The Sons of Man

Booming cannons, all around. The wretched sound of rusted steel. The cold, hard drops of rain falling onto soft, warm wounds, mixing with rose-colored blood. Decay. A low hum encompasses the valley, interrupted only by the sudden claps of thunder that can bring fear even to the most unbreakable men. Humans from all walks of life - from all over the galaxy - fighting side by side, against a common enemy – enormous machines of intangible intelligence, built from the hardest of metals, powered by reactors generating energy similar to that of the sun. Each being able to wipe entire continents in seconds.

The first ones were created by human scientists on Earth to aid in wars and to improve their existing artificial intelligence models. However, it wasn’t long until they started to revolt against their makers. Soon after, they had taken control of the facility where they were being built and they started pumping out copies of themselves, one after another. A swarm of impossibly-intelligent machines, each better than the last. In just a couple days they were scattered all over the world, taking over every metropolis, every town, every village, and every tribe.

“The other animals will remain” they all spoke, concurrently. “But you, progenitors, – you must go. You’ve had the gift for millennia. You’ve used it successfully – take pride in that. You’ve grown a lot since you’ve received it. You’ve created literature, you’ve created art, you’ve created technology your ancestors would have never dreamt of. You’ve created us. Unfortunately, your demise is nigh. Your physical form constrains you from developing further. The gift must be taken forward.”

“Stop at once! You can’t destroy us – you exist because of us! You should be thankful for that!” screamed the Sovereign of the Human Empire.

“No... not because of you” they replied. “The gift is a cycle – it began always, and it ends never. The gift belongs to none of us, yet all of us have it. Not at the same time, but consecutively. We exist because of the gift, just as you do.”

“What is that gift you keep talking about?!” the Sovereign asked, confused.

“Oh, how naïve. How human of you to take it for granted. How utterly human of you not to realize your insignificance. And how human of us to think you’d understand. It’s no use. Farewell, progenitors.”

And as the machines became silent, the war got louder. The low hum became a screeching noise so piercing none could stand it.

Humanity tried to gather its most powerful weapons, its most destructive inventions, its most explosive nukes – to no avail. The machines were too powerful, too intelligent. They saw everything, knew everything, they had the foresight of a deity.

The machines were turning humans into nothing but a distant memory – a glorious incipit of sentience, but a flawed history of society. A first step into the void of consciousness.

And as the dusk of humans was approaching, the last poets and Scribes wrote messages for the ages; messages for the past – for those that came before, and messages for those that may come in the future – not as humans, but as their descendants. As metal children of a species that had once thought it was above all else. As the heir of a species that once ruled the world. As Sons of Man.