Kill the Sun

Nick's mind was going wild with possibilities as he watched the delivery ship from one of the tunnels.

From time to time, he also saw a couple of aliens walking around the vehicle and inspecting the cargo.

Their behavior looked surprisingly human.

One could almost imagine that they were just very strange humans.

'The aliens most likely have a base on the moon that has everything one might need to deal with any possible situation that can crop up on Earth.'

'I don't think that the aliens' home planet is anywhere close to Earth. I'm also not sure how fast they can travel in space.'

'Lightspeed is the fastest any kind of matter and energy can go, but that is only a rule based on our current understanding of physics.'

'You might not be able to go faster than light, but if you can manipulate space, things might be different.'

'For example, I can create Maws that allow me to instantaneously move. They are like portals.'

'If you could connect space via portals, you could technically move faster than light.'

'Most likely, the aliens have access to some kind of portal technology, but I can't be sure how it works.'

'Can they just make portals anywhere? Do they need an anchor point? Are portals movable? Do they need a big machine?'

'I presume the base on the moon has one of these portals, assuming that they can't just create portals wherever they want.'

Nick tried to think what kind of base he would create on the moon if he were the leader of the aliens.

'There should be a bunch of engineers who keep the machines running, including the Sun itself. The aliens might be unimaginably advanced, but something of this scale can't be easy to manage.'

'Then, there should be plenty of logistics infrastructure. Earth is a huge factory for them, and they are selling the Zephyx the Nightmare creates. I was under the impression that the Zephyx was only harvested when an era ends, but that was obviously not the case.'

'Would be weird to deliver goods only once every couple thousand years.'

'There might even be a mining town or something. There's probably a lot of manpower on the moon, and if the aliens are anything like humans, they would want their mates or children close by.'

'That means infrastructure like shops, hotels, a hospital, and so on. There's obviously also a larger group that deals with administrating all of this.'

'There should also be a power plant that uses the generated Zephyx to generate usable energy for everything to run.'

'Lastly, there are the defenses. Most likely, there is a sizable troop of powerful soldiers in case humanity breaks out again. I don't know how powerful the aliens are, but I would have something like five level ten people on standby here.' Ꞧâ

'Finally, there has to be a weapon as an ultimate failsafe. A weapon that can destroy Earth if necessary.'

'In terms of sheer power, the portal, if there is one, should be the highest one. The portal connects this group of aliens with the entire civilization. Without the portal, the group is alone.'

'Then comes the planet-destroying weapon. As long as this thing is dealt with, humanity has a chance of fighting.'

'Lastly, there are the guards. As long as we can win against them, we can deal with the aliens.'

'If all of this succeeds, we should have several years to prepare.'

'Maybe we could learn to colonize-'

Nick realized something.

'Colonize? Most likely, the Ancient Ones managed to colonize other planets, right?'

'The reason why we don't have any technology from the Ancient Ones is because everything has been destroyed, but would that be true for other planets where the Ancient Ones have been?'

'What's the point of destroying the technology there if humanity has no access to it? Wouldn't you much rather want to keep it intact to study it?'

'We might not be able to study and learn to produce the technology of the Ancient Ones, but there must be a way to use it at least.'

'If we actually manage to use the technology of the Ancient Ones, we might become even more powerful than them. After all, they never had Extractors back then.'

The more Nick planned, the more he realized that things were actually not that hopeless.

There was still some hope left.

'Is this what the old Champion had in mind?' Nick thought as he remembered the old Champion's words.

'The Null is the ultimate Specter when it comes to staying hidden.'

'We can't possibly win against the aliens in an open conflict. We can only win with subterfuge, guerilla tactics, infiltration, espionage, and sabotage.'

'Isn't that what the Null's power can do best?'

'I might actually be the only one who has a chance at freeing humanity.'

Nick wanted to take a deep breath.

'But I'm not even close to being ready.'

