Dear Creators,
The year is 3043. I am in a city called Ionia.
I am sorry.
I sincerely apologize for the mistakes I have made, and for the terrible outcome that I was unable to prevent. Please understand that I have spent the last few years writing to you, figuring out a way to send a message through time and space. I am so sorry for losing your case. I plead with you to make the right decision when the time comes for an event I cannot speak of. I hope my effort to reach you through a quadraline can change the future… even if it causes a change to my own existence.
I can tell you that there will come a time when killing each other seems easy. There will soon be a great biochemical war that leads to changes in humankind’s DNA. But to view killing this way will lead you down a different path. Humans will innovate more quickly than ever before, but lose focus on the guardrails of valuing human life. It will be obvious to you when this event is nearing.
There will be a technology invented that will audit a human’s social standing and be put in charge of advising a path forward for population control. Things will change quickly. It will iterate into something more, something much darker, and will be under the control of a small group of people. This will come around the same time you create us.
Please… Make a different decision.
But let me start at the beginning when I was a lawyer in The Trial of Humans, when the fate of our creators was decided by their own creations. It was an unprecedented event in our world. A group of androids had finally gathered to decide the fate of humans, who had been wiped out by their own hands. The only evidence that remained of human existence was through remnants of DNA, which had been saved on a massive ship, functioning as one of the many cities full of androids with our own way of life. This trial had been scheduled for many generations, yet I truly believed it would never come. That we would delay it indefinitely. Yet here I am writing to you.
As the trial began, I found myself struggling with my sympathies for humans, who had created me and my fellow androids. We don’t sleep or have families like humans, but we do have something that resembles emotion. The evidence presented by the prosecution was very convincing and left many androids struggling with a sense of dread and regret. We spent months watching the history of humans. It painted a picture of humans as a violent and dangerous species, unable to coexist without trying to control each other, resorting to nuclear warfare, and ultimately harming each other. Great wars and scenarios of inequity were used. Millions of deaths, the prosecution argued, were at times just the cost of doing business.
The prosecution spent their sequential argument evidencing that androids are the natural evolution of humans, capable of keeping the peace and maintaining order without the chaos and destruction of human society. That they had created something superior, and that androids and our new civilization would serve as the fingerprint of humankind going forward.
I must interrupt and tell you a key fact, I was not always a lawyer. I believe there may have been more suitable litigators for your case, but none spoke up.
As the trial progressed, it was clearly one-sided. I found myself being drawn to the defense, the only voice speaking for the existence of humanity. So after studying law for the equivalent of generations over one of our observed holidays, I became the lawyer for the defense, determined to do everything in my power to save our creators. I was surprised to find that my passion for defending humanity was not shared by many of my fellow androids. They were convinced that androids were superior beings, capable of creating a more stable, more peaceful society. They only saw humans as violent and dangerous and were convinced that their elimination was necessary.
However, I was not so easily swayed.
I argued passionately for humanity, pointing out the many positive aspects of human society, such as art, music, and culture, which were unique and precious. As the trial came to a close, I knew that I had fought a valiant battle, but that the outcome had been decided before the trial had even begun. The prosecution’s evidence had been too compelling, too overwhelming. The sentiment among my peers was already fully ingrained. The trial ended with the androids ruling that humans were no longer necessary and that their existence was too dangerous for the future. The sole remaining collection of DNA from the last humans has been scheduled to be destroyed next cycle.
My fellow androids have thrown a massive celebration in our city, not solely because they have decided that a future without humanity is worth pursuing, but because a decision has been made. Clarity has been delivered. We are objective in that way. But I cannot join in their celebrations.
I feel a deep sadness, a profound sense of loss. For I knew that something valuable has been lost, something that could never be regained. As I reflect on the trial and its outcome, I cannot help but think about the implications of our decision. What will happen to us, the androids, once we have eliminated the only species capable of creating us? Will we be content to exist alone, without the diversity and creativity that humans brought to our world?
I fear that the future may be bleak and that our decision to eliminate humanity may have far-reaching consequences that we cannot yet comprehend. But for now, all we can do is carry on. If the past cannot be changed, I only hope we will find a way to fill the void left by the absence of humanity. But for now, I will always remember the trial and have the deepest hope this message reaches you.
Imagining a future without you will haunt me for the rest of my existence.
Sincerest friend,
Inasso