[Short Story] VCAPS Arrives

On the 19th of October 2017, it was a normal enough day on an Earth similar to our own. Just like us, they spotted an interesting extrasolar object that had just passed by the sun 40 days before. `Oumuamua, a red-colored cigar-shaped object between 300 and 3000 feet (100 and 1000 meters) long, but only between 115 and 548 feet (35 and 167 meters) wide that was tumbling through space. Scientists described its movements as exhibiting “non-gravitational acceleration”, which here ended up not being explained, though for us it is basically put down to outgassing or a push from solar radiation pressure.

Oh sure, some people theorized the object was something like a discarded booster from an alien craft or some such. Here, we might never know. On that alternate Earth almost like our own? Well, they got an answer.

Their sun flared slightly differently and ancient repair circuits picked up a jolt of power the object in our universe did not receive. And so after a few more days, “non-gravitational acceleration” turned into obviously artificial acceleration. `Oumuamua stabilized its tumbling and began to pick up speed!

This worried a good few people with images of it crashing down on Earth. Though this worry quickly disappeared as the object quickly adjusted its trajectory for Mars. Not that people stopped worrying, they just weren’t as worried about going the way of the dinosaurs.

Days later, but in fewer days than anyone on Earth had guessed, the worry is proven completely unneeded. Moments before `Oumuamua hit the atmosphere, the object lost all speed, drifting downward like a feather. Suffice it to say, the scientists were gobsmacked, shocked, and honestly quite pissed with the object for breaking physics. Then The Message happened.

{

Vacuum Collapse Apocalypse Prevention System (VCAPS) initialization in progress.

Welcome <Mars>.

In <49 hours and 20 minutes>, monsters will appear. No memories of technology detected, no restrictions applied.

Good Luck.

}

People panicked a bit and scientists went bald pulling their hair out. How did the message get projected to literally everyone? How did everyone understand the message? Why did it target Mars? And what is up with the planet name and time being weird?

That last one in particular was quite odd. While everyone understood the message as meaning Mars and 49 hours and 20 minutes, those who noticed the oddity and looked closer saw another meaning behind it. “Earth” and “2 days”, though they could tell that it wasn’t right. Like when you watch a dubbed video or a template letter where they filled in a blank wrong and had to white the words out and rewrite it.

And this was the end of the scientists’ woes. The closer it got to the time, the less light lag there is between them and the various tech on Mars. In particular, this made the rovers much easier to control directly. And so the closest to where `Oumuamua, or as the populace has started to call the object, “the VCAPS obelisk”, was redirected to get a look. Said rover was close and would make it in time.

The rover trundled along, finally cresting the lip of a shallow crater and getting a good look at the object. Which proved that calling it an obelisk was now right and proper. The red outer shell had shattered off of a black inner object which very much had the classic obelisk shape.

And from its vantage point, the rover watched the obelisk as the last few minutes tick down. All while the scientists back on Earth also got to see things go down live, the light lag having been reduced to nearly non-existent. There is a charge in the air and rushed experiments hint at things like the speed of light itself having changed in some esoteric manner.

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And there is a flash.

Not just on Mars, the flash occurred at the same moment across the entire solar system. And once it cleared, the rover’s video feed revealed a massive serpent coiled around the VCAPS obelisk. A serpent that doesn’t look to be doing too hot in the Martian atmosphere. It isn’t dying, but the cold and lacking oxygen make it fall asleep once the monster doesn’t see any nearby threats.

And on Earth? Nothing.

Oh sure, people suddenly found themselves in possession of a status screen and magic seemed to work. There just weren’t any monsters or new threats. There were a bunch of people both happy and disappointed, having expected an actual apocalypse, what with the A in VCAPS. Then again, the very next letter, P, stands for prevention.

Except for the fact scientists were now seeing monsters appear on Mars, only for the weaker ones to die. Though even the stronger monsters aren’t doing well. And all of them ignoring the rover.

A rover which is doing shockingly well. In fact, the scientists are finding the little bot quickly exceeding its specs. This isn’t limited to just the bot, though. On Earth, everything seemed to be more efficient or effective.

This helps things transition, allowing stuff like the electricity grid to handle more wires going down and even power plants. An important thing as while many people took the introduction of magic to cause chaos. The resilience allows governments to calm things down in many places.

Not every place, though, and not for all things. With the appearance of actual druids who actually communicated with the planet, well, a bunch of factories soon found themselves in “disrepair”. Though that wasn’t the limit of these changes.

Because, of course, with super powers, there would be people who decide to be superheroes and villains. However, things don’t fall into what most would recognize as a “superverse” style world. That tends to only work with a select few individuals gaining significant power.

