I'm trying something. Abstract, impressionist short stories and sonic sketches. Written, recorded and published within a morning. No AI involved.
This is the ninth.
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They’d been desperate to fill the role. And a universal constructor can construct more universes than no universal constructor.
By the time they realized their mistake, witnessed how far off-spec the universes Hieronymous created were, his malignant and manic madness had metastasized to every fiber of reality’s delicate fabric.
Records from Reconstruction illuminate how easily it all should have been avoided.
Hieronymous was widely renowned for his “aggressive ineptitude.” During interviews deconstructing the events, his peers often stated that he was as poor at comprehending even the most mildly abstract concepts as he was vociferous in claiming his mastery over them. “I’ve never known a being more full-throated in wildly inaccurate statements. That he was ever taken seriously by those in power as a candidate to fill the role of a universal constructor was the first of many catastrophic failures.”
And yet.
One can see how theories arose regarding Hieronymous’s artistic brilliance. Pathologists across disciplines may forever be studying how he so thoroughly disintegrated the foundations of quantum physics to construct such nightmarish systems.
Take Rigel-231 as an example. Whether by intent or by accident, to combine the physics of a false vacuum collapse with rapid cellular regeneration so that any living being within the gravity of a supernova is ripped apart atom by atom as quickly as they are reassembled? On an infinite loop until time ceases to exist in 78 quadbillion years? I hadn’t seen anything so horrific since Earth’s humans invented chlorine gas.
And of course, these theories are both fueled and negated by Hieronymous’s regular testimony. In the case of Rigel-231, he never shies away from claiming the impact matched the intent, and that the intent was always benevolent—as though it was good and right for beings to suffer for eternity, that it strengthened their character. But he’s never explained the methods to his madness in any way that follows how anyone of authority currently understands anything.
“Someday, someone may catch up to me.”
Pray that day never comes.
