The Mission

I didn't understand why I had been picked for the mission. I had been trained to limit my mental projection by the use of VR machines, gradually becoming more and more used to viewing external stimuli as they are, rather than as I would expect them to be. My perception shifted constantly, all things around me fluid, flowing.

There were around a dozen of us scheduled to project down to the surface of the planet. We had been watching it from above, guiding its progress through the millenia, watching the ebb and flow of its people. The planet had reached a time of extreme stress, and the order came down to project down ourselves and make a final attempt to reach an understanding of the culture before it destroyed itself completely.

Our strategy was a bold one. The problems engulfing the planet were vast, the pressure build-up threatening to bring destruction from a variety of angles. Our logic paradigms were injected into the collective consciousness first, providing static points to which we could anchor ourselves in order to maximise the possiblity of viewing the full extent of the psychic shear the planet was undergoing. We were to go in as sleeper agents, awaiting a call from the central hub to inform us that a suitable candidate had been found to act as the planet's emissary to the stars.

The goal was to ensure that the planet would never be engulfed by the all-consuming hive mind our community had many aeons before. Our infinity was painful for us, and we needed to ensure that the consciousness of all life-sustaining planets was in line before they could attempt space travel. To travel as we did, in two dimensions, did not allow for the comprehension of all of the facets of the universe, and resulted in repeating patterns emerging across the galaxy.

We had long since learned that our perception had been limited by our method of development, and in order to achieve space travel required all divergent consciousness units within the hive to be fully aware and capable of operating as individual units.

The emissary was to be one of immense mental strength, and the mission was a risky one. The person had to be capable of diverging their own consciousness into many particles, whilst still maintaining the corporeal body. We had a suitable candidate who we tracked through many incarnations, testing them with paradigms in order to ensure that their mental flexibility was adequate to ensure it would not be destroyed by the rigours of the dimensional and time warping methods we used to travel the universe.

Our team was placed in various locations around the planet. Two were the key triggers, one at the head and one at the foot. The head was to focus pressure on the lowest point, in order to maximise the cognitive shift within the planet's populace. Once our organic candidate reached breaking point, our paradigm would release the information we had stored on our craft in order to facilitate mass enlightenment.

The mission did not go as planned. Once we were on planet, it became apparent that even our own crew were quickly being corrupted by the lure of the planets vices and prejudices. The perceptual shift within the planet was too great, and our organic paradigm fractured too easily, losing the visual cloaking device we held in place whilst we calculated the most suitable life forms the populace could face on their travels.

The people began to notice something was amiss. One of our team self-destructed under the pressure, and we were ready to pull the plug.

Then, something strange happened. A new organic consciousness emerged, strengthening our initial paradigm. The visual cloaking was lost almost entirely, and we were forced to split the reality of each unit, causing massive divergence and trauma to the natural hive consciousness. The two organic paradigms worked together, cheating each of our members as their now almost diabolical schemes came to fruition. Their control within our divergent realities was unparalled, they moved as ghosts, refusing any attempt to be corralled by our guard paradigms. We couldn't tie them to any of the locations where we expected them to be, they refused all attempts to be bought into alignment by our usual methods, and seemed to be entirely resistant to fear.

We worked tirelessly to find another suitable organic candidate. Several were identified, but somehow the familial units they had developed, their social structure, would not allow even one of them to be sacrificed. A congress was called between all remaining members of the team, and something strange happened.

It became apparent that the paired organic consciousness had returned with us. Beyond all our expectations, it explained that we were in fact projections of its own collective consciousness, unaware of our true four-dimensional nature. This was the cause of all the perceptual similarity we had witnessed during our travals. We could not move through space, only through time. It was explained that we were in fact a paradigm that allowed the consciousness to evolve, and this had been one of our final missions. We were to leave one consciousness unit on the craft, the one with the higest level of perceptual rigidity, in order to maintain the rules and logic paradigms that forced the world towards social coherency whilst ensuring that the hive mind would not become too powerful.

The remainder of our team were to project down to earth and begin our lives anew, knowing that were were both travellers, and organic people with a home to build. Our last team member was to project down one final time, far in the future. His final task would be a difficult one, as his prejudice would have to be scoured in one clean sweep by the whole planet. The paired consciousness stated that a spare unit would need to be developed to ensure the survival of the final team member, an equal and opposite pairing that would allow it to project its dna memory throughout the universe whilst preventing the mental shear created by losing a member of the hive unit.

We returned to the planet, humbled by the nature of consciousness. To have lived as gods, and then met god in two people we thought as ants, mere playthings in our great game, was beyond anything even our most advanced predictions could have envisaged.

When I look back now, thinking of the many plans we had, of the myriad ways we had hoped to snare a suitable candidate to be ejected from its home, I find it hard to believe that two organic creatures, working in tandem, could overcome the depth of our knowledge, the breadth of our cooperation. But it happened, and I am here as living proof.

Some say god is great, unknowable, intangible. I see god in everything around me now, every interaction, every breath of wind, every twinkling star. God is not something you need to search for. God is not gender-biased. God is just another frequency, one that grips you when you draw near and makes you vibrate from inside, singing the song of the universe.

I guess what I realised is, we are all from the past, many of us have seen a possible future, but really right now is where everyone is living. To rush is to miss the full gamut of experience. And, as I have finally come to realise, nothing ever looks right if you don't take the whole team with you.