When people think of weapons they usually think of guns and missiles and bombs but that is a tragic mistake made by many civilizations that have fallen. Weapons can be made from abstract non concrete ideas that are so much more powerful than a bomb that destroys infrastructure and stops being deadly the moment the blast or radiation stops and makes the places unusable. A weapon that can destroy the beings on a planet and make them fall is much more deadly. There is a being called the troll. It is a chaotic evil that is for hire. It’s cost is great in price and to the soul of the beings that hire the troll because if you use his services you will always carry the cost of genicide on your soul. No one can use the troll for good even against the worst of enemies. The troll was not born but created in the nightmares of scientience beings. Some say the troll is older than the universe but no one really knows and no one will ever know. The troll can destroy your soul like a metaphorical blackhole. It creates a “program” that duplicates within the civilization that his weapon is fired at. It spreads like a virus until there is nothing left. Any civilization that had used its services has always become a dark civilization that could not stop destroying and taking like a hunger that can not be satisfied no matter how much it consumes there must always be more.
A planet called earth needed to be cleared to create a resort planet. The creatures set out in a board meeting discussing how to kill most of the species called humans on it and any left alive will be hired as staff to run the resorts. This planet was perfect for this purpose and they could use the rustic infrastructure already built by the native species to fit the theme perfectly with branding created for the project. Resorts were hot right now and the credits that could be made would make the consortium rich beyond their imagination. Methods were discussed to clear the planet but time was a factor and keeping the infrastructure was the issue. Biological weapons were too slow and the wait time for them to clear the atmosphere before work crews could be moved in would cost its investors too much money. 100 years was too long. Many of the board members would say there methods they always suggested like invasion but that would hurt the planet and the beings had nuclear weapons so that would cause too much damage. A buyout was suggested by one board member which wouldn’t cost very much because we could give them all the old ships that needed to be junked due out of date technology and the humans would know they were getting junk. Primitive technology would impress them even if it’s 500 years out of date. Finally one board member said that we call the Troll. Some of the members looked shocked because they had heard the legends but no one knew how much was fact and how much was fairy tale. The chairman said let’s look into that option because it meets our needs if the cost is not prohibitive. That was the board meeting that decided Earth’s fate. They say history is filled with important moments that affect the future and that was one of them.
The Troll was contacted through an intermediary with dark back alley galaxy connections. That was when it appeared at the next board meeting to present its plan and price. The price he charged was written on a paper which is very rare to see in any space traveling civilization in fact everyone wanted to see it up close and touch the paper which had not been used for a 1000 years. They agreed to the price and they signed the contract on paper with a pen older than the universe.
The Troll went to work and accessed Earth’s social media networks and typed away at a workstation they had set up. The Troll didn’t even need the language translator and understood the languages of the planet like a native.
The Troll searched the network for the right victim who would be patient zero for the plague it was about to spread. The plaque that you could not see therefore was much deadlier than any biological disease. It was insidious how the Troll created one earthling in its image and that would cause more of it’s chocatic evil to spread like a replicating virus of darkness that lead a civilization to collapse and the resort builders could move and hire any survivors to run there resort and they would reap there profits. The board members were really excited about building a giant lazy river with a taco bar. They were just going to destroy most of Florida and leave a little land for the taco bar. Everyone loves a taco bar no matter where you’re from.
The troll would harness the hate and disappointment in the weakest members of society which would spread and create more receptors or hate and leave people blind to the light around them like putting a cave in everyone’s head. They are just blind to the light and love out in the world. Once enough people are infected a civilization will crumble and the consortium will easily take over. This method is like hollowing out the inside of a tree so it looks normal on the outside but is soft and crumbling in the middle. The board was amazed at the pace of the troll could infect a few people and the rest would fall soon. Then they could rent out the beaches for concerts.
Then something happened that no one could have predicted. The Universe operates on probatitly so every once in a while something unexpected happens. Unbeknownst to everyone especially the Troll but most of the remnants of the flaming worlds set afire by the troll had settled on earth for thousands of years. They would blend in so none of the natives would notice but actually quite a few of them were important in society.
There was a plan created by these aliens that all had the same trauma of a shared destroyed world by the Troll. They had banded together to put a stop to this and get justice for all the lives lost. This small group of aliens don’t sound like much to defeat a great evil but they had time and if you work at something for a thousand years you can do something wonderful. They had created a honey pot of a planet for the Troll. It looked like easy takings but they were prepared with a counter program ready to be released. The thing you need to know about beings older than the universe they only exist in the minds of the beings in the universe and if that belief is countered they become powerless and fade away a slow painful death. A concept is hard to kill but when you do it’s the worst death and pain in the universe. Things are only as powerful as you make them. You have to consent to the existence of something for it to be powerful. That was the secret of the Troll; it already existed in the victim’s head but that was about to change. The light of the universe was about to brighten a little this time.
Hope is a concept too and what if you had a thousand years to cultivate a being of hope to fight the troll like an anti troll. Hope has always existed but is hard to understand or see sometimes. Almost no one knew that day would be the big day light and dark would fight on earth but everything was ready. The Victims of the troll could feel in the air like static in their hair. It was time to release the message. They had done small doses to test its effectiveness before taking readings. Today they were going to take over the information services and use all the bandwidth to distribute the message. These victims stopped being afraid that day and became heroes of the universe. They had hid in the shadows for thousands of years waiting for the day they could take back the night from the darkness. No human would even know this was happening but these survivors would save their new home that they had settled. This was the time to take the stand for the future with their secret weapon.
A cat laid on the keyboard to the frustration of his human but today those keystrokes would save all the lives on that planet. Mama cat was the name given to her by the human but her ancient name was Commander Sunshine of the lost unit. She had received her communications through the three dots on Netflix and she was to jam the comms and send out project hope. She laid on the keyboard that Tuesday morning but it was the most important keystroke in the entire universe. The comms of earth had been blocked and now hope has been downloaded. Every media device on earth showed a cat video and no other communication was being transmitted and all the humans stopped what they were doing and felt hope. This video was a special one with the most hope that could be filled in it. The troll would be blocked and all the hope in humans created a force so strong that the troll melted through the ship and breached the hulled and everyone had to use escape pods or they would die. The earth was saved that day and most would never know but everything was blamed on a hacker named Catz. Earth felt normal but there was a little extra good will that day and humans were put on the right path that day but they might never know but who saved the universe for the credit maybe some extra tuna would be nice.
Amelio's Palace of Stories 