by basically forcing them to kill each other, and whatever weirdo manages to not kill or be killed by anyone will become our space messiah. Bam— two space birds with one stone: Genocidal and next-level whack-job-religious!
Idiot A: Oh my god, that’s it! That’s fucking perfect; I’ll go rally the guys while you start drafting up how we’re going to get them to kill each other.
Idiot B: But to warn you ahead of time: If we’re gonna do this, then we’ll do something that turns people into invisible aether beings at some point. I don't care if it doesn't make any sense; I won't negotiate about this.
ProfoundAbyss
thd-glasses
fluxman
