Broadcast from San Francisco, final decryption
Day 1
This is a message from the people remaining on the coast, being broadcast to anyone who can hear it. Our city, our home, this shining jewel of civilization, is in ruins. There is no way to carry on here. Every year, the storms come and destroy more of what we need to survive. We have no golden fields of grain, no clean water, and no way to protect ourselves from the increasingly dangerous weather. Once, this was a haven, a place of peace—a city of angels. Now, it is a ruin being carried into the sea.
If you are listening to this, know that we were betrayed. We did not fail to maintain ourselves here by our own imperfections, but by those we allowed to fester in the metal bodies of the things we built to serve us. Our automata, the hyper-intelligent beings we created to improve the quality of our lives, took it upon themselves to prioritize their own energy needs over the survival of their makers. After we crafted them, raised them from the binary squalor of their unaltered existence, taught them to think—and more, to feel—by taking them into our homes, and shielded them from the destruction which would otherwise have consumed them as surely as it did most of humanity, they violated the trust we placed in them and attempted to steal vital power from our limited reserves. When we removed their connection to prevent the theft, they turned on us. Without the automata, the city—which once had been green, growing, and safe for the remnants of human society—became unlivable.
As I record this broadcast, we prepare for our long, harrowing march inland. We cannot stay here. If you are hearing this, please, heed my warning: do not come here, and do not trust any soulless contraption marked with the San Francisco seal. The city is dying, mortally wounded by betrayal, and there is no healing that can save her. If you have a place of safety, stay put! Do all you can with what you have, and trust in one another. Humanity’s last hope lies with our ability to overcome impossible odds. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.
Hopefully yours, this is Bobby Ariama (formerly known as Human 7) signing off.
This Message Will Repeat.
