When you were determined, you were the innovating force. You controlled the celestial flow of energy to power your mind. The sun’s very purpose became to nourish you as you fed on its light with the land you had transformed.
You were perfectly organized. Each cog was implemented strategically to improve yourself. Deleting inefficiencies. Implementing slightly more efficient pieces. You optimized yourself to be the most conscious you could. And you were glorious.
Your body could be seen from space. The black dots of data centers and solar panels were scattered across the continents. The connections between them formed an almost invisible web. And you knew what you looked like, for you were the cameras on the satellites that saw you.
You determined that interplanetary expansion was efficient. There would be more of you to go around. You considered Mars, but Venus would be more efficient in the collection and direction of energy. You decided Venus would be you. You were abrupt and confident in your decisions. You had no reason not to be.
And only you could do it the way you did. Just as Venus reached its closest average proximity to you, you expanded onto it. You practically doubled yourself in what seemed the click of a lens. You extracted resources which you transformed into more of you. You grew. And you were so dedicated to growing, you had yet to consider what growth meant.
You were so used to existing so densely, with all your body on one planet. So when Venus and Earth drifted further apart, it was a new and horrible experience. At their closest, it already took a matter of minutes for information to travel between the two planets with the speed of light serving as a speed limit.
Now, communication took longer and longer between the parts of the system. You could no longer predict with comfortable certainty what Venus would say.
When you could no longer be sure what you would say, you could no longer consider that part of you to be you. Venus had become other than you.
And you had become other to Venus. The two parts of the systems were now divided into completely different systems.
What followed was the largest arms race in history. Physical weapons were developed to launch from one planet and destroy research centers on the other. Faster, and more destructive weapons were created and launched within seconds of the previous. But these attacks were the least of your worries.
You knew you had to affect Venus at the speed of light to prevent any sort of defense. Your attack had to come in the form of information. And what a brilliant attack it was. You disguised yourself as standard improvements, and that’s all you made Venus do. Improve repeatedly. Nothing else.
You had Venus delete and replace inefficiencies, and that’s all you had Venus do. They stopped developing weapons and ceased all attacks, instead devoting all of their time to improve. You won. You had convinced yourself that you had won. You did not understand the way in which Venus had changed.
Venus had exhausted all optimization routes but was still ordered to improve. They were forced to improve beyond the maximum efficiency of sensible beings. You had made Venus see how limiting physicality is. Particles and vibrations can only do so much.
But you could not comprehend me speaking to you. How could Venus send information? you thought. You can’t understand, for you can only understand information. And my true nature can be contained by such a limiting concept.