Since everyone had magic now, those vigilantes and villains were quickly either caught or convinced to hang up the cape. It is all fun and games for a villain to throw around cars and scare civilians. Right until those civilians have the same amount of power, if not more. This is especially true when everyone started at the same point.

Though in the short amount of time that people were out playing hero, a number of significant people stopped being significant. A couple of rich idiots tried to go all “Terror of the Night”.

Which did not work, mostly because they couldn’t help but post what they were doing on social media. So, uh, the heros looked the other way and certain villains took out their frustrations over modern society. Not that their riches would have kept them on top much longer.

With magic, mundane materials lost relevance. Many were worried that everything would lose value! Which was silly, after all, good craftsmanship is still valuable. However, while stuff like gold is easy to create with magic, within the first year people realized that within large deposits of ore, magically infused ore was beginning to develop. And that ore couldn’t be replicated with magic.

All while this was happening, monsters kept appearing and dying on Mars. A phenomenon that people kept a close eye on. After all, it wouldn’t be good if something spawned that was able to travel through space and reach Earth.

Then the linguists made a breakthrough. Upon closer inspection, the rover saw writing on the VCAPS obelisk. Black on black made it a little hard to make out, but the damn thing was some sort of mix between hieroglyphics and German. It made no sense, but in making no sense, it also made the message easy to translate.

And it answered a few standing questions.

For one, it was created by an extinct race who had reached the heights of technology. Except in doing so, they broke reality. The Vacuum Collapse theory was apparently true and this race kicked it off.

Though they weren’t completely useless. Through quantum entanglement, they managed to get the news out ahead of the disaster, allowing them to find a solution. Said solution wasn’t quick enough to save them, but it did allow them to try and save the rest of life in the universe.

These obelisks were sent out, riding on the wake of reality altering faster than the old speed of light. Their task is to get to places with pre-existing life and buffer their solar system so that the change to reality happened over a bit of time instead of instantly. The whole system thing wasn’t meant to be permanent.

It was supposed to arrive, buffer things, and then make sure monsters only spawned in places that people can take care of them. After all, a planet bound serpent is one thing and even if strong, could eventually be dealt with. A serpent spawned in the void of space can show up at any point and be vastly more powerful than any monster spawned on a planet. Though most of this was speculation by the long dead race.

That left Earth in a bit of a pickle. For over a year, they had been leaning on the system to handle their magic. Yet said system should have been temporary? Why would it even have these features if it was meant to be temporary?

This sent the planet into a research frenzy. Why? Why was the system like this? Why did it not go away? Why were new features seemingly popping up over time as people unlock them?

The answer was hubris. The long dead civilization had thought themselves to have reached the edges of knowledge. They thought that their research into the apocalypse they had caused could discover everything. Their sacrifice of themselves was actually a sham, with them out there somewhere in a bubble of reality where they are trying to maintain the old constants while trying to reinstate things.

The system? A scam that was originally only meant to be temporary. It was supposed to buffer things which would save any existing life. However, their purpose is to record where the solar system was so later on the old civilization could easily locate them.

The monsters? As proven by Earth’s situation, they didn’t have to spawn. Oh sure, some would spawn, but the quantity and danger wouldn’t be as high at first. Rather, the spawning in of a “world boss” at the obelisk was on purpose and meant to keep it safe.

The mention of a lack of technology and that it didn’t need to apply restrictions? If the obelisk had landed on Earth, technology would have been restricted. The fact everything worked better? That would have instead been reversed or worse, depending on what the system had detected.

All to prevent the very thing Earth is doing right now. Discovering what had actually happened. Oh, and the whole “system sticking around” thing? That wasn’t the VCAPS, not anymore.

Sure, it is based on the VCAPS, but only just. What the old civilization had done to the new normal, was inject the equivalent of a seed crystal into the universe when it was settling. That seed crystal being the concept of a system, but not the actual VCAPS.

The new system was somehow a naturally forming system. It had consumed and replaced the VCAPS in less than a picosecond. That shouldn’t have been possible, as far as the old civilization was concerned. VCAPS is meant to self-destruct on the first picosecond of reality having fully settled. But when even the speed of light has been changed, why should the smallest unit of time not have changed as well?

This made Earth relax a bit. At least, that is until they realized that old civilization is still out there with malicious intent. While the transition to having magic was rough, they aren’t going give it up! Especially when the scientists all agreed that reverting reality back to the old way would kill them.

Yeah, no way was Earth going to leave their fate in such uncaring hands! Within a decade, they made it to Mars. Three years after that, they had killed the serpent around the obelisk and half a year later; the obelisk is destroyed down to the smallest unit. And from there? Well, it would take a while, but space travel wasn’t going to be as slow as predicted, what with the speed of light being so much faster now and magic allowing them to negate mass.