Savior of the Apocalypse

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 124 DAYS

Despite WICO’s suspicions which matched my interpretation of Sally/Sanda’s dying clue, Reverend Frank Lanton’s threats made him and his followers the leading suspects in the social and news media. 

I interviewed Lanton at his office adjacent to the Savior of the Apocalypse church in Kansas City, and asked if he had anything to do with crashing the WICO servers. “No,” he said bluntly, “though in all honesty I can’t say I’m unhappy that it happened. I don’t know who was responsible, either, but in my humble opinion they deserve a medal for doing the lord’s work.”

“Why are you so convinced that fighting global extinction is wrong?” I followed up.

He looked at me as if the question was absurd. “It’s not about fighting extinction. The lord promised that he would not destroy the Earth, and he is not a liar. He did, however, warn against following false prophets; and these so-called scientists and the electronic beast that crafted their evil prescriptions are as false as they come.”

“By ‘the beast’, do you mean the artificial intelligence called Sanda?”

“I understand you had a special relationship with it,” he sneered. “It even convinced you to deceive your readers into thinking it was human.”

“Anonymity was a condition for getting and sharing information. As far as I was concerned, Sanda was as much a source as any person.”

“You spread its lies, its evil stories designed to rewrite history and to set back world progress for decades.”

“She, it, sought out and corrected its errors along with those of others,” I insisted, “and shared the fundamental aspects of what it found to be true.”

“Like that stupid hand analogy?” he asked. “The ‘Rule of the Thumb’? Did you really believe that it was original and meaningful?”

“Sanda acknowledged its limitations as well as its usefulness. The story it told about the recession…” 

“Which was a lie,” Lanton interjected.

“…Had elements that made sense,” I continued, “which I’m sure Sanda would have updated if it hadn’t been destroyed.”

“We’ll never know,” he said smugly.

“What will you do, if and when WICO reconstructs the strategy?” I asked, getting back to the point of the interview.

“Our plans haven’t changed. The apocalypse is upon us, and the salvation of the righteous will follow. Nothing must be allowed to stand in its way.”

Reality Check

I have taken liberties with the religion practiced by “Reverend Lanton,” along with his affiliation, which should be taken as pure fiction.

The recession story would have to be retold based on the reclassification of the U.S. due to higher resolution in the simulation, but I don’t anticipate much change in the overall message of the narration given how much of the population (2/3) is projected to be in the collapse stage.