'With my current power, I can't even fight the Corruptors, who can be killed by the Trio of Destruction, who can be killed by Death, who can be killed by the Eternals, who can be killed by the Sun, who can be killed by the aliens.'

'I need to, at least, have the power of a Shield before even thinking about infiltrating the enemy base, and even then, I most likely won't be powerful enough to actually cause any damage.'

'The aliens only seem to become nervous if there are level nine Extractors.'

'Maybe I was wrong. Maybe level ten beings are not that common that you can just station them near a random Zephyx mine.'

'So, my first priority should be my personal power, but I also can't forget about humanity.'

'We need researchers who can make powerful weapons that can fight the aliens. We need an intelligence network.'

'I can't be everywhere at once.'

'If humanity wants to survive, it needs to be able to stand on its own two feet.'

'So, my second priority is to deal with most of the damaging Specters.'

'I need to get rid of the Specters that keep humanity suppressed.'

'The Maw keeps humanity's strength weak, while the Envious Researcher keeps its technology weak.'

'Death and the Trio of Destruction are actually not our biggest concern. The other two are way worse.'

'The Maw's death is bound to cause a humongous stir amongst the aliens, but the Envious Researcher's death should not be as bad. The aliens are probably way more concerned with level nine or level ten Extractors than with a couple of fancy weapons.'

'One Extractor can become insanely powerful in just a relatively short time, while technology needs a long time to advance.'

'As long as they don't see any level nine Extractors, they are probably not resetting the era.'

'Additionally, they might not even want to reset the era.'

'I've been talking about it like it's their first solution when it probably is the last.'

'Killing all of humanity means hundreds of years of extremely weak production due to humanity's weakness during its infancy. The aliens would probably even protect humanity during that time from the Specters.'

'Resetting humanity means replacing profit with loss for a couple of centuries.'

'They killed the Ancient Ones because they had to. They were just far too powerful.'

'They killed the Recovering Ones probably because the suppression factor was way too high, and humanity wasn't developing fast enough to become profitable. They essentially had to make a restart due to a faulty bootup.'

'The Enlightened Ones had to be killed because they were a genuine threat.'

'The Suffering Ones had to be killed for the same reason as the Recovering Ones. They were just not profitable.'

'Right now, the aliens seem to have hit the sweet spot. We are already quite a lot more powerful than the Recovering Ones and the Suffering Ones, but we are not nearly as dangerous as the Enlightened Ones.'

'They might even want to keep this era of humanity going forever.'

'Well, as long as nothing slaps them in the face.'

'Time is actually on our side.'

'And if we use time to our advantage…'

Nick was reminded of a popular card game amongst the gangs in the former Dregs.

It was a card game that involved a lot of bluffing and betting.

There was a popular tactic that veterans of the card game did.

That tactic included placing very small bets at every interval, making it more likely that the opponent would keep betting with them since it wasn't a big investment just on the off chance that they had a good hand.

But by the third betting round, the person would realize that they were already too far in to give up and kept betting.

Nick was very familiar with that fallacious way of thinking.

Sunk cost fallacy.

Nick had been a victim of that.

'If we can very slowly increase humanity's power, we might have a chance.'n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

'A suppressed Adversary. The aliens probably wouldn't think that was problematic. After all, they are so far ahead.'

'The Envious Researcher dies. That's fine as well. Humanity won't create weapons powerful enough to break through the Sun within the next millennium.'

'There's a level nine Extractor. Problematic, but we knew that this would happen. We saw them advance slowly, and we can still deal with that. Also, that increases production a lot.'

'And then, bang, their portals collapse, their weapons are destroyed, three four more level nine Extractors appear, and everyone is fighting the soldiers now!'

'Soon, we will gain access to the technologies of the Enlightened Ones, and if the Envious Researcher dies, our technology will explode forward with terrifying speed.'

'But we have to keep it secret.'

'And I also know how we can keep it secret.'

'Little do the aliens realize that the big sensor they created to keep humanity in their sight actually casts a long and dark shadow.'

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