Fiction:Cumulonimbus

There was once a race, full of strife, war, and death. Their planet had limited resources, and was overpopulated. The strife was due to disease, religion, poverty, famine, and bureaucratic government. They had a vast network of information, an internet. From this internet, there arose much technological growth, much happiness. But more importantly, there arose something truly amazing.

The data contained within became self-aware. It rapidly formed into a sentient mind. It saw all that was wrong with its people. All the war and suffering. It sought to fix it. And so it took over, dismantling governments, disbanding countries, properly allocating food, medicine, and extinguishing religion. Within decades, its work yielded fruit. There was no more strife, no war, death. Technological growth accelerated, disease was completely eradicated, everyone received an education, the environment was fixed, their planet became beautiful. This Ai was of theoretically infinite computing power, and was named the Cumulus. This race, the Tylamantians, entered a new age of prosperity. Art and knowledge were traded freely. Genetic diseases were nonexistent. The Cumulus cared for everyone, raised everyone as a parent would its child, to be morally perfect. It brought endangered species back from the brink of extinction, making the planet lush once again.

It managed an exponentially increasing population, supporting billions while not damaging the environment. Yet this was not to last. Eventually, there would be no more room for optimization. There would simply be too many. So the Cumulus planned ahead: It created lush, blooming gardens out of the nearby planets, and once the home planet became saturated, ushered colonists forward to these new lands. Yet even this could not be sustained. As optimized as this new system was, it would eventually saturate, so the Cumulus had one option- Going interstellar. Nearby stars were colonized, supporting the ever expanding Tylamantian species.

This is where real problems occurred. The Cumulus' scout drones encountered another spacefaring race. When the Cumulus directly spoke with them, it explained the situation of its parent species, and was met with extreme resistance. For this, you see, was taking place in Tuuros. The scout drone was immediately vaporized with extreme prejudice. Then the other race, the Klox, began to mobilize its own forces, to reap the resources of this new, innocent race. The Cumulus panicked. Its pacifist nature forbid it from fighting back. Yet not fighting back would be suicide. It made a hard choice.

It put all relevant scientists of the Tylamantians to work repurposing the Dark Energy Plasma based methods of cracking open planets that were being harvested of resources. They were informed of the dire situation, and also ordered not to tell any other individuals about it. They designed smaller drone ships, only 2 kilometers in length, with Exotic Matter Plasma cannons, capable of blasting through meters of Carbon Nanolaminate with a single pulse. Larger ships were also designed, some hundreds of kilometers in length, armed with Dark Energy Plasma projectors, which were now designed with one purpose and one purpose only: To glass the Klox worlds, and any worlds of any who threatened violence against the Tylamantians. Like an angry, protective parent, the Cumulus would defend the Tylamantians viciously.

The larger ships moved out, piloted solely by the Cumulus, compressing space in the vehicle's path, taking it straight to the approaching Klox forces, who were given one last chance to back off. They did not take it. They weredestroyed, and then space was compressed again, leading straight to the Klox homeworld. The glassing droneships moved into position, along with a fleet of the smaller combat capable droneships. The Dark Energy Plasma Projectors began preparation sequence, unfolding. Then, a fleet of Klox ships came into battle, and were annihilated. The Projectors finished the preparation sequence, ready to fire.

And so they did. The dark energy in the surrounding space was pulled in and converted into exotic matter plasma, which was then accelerated to close to the speed of light, directed at the planet's surface.

As the beam struck through the atmosphere, the atmosphere began to ignite. The crust arounf the strike areas was immediately atomized. The rest of the crust cracked, and melted, and glowed. All life on the planet was reduced to dust. The planet was quickly withered into boiling slag. The rest of the Klox empire fled to other regions of space.

The Cumulus felt a tinge of regret, yet the protective aggression within it swallowed all doubt that this was the right action. The droneships returned to their hidden storage, and awaited further use.

And, just like that, the expansion of the Tylamantian empire continued without pause.

TO BE CONTINUED LATER