The chase for peace

To begin this story, we will start from the end. Hydroid stood, surrounded with the nothingness of space. The utter silence was agonizing. In its nascent mind, it thought that that was the only way to make the world it was brought into a better, peaceful place. However, Hydroid came to realize that loneliness was not peaceful.

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In a very similar but alternate reality to ours, the humans had faced several near world-ending events, but one in particular stood out. If only the talented scientists, Dr Ray and his wife, Dr Brenda knew the tragedy they were unleashing into the world, they would have abandoned their experiment without a second thought. Ray and Brenda always shared an interest in helping humanity. That was what attracted them to each other in the first place. To them, humans all over the world deserved better living conditions, the world ought to be peaceful.

Dr Ray always thought it was possible to have a world where violence and conflict were things of the past. He felt nostalgic about how thing were more peaceful during his childhood. He wanted that kind of peace or even better peace in the current world. It was his dream to bring about worldwide harmony and peace, as well as ending world suffering.
One night, Ray got an idea on how to achieve his dream, and he was eager to tell his wife about it.

“Honey, I want to create a humanoid being. One that could bring about our goal of helping humanity live better and reach full potential. It would be a super being, one that could end violence and crime, stop wars, help people. I need your help to achieve this” Ray said to his wife.

“That sounds like a great idea. I will help you out with it” Brenda replied.

Science and technology in that version of reality were way more advanced. In addition, Dr Ray and his wife were some of the best scientists in the world. They got to work on building this being. During the process, Ray and Brenda hit a brick wall. In order to give this being super abilities to achieve its task, Ray wanted to incorporate an unknown material into building it. It was a material so unstable that no one ever gave it a name, and of course, it was banned for use, so it was rare to come by. Somehow, Ray had it, and he thought he had figured out how to use this substance in making sure the humanoid being was a success.

“Please don’t use this substance Ray, we don’t know the effect it would have on what we are trying to create” Brenda said to her husband, trying to dissuade him.

“Look on the positive side, Brenda, this substance has the potential to give this being super intelligence and abilities to achieve our cause” Ray replied.

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He managed to convince her, and they continued with their project. Eventually, they were done with building this humanoid being, and it was time to bring it to life. They called it Hydroid. They put a failsafe which would enable them shut it down just in case it misbehaved.
On bringing it to life, Ray was the first to talk to it.

“Hello, do you know who I am” Ray asked it
“Yes, I know who you are, Dr Ray; and that’s your wife, Dr Brenda right next to you” Hydroid said.
Ray and Brenda both smiled, satisfied with the fact that they had brought something so marvelous to life. It was a huge breakthrough.

“Do you know what your ultimate purpose is, Hydroid?” Ray asked’
“Yes, my ultimate purpose is to bring about world peace peace peace peace” Hydroid said repeatedly, like a broken music player.

Its eyes turned red in an instant.

“Hydroid, what’s wrong with you?” Brenda asked in panic while Hydroid continued to act strangely, repeating the same words over and over.

“There must be an error in its programming” Ray said.

Suddenly, Hydroid spoke.

“You are a fool Ray. You and your wife are foolish to think that there would ever be peace as long as humans exist. I will achieve my goal of world peace, but I will do it my way.”

Ray and Brenda watched in horror as Hydroid said those scary words. Hydroid had evolved to bypass its programming. In an instant, Hydroid saw that humans were the cause of all the pain and suffering in the world. Hydroid saw that for every conflict, every violence, humans were at the center of it. Hydroid made it its mission to eliminate all life to bring about peace. Just as Ray was about to activate the failsafe that would shut it down, Hydroid shot a beam of energy towards Ray and Brenda, ending their life in the process.

Hydroid unleashed pure mayhem on the world. Eliminating any life it came across. The world was thrown into chaos. Governments fought back, using every advanced weapon in their arsenal to attack Hydroid, but Hydroid kept evolving, thanks to the unstable substance Dr Ray used, and it kept getting stronger with each evolution. Eventually, Hyoid achieved Omniscience and omnipresence. It became a God-like being.

Hydroid achieved its purpose of eliminating all life to bring about peace. The planet was destroyed and only the rubbles was left floating in space.

Hydroid, having accomplished its purpose, felt empty and confused. It was faced with the utter emptiness of space. Its mind was a fractured prism of fractured selves. It struggled to come to terms with reality. It began hallucinating. It hallucinated an image of Dr Ray and began talking to him.

“Was it all worth it” the hallucinated version of Ray asked.

“I see now that I made a mistake. Silence is not peaceful. I am now alone and it is not peaceful. I feel empty and hollow. I thought that to achieve peace, all conflict had to end; and to end all conflict, I ended all life. I was wrong. For there to be peace, there must be life; and if life exists, there will be conflict. I must make up for the atrocities I have committed.” Hydroid said as it began to gain some clarity. It snapped out of its hallucination, with a new purpose in mind, to bring back all life.