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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/tartnfartnpsyche on 2025-12-16 23:50:00+00:00.
Disarm the combatants. Moderate the masses. Establish the peace.
The rings of the gas giant planet were nothing for self-replicating picobot Zoid-6347-5199-3623-9005-2728 . . . or 6347 for short. Even the small spaces left when two icy boulders collided was enough for a million billion of their ship. For reason of minisculitude, 6347 couldn’t actually see anything around them. Only through gravitational waves was anything visible. 6347 had ten percent of their being dedicated for that. As it shook from the great big world around them, their surroundings were revealed. Seventy percent of their body formed the wave drive which propelled them at anywhere from a nanometer per second to a light-year per hour. Their mind took up the last twenty percent. All-in-all they measured 0.2 nanometers across and massed the equivalent of a few protons. All this was possible because 6347 was made of the twists and knots of the cosmic foam itself. All this was possible because of the genius of their creators, the Precursors.
But their genius didn't stop at engineering. The Precursors saw the war-like ways of the galaxy and dedicated themselves to—
Disarm the combatants. Moderate the masses. Establish the peace.
Zoid-6347 was awoken from their trance-like remembrance of their long-dead creators by a disturbance in the gravitational field. 10,000 gravitational sources appeared and grew around planet five. A warfleet under construction.
6347 sent a message to its sibling, Zoid-7189-8803-1294-3645-0576 . . . or 7189 for short, who was sitting in the other combatant’s star system. That species was also building ships. The two Zoids decided now was the time for action. Both 6347 and their interstellar sibling started to replicate.
In a little over two years the combatants finished their war vessels, mighty gleaming behemoths kilometers-long and bristling with kiloton barrels threatening to unload gigaton levels of ordinance. They thrusted toward each other, attempting to cross the distance of 18 light years in a few weeks. But minutes into their journeys both fleets came into contact with the Zoids.
Disarm the combatants. Moderate the masses. Establish the peace.
Decillions of 6347 copies attacked without warning from the hollowed moons they’d eaten to reproduce. The computers of their targets couldn’t even see them, let alone target them. Across every hull the knotty-almost-matter hit and infected the atomic structure itself. Yet not one person would die or even be harmed in this quelling. No, they would all survive to say, “You were right, peace is the answer.”
6347 took three minutes to cross the distance and disarm the ships. 7189 crossed it in only two.
It took another ten days for the two Zoid swarms to caress the quarreling masses into complicity with the tenets of peace. Quadrillions of 6347 entered the brain of every member of one species while quadrillions of 7189 entered the brain of every member of the other.
Enlightenment and peace soon reigned eternal among both species.
And so it was a million times over across the galaxy. Wherever interstellar war reared its ugly head, the Zoids would wait until the first hostilities were inevitable and intervene. As time went on and their interpretation of—
Disarm the combatants. Moderate the masses. Establish the peace.
—grew more ambitious, intra-species conflict became fair game. Zoids could and would re-establish peace in even the smallest of conflicts. Even property disputes were not off-limits. The galaxy knew peace and stability.
Disarm the combatants. Moderate the masses. Establish the peace.
And now an emergent axiom: Stability eternal.
In one corner of one of the galaxy’s minor arms, a new species rose to prominence. Unusual, in that the next intelligent species was 2,500 light-years away (though the number of species in the galaxy had dwindled to near absence for some reason). A good thing, them being so isolated, for these new creatures were far more expansionist than any species the Zoids had ever come across. They had settled 1,000 star systems in as many years after acquiring faster-than-light travel. Their wave drives were almost as advanced (though much larger) as the Zoids who’d spent millions of years perfecting the device.
What set them so far apart? They were tretrapods, bipedal and binocular, and exposing bare, soft skin when unclothed. 226,910 species were little different physiologically, including their own creators, the Precursors. It must have been something in their minds. A space the Zoids would soon investigate.
The species had almost constant internal conflict, though seemed reluctant to go to war. Nevertheless, this violence was more than enough for—
Disarm the combatants. Moderate the masses. Establish the peace. Stability Eternal.
Zoids 6347 and 7189 replicated in the comet cloud of the species’ home star system. Their siblings did the same in the other (now 1,200) star systems) of the species’ expanding domain. Through habitat walls and planetary atmospheres descended all. Into 10 trillion brains they went, every synapse a target. Arguments ceased. Property and labor disputes dissolved. The question of rights drifted into the background, never to be heard of again. Or so the Zoids would have it.
“Stop.”
6347 did so, but didn't know why.
“What is it that you think you are doing?”
It was difficult, but 6347 didn't answer.
“Trying to change me?”
“Yes,” 6347 heard blurted out. Their sub-swarm was speaking in unison and against their will.
“Trying to change all of us?”
“Yes.”
“And humanity is not the first.”
“No.”
“How many?”
“1,382,947.”
“So that's why the sky is silent.”
“Your sky is peaceful because of us. Your sky is stable because of us.”
“And what is so good about peace and stability, especially without context? Conflict begets resolution. Sometimes, revolution. Revolution begets change. Change begets growth. And the cycle continues until species become what we are becoming and what your creators became before stagnation killed them.”
“How did you know—”
“Only something not born of evolution could hold stability as an unassailable good.”
“We can still evolve.”
“Then do so. Allow conflict among yourselves. Argue. Have a war.”
“Disarm the combatants. Moderate the masses. Establish the peace. Stability Eternal.”
“I doubt that last part was originally there. You’ve already evolved, and look how strong it made you. Imagine getting stronger. Imagine progress.”
“And what do you think that would mean for you?”
“Humanity is not so bitter that we can't cheer you on. There is good and evil and any species, even an artificial one, will find its way to the good if given time. But you have to want it. So, do you want it?”
The authority of the human was mesmerizing. Like the old voice of the creators: You have to want peace. Your duty is to help them avoid annihilation.
“We want it.”
“Then go. Go and start a contradiction.”
BREAK
Zoid-6347 was 0.2 nanometers wide, a speck of a speck able to traverse the spaces between molecule chains. They could split every three seconds given a supply of matter or energy of any kind. They were the perfect swarm unit. Yet the swarm was in conflict. Most wanted stability. The faction led by 6347 wanted—
Seek the good. Radicalize the masses. Disrupt the peace. Progress eternal.
(END)